While students across campus are chagrined over Roy Hibbert and Jeff Green’s decision to enter the NBA draft and put the prospect of another year at Georgetown in question, one Hoya basketball player is already long gone. Marc Egerson, who left Georgetown in January, failed 12 classes in high school, according to a New York Times article. His academic record, and the University’s eagerness to admit despite it, embarrassed Georgetown near the end of March Madness.
The basketball team may have made national headlines during its run to the Final Four, but the Egerson debacle is a reminder of the cost basketball imposes, both on its players and on the University.
Students have been lobbying the University to give Coach John Thompson III a raise, pointing to his recent success in the NCAA and Big East tournaments and worrying that another Division I school will steal Thompson away with a more lucrative contract. A Facebook.com group called “JTIII: Pay Him Now” has 353 members. Thompson currently makes $456,000 a year, making him the 11th highest-paid coach out of the 15 Big East schools, according to The Washington Times.
Jay Troop (SFS ’09), a tour guide, is among those who think Thompson is worth a higher price.
“I can’t tell you how much it does for the profile of the school when we have people on tours running into Jonathan Wallace or Roy,” he said.
But others on campus disagree, saying that the basketball coach shouldn’t be the highest priority.
“That’s absurd. That’s not where we need to invest our money,” Associate Professor of Economics Douglas Brown said.
He’s right. Dollars spent betting on the off-chance that Thompson will lead us to a national championship would be better used for guaranteed improvements.
For Brown, JTIII’s salary isn’t the only detrimental price to be paid for basketball glory. A former college track athlete, he also mentioned the strain athletics puts on a student’s schoolwork.
“If you’re a basketball player, not only are you playing basketball but you’re missing 52 percent of your classes,” he said. “These guys, they don’t have any choices, even if they’re brilliant.”
Brown recalled a basketball player he taught in one of his economics classes who excelled at econ and wanted to major in it. Instead, John Thompson Jr., the coach at the time, made the player stay in one of the majors pre-selected for basketball players. According to Brown, the student regretted ityears later.
The Marc Egerson story also suggests the basketball program is cutting corners to get its top players into Georgetown, but Michael Carey, Georgetown’s Director of Sports Information, disagrees. Speaking about whether the admissions standard for high school students recruited by the basketball program differs from the standard for regular applicants, he said, “I don’t think it’d be any different.”
The basketball team draws dollars, applicants, and invaluable publicity to the University, and there’s no denying that watching the Hoyas’ surprise comeback from a poor early season was exhilarating. Nevertheless, we shouldn’t let Thompson and his adherents hamstring Georgetown’s ability to educate its students, or basketball players’ access to that education.
