When Academics And Athletics Collide
How could the most prominent member of a university’s most
prominent sport become ineligible at the high point of the season?
By Ernest Holsendolph
When things are going right, there’s nobody more popular on the college campus than the student-athlete — the gifted undergrad who can hit the clutch jumper or get that vital first down. Even better is the athlete who can step into the classroom and hold his or her own against students who have none of his or her extracurricular commitments.
Coming into his last season, Chris McCray was that sort of guy, the scoring leader and captain of the big-time University of Maryland Terrapins, a perennial basketball power in the Atlantic Coast Conference. But just as Maryland was poised to make a run at the NCAA tournament, dubbed March Madness, a devilishly maddening thing happened.
McCray, rolling well as an athlete, faltered and fell as a student. He was declared ineligible for the spring semester and was dropped from the team.
The repercussions were immediate and devastating for the Terrapins. The team floundered without their leader and missed the cut for “The Big Dance.” How could the most prominent member of the school’s most prominent sport become ineligible at the critical point of his final season?
McCray, according to ESPN, ran afoul of a relatively new NCAA rule that requires student-athletes to remain eligible by passing enough credit hours each semester to stay on pace for graduation. McCray reportedly failed to pass six hours of course credits that he needed in the fall semester. That lapse, a matter university sources say the young man had been warned about, cost him his right to play basketball in the spring, his final semester.
