VIEW FROM THE MIDWEST: AUGUST 31, 2007

Spurrier Critical of South Carolina’s Academic Standards

By Paul Smith / smith@collegeblitz.com

Chesterton, Ind. » With all respect to the late, great columnists Jimmy Cannon, John Gillooly, and Chet Smith...

Nobody asked me, but...

• Why, every time I see Nick Saban talking about his "fresh, new start" at Alabama, do I think Fredo at the cottage?
• With due credit to New York Daily News columnist Mike Lupica, Marcus Vick as the better Vick brother?
  
  Who knew?
• It goes something like this with the Brothers Vick: Honesty is a foreign word. When Marcus, a brilliant offensive talent, was seen stomping on University of Louisville All-American defensive end Elvis Dumervil during the Gator Bowl, he denied it was on purpose and claimed he sent Dumervil an apology. This after he'd been arrested for speeding with a suspended driver's license and being on zero-tolerance from Virginia Tech for having had several brushes with the law.
  
  Sound familiar?
• Try reading the text of Vick the Elder's lawyered-up Clintonian "apology" his legal team will hand Judge Henry Hudson in Richmond to try and extract a reduced prison sentence.
• Meanwhile, back in Blacksburg. Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer wears an ashen, decidedly defensive look with every media interview. Even when the subject is Hokies football. Especially when the subject is Virginia Tech football.
• The good that can come out of this? Maybe, finally, a message can roll across all of the get-rich-quick B.C.S.ers that there are TWO words in the term "student-athlete."
• Steve Spurrier, upset that two of his prime bluechips were turned down by South Carolina's admissions office -- South freakin' Carolina, ranked #112 by U.S. News and World Report's annual Carnegie Foundation academic ratings and one of a slew of Southeastern Conference schools that were listed in triple digits, some of which made it outside the first level of major universities. "Hopefully I truly believe this is the last year this is going to happen, because I can't operate like that," Spurrier told The Associated Press Aug. 4. "I can't operate misleading young men." Why, sure. The S.E.C. -- isn't this the league where recently an Alabama booster in the Memphis area tried to stuff a talented young, ahem, scholar athlete's pockets with cash amounting to six figures?
  
  And you wonder why they call him Steve Superior?
• Here, There, Everywhere -- Wasn't it nice of Red Sox Nation to allow some White Sox fans in to sit in on their Chicago Chapter's weekend meetings at U.S. Cellular Field? ... The Yankees' Jason Giambi comes off as a good guy in this steroids business. He bared his own soul without ratting out others...Actually, a good thing, because some of these baseball mucketymucks are asking some athletes to act as if they were singing mobsters ... Speaking of the Southeastern Conference, yes, we should take their football seriously. And I'll do that as soon as these highly-esteemed learning centers begin taking academics seriously. Which reverts us to l'affaire Spurrier. Maybe he was paying attention to the E.S.P.N. college football wag who said, "Hey, it's the S.E.C., what did you expect?" ... Or not.