Sutton deserves to be in the Hall of Fame
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Faustus
Not to hijack this thread, but on a related subject (UK and scummy activities at multiple schools), was anyone else taken aback yesterday to see Eddie Sutton admitted into the Basketball Hall of Fame? Did I see that correctly? Wasn't he essentially banned from coaching in the NCAAs? This is Fame? Sadly, I can see Calipari "inducted" as well down the road, although it looks like he'll need a few more wins than his current fine institution evidently thinks...
Sutton and his program were clearly dirty at Kentucky. However, he was not banned from coaching. His assistant coach (Duane (sp?) Casey, I think), was given a five-year show cause penalty that left him out of coaching in the NCAA. Who knows if this was justice. Sutton fairly painlessly moved to Oklahoma State after sitting out a year or two. It is arguable that Sutton's body of work before Kentucky and after Kentucky would both justify an invitation to the Hall of Fame. He is the only coach to take four different schools to the NCAA tournament. In 12 out of 16 years at Oklahoma State, Sutton's team advanced past the first round of the NCAA tournament. His team advanced to the final four twice in this period. In 9 of 11 years his Arkansas teams qualified for the NCAA tournament, also advancing once to the final four. He has 800 major college coaching wins.
The party line is that if we're going to pretend . . .
Quote:
Originally Posted by
JasonEvans
Just so I understand, if the party line that Sutton only cheated once (an envelope full of money-- that's about as bad as it gets)...
...or is it that he only got caught once?
I just want to make sure I understand ;)
--Jason "I know, Sutton knew nothing about the envelope... yeah, right" Evans
Since you asked, the "party line" is that we pretend that John Wooden, who ran a filthy program, was a saint. Wooden is one of the baseline standards in college basketball. We hardly talk about the cheating at UCLA under his watch. We pretend that Wooden didn't know about the actions of Sam Gilbert and not only consider him a hall of fame coach, but he is commonly considered a man of high character and teacher of the highest order. This is because he had redeeming features -- big ones -- to which we choose to give great weight. Nothing Eddie Sutton or his assistants did at Kentucky is any worse than the stuff Gilbert was doing for UCLA. Indeed, if you listen to the regard with which Sutton is held by his players at Arkansas and Oklahoma State, it sounds a lot like the feelings players from Wooden era at UCLA express about their coach. Eddie Sutton is no John Wooden, but the "party line" suggests we look at the body of his work, his accomplishments within the sport and the difference he made in the lives of his players -- and overlook his transgressions. It's the standard we've been following for a long time.
