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Colleges consider non-performing athletes acceptable casualties

by Tony Basilio

You won’t hear any public service announcements on their behalf, or any clever commercials championing their cause. Journalists and fans alike turn a blind eye to their predicament. And so it continues, every spring, seemingly every day; another young athlete falls victim to the cruel, cynical side of college sports.

The victims I’m talking about are the casualties of recruiting—players who haven’t made the cut in basketball or football, and who are thus shuttled out of a program to free up a scholarship when a more promising prospect comes along. The lives of these barely post-pubescent athletes are turned upside down in the spirit of winning and giving it the old college try.

One of the most recent offenders in these parts is University of Kentucky head coach Tubby Smith, who sacrificed a young athlete named Bernard Cote on the altar of expediency in his attempt to get UK basketball back into the Final Four.

A French-Canadian high school star, Cote arrived at Kentucky with an impressive resume. A 6-9, 230-pound forward out of St. Lambert, Quebec, he chose the ‘Cats over schools such as Kansas, Stanford, Illinois and Michigan State, all of which offered a scholarship to the Canadian prep hoops legend.

Like so many impressionable kids before him, Cote fell in love with the Big Blue. And during his recruiting, Cote bought the lie that all players who sign a letter of intent will eventually purchase—the smug and sanctimonious pretense that individual student-athletes actually matter to the UK “family.” When Cote’s performance in college fell short of expectations, he learned just how fleeting such family loyalties can be.

What happened? A few weeks ago, the Kentucky media started buzzing with news that the ‘Cats were ripe for the services of Randolph Morris, a schoolboy hoops sensation from Atlanta, Ga. Like Cote a few years ago, Morris was smitten with the idea of donning the Kentucky blue. The problem for Tubby Smith’s Cats lay in the fact that the team had already apportioned the NCAA limit of 13 scholarships. Unless someone left, Kentucky didn’t have room for Randolph.

Seemingly oblivious to the reality of the scholarship predicament, the Lexington Herald Leader reported insider gossip that Morris would sign with Kentucky rather than Georgia Tech, the other principal contender for his services. About 10 days later, Morris did just that.

In the meantime, a mere eight days after the aforementioned report appeared, Bernard Cote suddenly decided to leave the Kentucky basketball team—of his own accord, naturally—thus freeing up a scholarship. The Kentucky media paid little heed to the startling coincidence of these events; to my knowledge, not a critical word was written or spoken of the injustice that seemingly transpired.

Lest I appear hypocritical, please take note that when University of Tennessee basketball coach Buzz Peterson ran off UT players John Winchester and Boomer Herndon earlier in the spring, I also took him to task in this column. Wrong is wrong, no matter who the offender is, or how hard a sycophantic sports media tries to ignore it.

Like Winchester and Herndon before him, Cote bowed out with the obligatory “Thanks for the memories... it just didn’t work out.” But the media knows the truth, and many fans know better as well. Alas, the prospect of thrilling new hoops heroes holds far more appeal than ruing the fate of a few marginal recruits from yesteryear.

Some would justify the practice of cutting players in good academic and athletic standing—for the purpose of “improving” a program—by pointing out that scholarships are year-to-year contracts. I wonder whether coaches tell the kids they recruit that their scholarships will be subject to yearly cost-benefit analysis? I wonder how that would play with Mom?

Bernard Cote’s bottom line was he that averaged 1.4 points and 0.4 rebounds during his time at Kentucky, and was therefore the most expendable player on the roster when a new stud like Randolph Morris happened along. Is poor play reason enough to throw a kid out of a program? Coaches are wont to plead for their own jobs when they have a bad year. Or two. They even defend one another, pointing out that every coaching casualty involves a real person, someone with mouths to feed, with a career to nurture, with a reputation at stake.

I hope readers will forgive one more overheated wartime analogy misapplied to the markedly less serious world of sports, but Cote, Winchester, Herndon and their like are in many ways regarded as acceptable casualties by the coaches who would be their generals. They are the victims of collateral damage in the battles of big-time college athletics recruiting.

Tune in and talk sports with “The Tony Basilio Show” each weekday from 3-6 p.m. on the network (670 WMTY-AM, 850 WKVL-AM, 1140 WLOD-AM, 1290 WATO-AM, or 1400 WGAP-AM)

May 20, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 21 © 2004 Metro Pulse