Reading the NCAA Report: Billy Edelin

Continuing my slow read and (very biased) commentary on the NCAA Report on SU athletics...

It's easy to forget, but Billy Edelin was a really good basketball player. He was the only true PG on the championship roster; you have to wonder how much more effective Gerry McNamara might have been had he been able to play his seemingly more natural position of SG if Edelin had been able to keep his life together.

The clip I link to above is, as I recall, pretty indicative of his style: more measured smoothness and thoughtful control than quick slashing. For the championship run, he was a rock for a roster with waves of talent. He was something of a leader on the floor. It's a shame he lacked control in his personal life.

Before he played a game of basketball for SU, Edelin was suspended from the university for alleged sexual misconduct with a female student. A year later he was reinstated when the charges were dropped. The NCAA suspended him at the beginning of the 2002-03 season for playing in a church basketball league while he was suspended from SU, because, you know, NCAA. He returned, averaging 9.0 ppg, 2.5 apg, and 1.0 spg as the first guard off the bench. He outscored our beloved Josh Pace, 208-138 points, in nine fewer games. The following year he got off to a good start before undisclosed personal issues led to him yo-yo'ing off and on the active roster for most of the season. The following year Syracuse declared him ineligible for failing to meet "progress-toward-degree requirements." He never played another game of college basketball.

SU did not cheat to keep Edelin eligible. None of the violations the NCAA found have anything to do with Edelin. Nonetheless, Edelin pops up in the report. Pages 8 and 9 of the NCAA report discuss how Jeff Cornish, "the representative," tried to reach out to help Edelin, "student-athlete 1," get his life on a better track. Both in the context of the report and in the manner it was written, the pages read like something unsavory is happening. Apparently, the point of the story is to show how Cornish ingratiated himself with the program. It feels like the NCAA is tsk-tsk'ing not only SU's reliance on a guy working at a community-oriented non-for-profit to connect with one of their players, but also the presence of such a player in its program to begin with. Ideal world, don't we want SU to give a chance to guys like Edelin? And don't we want YMCA's and/or their employees to reach out to at-risk youth?

Here is a condensed (by me) excerpt of those pages:

The Representative and Student-Athlete 1

Supervising student-athlete 1's community service hours served as a catalyst for developing a relationship between the representative and student-athlete 1. …The former director of compliance, the head basketball coach and a former assistant men's basketball coach knew that student-athlete 1 experienced serious personal challenges. They knew that he lacked support from his parents. They also knew that the men's basketball student-athlete often turned to the representative and confided in him to receive the support he needed. In fact, the institution knew and even encouraged these relationships. In his interview, the former director of compliance indicated it was "not uncommon for a student-athlete that doesn't have a parent or legal guardian in the picture to have someone [else] involved."

The head basketball coach also encouraged student-athlete 1's relationship with the representative. During the 2003-04 academic year, student-athlete 1 began experiencing serious personal challenges for the second time in two years on campus. The head basketball coach entrusted the representative to continue mentoring student-athlete 1 with little inquiry because the head basketball coach believed the representative was someone who could play an important and supportive role in student-athlete 1's life. The head basketball coach encouraged it stating in his interview, "I just trusted him. I thought he was a good guy for [student-athlete 1] to be around."

Student-athlete 1, however, continued to struggle and took a medical leave of absence during the spring 2004 semester. He returned one month later. … The former director of compliance even went so far as to have student-athlete 1 execute a release authorizing the representative, in addition to the former director of compliance, to have access to student-athlete 1's medical and academic records.

[…]

The Representative, the Part-Time Tutor and the "Back on Track" Program

Prior to student-athlete 1's final academic year, the representative and the part-time tutor [Hank Leo] used their experiences working with at-risk youth, in particular at-risk student-athletes, to formalize the representative's mentorship with student-athlete 1. The representative and the part-time tutor developed "Back on Track," a formal mentoring program for student-athletes. The program was a four-step program for student-athletes who were in serious need of help. The program's purpose was to (1) provide a place for student-athletes "to work out their issues when there is difficulty either at home at school or athletically" and (2) provide a place for student-athletes to perform "meaningful service to kids and families."

[…]

After several email exchanges with the part-time tutor and the representative, the former director of compliance sought and received assurances from the part-time tutor and the representative that NCAA legislation would be followed under the program. Mainly, the former director of compliance wanted to confirm that the part-time tutor and the representative had not taken into account student-athlete 1's athletics ability for involvement with the program and that student-athlete 1 would not be provided preferential treatment or additional benefits.