Sam Jones Update (Updated 11:30 am)

General NC State Administration NCS Basketball NCS Football19

Yesterday’s entry regarding Sam Jones sparked conversations along a few different fronts.

SFN has confirmed that a significant portion of the Sam Jones rumor is true. Jones and his family were surprised to recently learn that Sam must still pass an Algebra II math class to gain admission to NC State. He will take the class this summer and hopefully become eligible before the season. Anything included in the rumor that goes beyond the information that we just shared – such as mentions of Florida State – are unfounded and incorrect. There is NO REASON to think that Jones is going to be suiting up anywhere but in west Raleigh at this point.

This news is very frustrating on many fronts – but the good news appears to be that Sam can/will take the class and there is no reason to think that he won’t be eligible for the coming season.

I want to STRESS that we do NOT know the specifics around how all of this unfolded. Nobody knows if ‘fault’ lies with Jones for simply failing to take the class or more with NC State for failing to insure that Jones was aware of all of his requirements.

Unfortunately, it is easy for NC State fans to presume the worst as it relates to the University’s role in the snafu in light of the Department’s recent track record of similar failures on this front in the past. As noah commented yesterday:

Tramain Hall‘s case was NCAA-related because he actually enrolled and took part in classes when he wasn’t eligible.

In Terrance Chapman’s case, the advisors told him to take one set of classes and he’d be fine. And that information…uh…was not correct.

(Could you imagine working in the real world and systematically screwing up something this major multiple times in a six or seven year period? And, these are just the instances that are publicly known!)

The folks around NC State seem to be downplaying this situation as ‘no big deal’ since it appears that Sam will be enrolled and eligible by the fall. IF ‘fault’ for this snafu does lie with the University then this type of behavior is exactly what enables the very incompetence and lack of attention to detail that continues to plague the Athletics Department. The public will never know the real truth about the situation so there is no reason to assume to much either way.

The one thing that seems to support the case that NC State may have made a mistake here is that, by all accounts, Jones and his family were very surprised when they learned about this situation. With that said, it is hard to believe that Jones would be surprised about the Algebra II requirement if it was something that had been shared and stressed with him in the past by the folks responsible for making sure athletes are eligible for admission.

Regardless of who owns responsibility on this – it is a HUGE problem when a 4-star recruit who has been in high school for five years does not know what classes he needs to gain admission to school and doesn’t learn about the requirements or his admission until the middle of the summer after he already has his workout gear.

Ultimately…SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE is responsible for making sure that athletes are eligible for admission. It is the UNIVERSITY’S responsibility to work with the student athlete to determine what he or she needs for admittance. This is usually done prior to a scholarship offer and there is always a transcript review to determine if the athlete is in line to matriculate; ultimately, leading to a scholarship offer (or not). Furthermore, there is consistent review of academic progress after an athlete commits and definitely after an athlete signs.

So, if the good folks at NC State were actually on top of this issue then they would surely have known about it long before the middle of this summer and almost two months after he graduated high school for the second time. (Remember, Jones graduated from Fuqua-Varina high school after he originally signed with NC State in 2007.) However, this issue seemed to surprise everyone. With that said, it can’t be argued that all systems fired appropriately here when nobody knew about this issue until now.

As long as Jones passes his class this summer, it appears that there will be no negative consequence to this snafu. However, it is very important to stress that the end-result of this situation does not mitigate or diminsh the magnitude of the potential incompetence that may have originally created this situation.

Some people will try to blame Jon Fagg’s recent departure for this snafu as if that is some acceptable excuse for incompetence or explains the fact that Sam Jones has been in high school for five years and has been committed to NC State for at least 24 months.

As we alluded yesterday, I am particularly concerned about Pack Pride’s behavior in deleting this information from their free message board under the premise that it is all unfounded rumor. The core of the story is NOT unfounded rumor as Pack Pride claimed when they locked (but did not delete) the thread on their premium board. This information calls into question Pack Pride’s motivation of why the website – with a long history of NOT deleting horrible threads or individual posts – suddenly deleted this thread immediately after the conversation became critical of NC State’s athletics department’s history of bungling football players’ matriculation and admission.

We will have more scoop on the Sam Jones story if we get it and if it is relevant.

In parting — please tell me that you do not wonder why the ‘leadership’ at NC State hates the internet so much? You do realize that all of the focus in the fallout from this story will be how bad and negative the ‘internet’ is while a blind eye will be turned actually FIXING this systemic problem within the department?

At least they won’t be able to critize Pack Pride and The Wolfpacker…those sites have done their duty to the University in this process.

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General NC State Administration NCS Basketball NCS Football

19 Responses to Sam Jones Update (Updated 11:30 am)

  1. MatSci94 06/25/2008 at 9:22 AM #

    It is my secret hope that TOB will get fed up with things like this and let someone have it (publicly or not, I don’t care). I don’t see much hope for significant change in the athletic department without something like this happening.

  2. SaccoV 06/25/2008 at 9:30 AM #

    (1) Kudos to SFN for being a viable and potent force in gathering and verifying information regarding NC State. Although the attempts to abide by the true ethics of journalism are difficult for an opinion-based medium, this website has consistently provided that information in a fair and honest way. There isn’t a site any better or more reliable.
    (2) As for our alma mater’s bungling of Sam Jones, it is inexcusable on every level. I teach high school, and am appalled that any student who has an opportunity to engage in college athletics and receive free tuition DOES NOT know what the university requires of him. It is the responsibility of the university to apprise him of his requirements. If he was not, then someone needs to be dismissed from the job. Regardless, this will be another black eye on our faces because of the continuing (and incorrect) assumptions of non-State fans that our school cannot compete or participate in the ACC by following legitimate guidelines. I agree that the spin control will be pointed at us, but then again, we (citizens of the Internets) didn’t speak to Sam Jones, we didn’t contact him, and we didn’t keep him from knowing what he needed to fulfill to gain admission.
    (3) Does anyone else feel that if our athletics department did hold at least one person accountable for this mistake, that its credibility would rise a hundred-fold? Either way, no one will be held accountable; thus our beloved AD will keep everyone and their brother focused on facilities made off the backs of alumni donations and Wolfpack Club membership dues. Great Job, Lee.

  3. wolfpack95 06/25/2008 at 9:51 AM #

    How commonly does this problem occur at other ACC institutions?

  4. old13 06/25/2008 at 9:55 AM #

    So when’s Foulup’s press conference to explain how the new facilities will eliminate problems such as this! I’m fed up with NCSU athletics!

  5. Dr. BadgerPack 06/25/2008 at 10:08 AM #

    This isn’t the first time State has had problems with high school courses, and won’t be the last. Heck, my last semester I was at State I was told I would get no degree unless I took another PE class. The STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA waived the PE requirement for me in high school, and it took NC State 3.5 years to tell me that wasn’t good enough. I submit that for once this may not be athletic department, but more an admissions issue– EVERYONE fills out an application at some point in the process. Admissions folks should be able to match up requirements with what is listed on a transcript.

  6. Daily Update 06/25/2008 at 10:20 AM #

    Is the issue here the 4th math credit that is now required by the UNC system(used to only be three)? Or has he met the four core course math requirement and at NC State one of those needs to be Algebra II?

    Speaking of T. Hall and Packpride, someone from Ohio, a recruiting guru praised on Pack Pride by its members, recently confirmed the entire Dave Glenn story on Tramain Hall and added some information that made us look even worse. I still cannot figure out how we allowed a guy who wasn’t qualified to enroll in classes at NC State…

  7. RAWFS 06/25/2008 at 11:27 AM #

    ^ Do tell, Daily Update — which recruiter are you talking about?

    And great job SFN – you’ve scooped them all, even those vaunted professional sportswriters who like to claim you guys are in your momma’s basement in your underwear working on your latest fictional screed.

  8. sloanshark 06/25/2008 at 11:43 AM #

    Great point Daily Update. Isn’t the rule change (from 3 to 4 maths) effective on August 1st?

  9. LRM 06/25/2008 at 11:45 AM #

    The real travesty of all this is that a kid that has five years of high school still hasn’t taken (and passed) Algebra II.

  10. whitefang 06/25/2008 at 1:07 PM #

    LRM, that of course IS a travesty (and a tragedy). 5 years of high school, obviously planning on college, and no Algebra II. Who is advising this kid?
    BUT to continue with what i said in the previous thread I cannot believe that both our athletic and admissions depts just found this out this summer. Again my wife is in admissions at a Div II school and the athletic staff is always over there working with admissions trying to check kids qualifications, etc. And these aren’t any 4 star football players they are working with. Most are getting partials only of course.
    Surely we can’t be that incompetent….

  11. Sw0rdf1sh 06/25/2008 at 1:46 PM #

    I too hope TOB drops the hammer on someone for this….Sam is way too important to let some mis-steps by the University let him slip away.

    On the PP issue, has anyone from SFN reached out to any of the guys over there and asked about the deletion. Obviously it is their forum to do as they please and they could answer that way, however I think they would be up front, especially when approached from a site like SFN.

    I look at PP as a recruiting site first, news site second. I always look to SFN for the news first, and though at times I don’t completely agree with the opinions here (rarely), one cannot always share similar opinions with all reporters.

    I do hope things are amicable between the two sites, because not only do I feel like I need these sites, I feel that many others do as well.

  12. choppack1 06/25/2008 at 2:14 PM #

    One thing to think about – specifically what courses someone is missing/has failed, etc are probably considered privacy violations.

    I wonder if the thread would have been deleted if the poster had said, “A key recruit needs algebra 2 to attend State” or “Sam Jones may not be enrolling in summer school due to an outstanding admissions issue.”

  13. Daily Update 06/25/2008 at 2:20 PM #

    I saw Choppack say he didn’t know what happened with T Hall on the other entry, so I will explain briefly:

    Back when T. Hall was coming to NC State you still had three statuses for NCAA qualification:

    1. Full qualifier – student meets requirements for core courses completed, graduates from HS, and meets NCAA minimums for core class GPA and SAT on the sliding scale

    2. Partial qualifier – all of the above(HS graduated, core classes completed), except either GPA or SAT score is not high enough to meet NCAA minimums. These students could be accepted and enroll at NC State, but they weren’t eligible to play as freshman and they lost a year of eligibility unless they were on track to graduate after their fourth year in school.

    3. Non-qualifier – didn’t meet NCAA minimums, can enroll at some schools(ECU).

    Tramain Hall fit into an entirely different category because he didn’t actually graduate from HS because he didn’t pass the mandatory state of Florida exit exam(that all of our other Florida recruits took and passed).

    Amato got Hall to commit in December(he was the start of the Florida recruiting wave). Amato was afraid that if he didn’t get T. Hall enrolled in January, then he might lose him to one of the other schools recruiting him(Ohio St most likely). So somehow or another, NC State enrolled the only ACC player in history who hadn’t graduated from high school. He took some classes and started participating in Spring Practice, but then was suddenly pulled from practice.

    There internet rumors of a back injury which were bogus. Then there were internet rumors that the NCAA was screwing NC State(bogus). Then there were rumors that his Florida test score was invalidated because of cheating at his testing center which was also bogus. There were rumors that he had a really high GPA and SAT which were half truths. He did pretty well(high 2.0s and 900~), but still he did not pass the Florida exit exam on his first try.

    T. Hall did pass the exit exam that Spring, but the NCAA judges eligibility based on the time that you enroll. You can’t go back and complete things after enrolling to satisfy the NCAA standards. So T. Hall could no longer be a “partial qualifier” and he could no longer be a “full qualifier”. So his only chance to play division one was to go to a Junior College, graduate with a two year degree, and then continue his career.

    The NCAA penalized NC State by allowing T. Hall to graduate from a JUCO, but would not allow him to return to NC State without sitting out an additional year. He could have gone to Ohio St. and played right after he received his two year degree.

    There was also an issue that if he returned to NC State that he would owe about $10,000 room and board and tuition for the semester he spent at NC State. Defying all logic T. Hall chose to come back to NC State, pay the $10,000(not sure how this happened), sit out another year costing him a year of college football, even after it was entirely NC State’s fault for creating this whole mess in the first place.

    Anyways, that is a quick summary(hope it makes sense) that touches on a very complex issue where NC State became the first university I have ever heard of to enroll a student-athlete who never graduated from high school.

  14. Dr. BadgerPack 06/25/2008 at 2:43 PM #

    ^Aw, come on… The Waterboy didn’t get his GED until well after he enrolled… 🙂

  15. Noah 06/25/2008 at 3:04 PM #

    I’m guessing here…but I think part of the problem with Jones is that he was an Amato recruit and then was an O’Brien recruit. Then there’s the multiple schools and the compliance director issue. I can see where something got missed here.

    Jones is the kid from Fuquay, right? I’m not entirely positive on this, but did he graduate from F-V? Amato would often have non-qualifiers flunk their senior year in high school. There’s this really stupid NCAA rule that says that if you flunk your senior year and redo it, they count the grades from the second year towards your core GPA. But if you graduate, you’re locked into whatever GPA you finished with.

    IOW, if you are a non-qualifier and you finish with 1.8 GPA, there’s nothing you can do from a prep school perspective to raise that. You have to get the SAT score that corresponds with a 1.8 GPA (which would be pretty high). However, if you flunk and go to prep school for your senior year, you could raise that GPA and only need a lower score. The downside with this is that if you are in prep school and get your necessary SAT, you can split. You don’t have to finish the fifth year. If you flunk your senior year, you have to finish out your time at prep school.

    Typically, when a kid is being recruited, part of the “getting to know you” process is a sit-down with the guidance counselor. What’s he taking? What’s he getting in those classes? Do you guys remember Dwayne Herndon? Part of his problem was that he wasn’t planning on going to college until his senior year. So, he wasn’t taking classes that a college-bound kid needs to take and there just wasn’t any way he was going to qualify without prep school.

    Before Jones was a senior in high school, someone should have sat down with him and said, “Here’s what you absolutely, positively HAVE to take if you’re planning on going somewhere to play football.” And when it became apparent that Jones was not going to qualify, someone should have made a note of what he needed and slipped it in the little jacket of his transcripts that got sent to Hargrave.

    While he was at Hargrave, someone should have reviewed it and then placed him in the proper classes. When he recommitted and resigned to NC State, someone should have gone over his test scores and GPA before they got submitted to the NCAA and the NC State admissions office.

    Yeah, there’s 25 kids in a class and 85 on a team and it’s easy for things to get missed. But that’s why you have a process and why that process gets followed on every single one of these guys. Did you take four years of English? Yes or no? Did you take the minimum foreign language classes? The minimum maths, etc?

    But, I think part of the problem with Jones is that one group was aware of his problems and then he got passed on to another group who only had part of the story and this just missed in the transition. It’s not like Chuck Amato was hanging around when O’Brien showed up and said, “Hey, don’t foget that Sam needs to take Algebra II next year. And don’t forget to jiggle the handle on the toilet in my office. The water will never stop running if you don’t. Good luck!”

  16. fvpackman 06/25/2008 at 3:25 PM #

    Complance and Jon Fagg(when he was here) have NOTHING to admissions or grades

    fv

  17. fvpackman 06/25/2008 at 3:38 PM #

    Academic Support
    PO Box 7104, Raleigh, NC 27695; Phone: 515-2464; Fax: 515-1619

    Phil Moses Director, Academic Support
    515-4500 [email protected]

    Jody Moylon Academic Coordinator 946-5701 [email protected]

    Katie Sheridan Academic Coordinator 513-2048 [email protected]

    Megan Albidrez
    Academic Coordinator 515-4501 [email protected]

    Victoria Casas
    Academic Coordinator
    513-0999

    Maria Tyson
    Academic Coordinator
    515-4503

    Jane Moore
    Executive Director – N4A National Organization
    513-1007

    Heather Murphy Eligibility Coordinator 513-1015 [email protected]

    Edward Reid LANS Administrator 515-3680 [email protected]

    Muriel Hood Program Assistant 515-4506 [email protected]

    Glenda Johnson Administrative Assistant 515-4268 [email protected]

    Wendy LeBlanc Tutorial Program Coordinator
    515-2464 [email protected]

    Christi Turner Graduate Assistant
    515-2464 [email protected]

  18. VaWolf82 06/25/2008 at 6:39 PM #

    The “four math requirement” has been in effect for a while now:

    http://www.statefansnation.com/index.php/archives/2006/06/18/unc-system-admission-requirements/

  19. blpack 06/26/2008 at 8:23 PM #

    This will shake out over the next couple weeks and if it ultimately points back to the AD office it is one more embarrassment. It is embarrassing regardless, but someone(s) has failed to communicate.

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