Carmelo Anthony Did Poorly in School; Who Cares?

In what seems to be ground breaking news in the eyes of the New York Post and ESPN, Jim Boeheim decided to share Carmelo Anthony‘s freshman year report card. Why Anthony’s former coach decided to publish this information in his new book, “Bleeding Orange,” is still unknown. Here is the paragraph where Boeheim discusses Melo’s grades:

"“Maybe if we hadn’t won the title, he would’ve come back,” Boeheim writes, according to the Wall Street Journal. “I honestly don’t know, and I don’t think Carmelo knows. Carmelo did his work, went to class and never gave us any trouble. He made four C’s and a D in his first semester, and if anyone wants to roll his eyes at that, plenty of freshmen who aren’t carrying a basketball team on their back do a lot worse. But we couldn’t put him in for the Wooden Award because his grades weren’t good enough. Nevertheless, this much is certain: No college basketball player in America was better than freshman Carmelo Anthony over the course of the 2002-03 season.”"

It’s almost like Boeheim is trying to take a hidden shot at Carmelo Anthony by sharing his poor grades and then complimenting him as a basketball player. Did Boeheim mean it maliciously? Probably not. But the fact of the matter is what benefit is Boeheim getting out of sharing such irrelevant information?

Being a student-athlete is tougher than most people think. The time commitment that goes into your sport is unthinkable to the typical college student. I experienced the demands of being a Division I student-athlete myself, and it’s not easy finding time to succeed in both school and your sport. To Anthony’s credit, at least he met the minimum to be eligible to play and brought the school a national championship.

When media outlets make a big deal about topics like this, they need to take a step back and understand the position from the athlete’s point of view. The NBA, as it stands today, is promoting the idea of “one and done” college players. They aren’t requiring potential NBA prospects to maintain a certain GPA, nor can they. Most athletes are going to school with the hopes of playing professionally as soon as possible. People will argue that student-athletes need to take advantage of going to college and learning skills for future jobs, but at the end of the day, the sport is their job. While one student may enter college hoping to become an investment banker or a doctor, these players enter hoping to become a professional athlete. You can’t fault them for preparing for their future employers.

The NBA once really didn’t care about education when they allowed players to make the jump to the NBA right out of high school. Now they force them to play at least one year of college basketball? This isn’t accomplishing anything more than letting them come straight out of high school. The ones who truly benefit from this are the universities who prosper off of the player’s hard work. In return the player’s get the opportunity to have their game picked apart on national television, or even possibly injured. This argument is for another day; that’s a whole separate topic.

So to summarize the news: Carmelo Anthony struggled in school like most of his counterparts. Jim Boeheim decided to share it with the world. Does anyone actually care what Melo got in his freshman english class? No. Thanks for sharing Jim.

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