Dave Sez: A Lowe Down Beat Down

May 05, 2006

A Lowe Down Beat Down

I think it's fair to say that the ACC BasketBlog isn't enamored of the Sidney Lowe hire.

Ed makes some great points that I agree with on the issue of Lowe's bogus attempt to get a degree now - 20-some years after his senior year at State (I'm not signing off on some of the later stuff in Ed's rant though). Jim Valvano didn't care that his players go to class and graduate and clearly Lowe didn't learn any additional love for school after he left Raleigh.

It's a joke that Lowe is sending off for some correspondance school degree. I'd rather State have hired him with the stipulation that he finish his degree - at NC State - within the next 12 months. All this degree sham did was further the lesson that education really doesn't matter - all that matters is the illusion of education.

How can he look players in the eye and convince them that getting an education and a degree is important when he didn't do it until it became a job requirement for a specific job? And even then, Lowe skirted the system to fulfill the requirement in the shadiest way possible. Somehow, I don't think his players are going to buy any you-must-go-to-class speeches. Of course, I doubt Lowe will be delivering any of those anyway.

Comments

(1) by GMUjoe on 05/05/2006 02:42 pm

I can hear the arguements between Dave and badkness all over again.

Dave: "NCSU graduates less than 5% of the bball team".

badknees: "It's the price you pay for an ACC title and the joy of giving UNC a beat down once a year."

Dave: "So education doesn't matter?"

badknees: "I didn't say that."

Truth be told. I'm sure Lowe will graduate a respectable number of his players, ... from the University of Phoenix.

(2) by Dave on 05/05/2006 05:31 pm

GMUjoe wrote:

Nice.

Actually, that might not be a bad idea for some coaches. Look for that to be the next NCAA scandal trend - players augmenting their regular school's curriculum with a class or two from the University of Phoenix (or worse). They could probably squeeze in one extra Internet course each semester while scaling back their actual classes.

(3) by Ed (unregistered) on 05/12/2006 11:40 pm

Dave,

Thanks for the shout. Upon further review, it was a bit of a rant, but I stand by it in principle. Acts and facts since his hire have swayed me a bit more toward his side. I still think that it's a disgrace that NCSU is the first D1 school to hire before they obtained their degree, but I guess most just don't care. They've marked a line in the sand by bringing Towe in as well: Get your degree, or Monte's our guy. Unspoken, but clear.

I wish them well. SL could turn out to be a great find....but I have my doubts.

Ed of the Basketblog

(4) by Dave on 05/13/2006 11:35 am

I think you had a more than reasonable basis for your rant, Ed. It shouldn't be glossed over that Lowe played during a time when NC State players weren't expected to go to class and so they didn't. He didn't graduate after four years of college, and pretty much none of his teammates did either. He doesn't know what it's like to play basketball and focus on academics at the same time.

Meanwhile, it took him over 20 years to finally finish his degree, and then he did it only because he had to and he did it (is doing it) in a complete joke way. Nothing about what Lowe did previously in his life or what he's doing now tells me that he cares one bit about regular non-basketball education.

I can only hope that his actions (or lack thereof) do not accurately reflect his views on the matter.

(5) by Ed (unregistered) on 06/13/2006 09:02 am

Agreed!

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Posted by Dave at May 5, 2006 02:22 PM | TrackBack

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