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Friday, October 19, 2007
Uncompromising stance suits Evans
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
It’s one thing for Georgia athletics director Damon Evans to stay with his convictions, follow the guidelines of his new academic policy and suspend three key members of the Bulldogs’ rising basketball team for a total of 30 games after they blatantly slam-dunked his rules.
Nobody cares about Georgia basketball.
You know where I’m going. What if the violators of Evans’ policy were Matthew Stafford, Knowshon Moreno and Sean Bailey — the key members of Georgia’s All Mighty Football Team? Would the same folks around Bulldog Nation whom Evans said have been supportive of his 10-month-old policy continue to applaud between shrugs, or would they seek to feed Evans limb by limb to a snarling Uga VI?
“It might cause more of a commotion [if it were football players]. I can’t say for sure,” said Evans, in his fourth year as Georgia’s athletics director. “But at the end of the day, it’s what I believe in. It’s what we believe in. And I want to say this: It doesn’t matter who the young man or the young woman is, because that’s been, I guess, a lot of the issue in intercollegiate athletics. Everybody has always said, ‘Yeah, do this to the kids who don’t play, but don’t hold the stars accountable.’ We’re holding everybody accountable.”
Such a noble response, but Evans just moved closer to Uga VI’s food bowl. Not that Evans cares. Which is why Vince Dooley’s tough-minded successor should be the person to beat for athletics director of the year. He also should rank among the candidates for the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Gold Medal, king of the western hemisphere and whatever else you can give somebody for such a courageous act.
How courageous? Evans knows Uga VI’s teeth are pretty sharp, but he still implemented maybe the stiffest policy ever for an NCAA institution (well, at least one with big-time athletics) regarding student-athletes who skip classes and academic appointments. Among other things at Georgia, three unexcused missed classes will get you suspended for 10 percent of the season in your sport. Each absence after that will get you an additional 10 percent suspension.
Now consider Bulldog Nation joins the rest of its SEC brethren by caring more about whether Johnny knows an X from and O than whether he can conjugate a verb.
This is the same Georgia whose fan base turned the name “Jan Kemp” into a four-letter word forever around Athens after she exposed the Bulldogs’ plantation system for football players during the middle 1980s. This is the same Georgia that became a national punch line after former Bulldogs basketball assistant Jim Harrick Jr. taught his infamous class on Coaching Principles and Strategies of Basketball (“How many points does a 3-point basket account for in a basketball game?”).
This also is the same Georgia whose president, Michael Adams, embarrassed himself last year by saying he would allow the enrollment of some student-athletes who didn’t meet the admission standards of the university, because, “We still have to compete in the [SEC].”
Adams is Evans’ boss, by the way. So what has Adams said about Evans’ policy that surely will affect Georgia’s ability to “compete” in the conference on occasion?
“After I enacted the policy, I informed our president what we were doing, and he has been very, very supportive, and our board members also have been supportive,” said Evans, before addressing his questioner for a moment. “You say this is a courageous thing I’m doing, but it’s really just the right thing I’m doing. My thing is to always look forward and do what’s most appropriate. At the end of the day, I’m trying to send a strong message to our student-athletes, first and foremost, about the importance of academics. And I hope the alumni, the fans and the people who support this institution can appreciate the stance that we’re taking.”
That’s questionable. Many in the Bulldog Nation want Johnny to be able to read. It’s just that they’re referring to defenses.
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