Casey Peters

[KatDevil]

I had never heard of Casey Peters???

From Dime Magazine's site HSH:

http://www.highschoolhoop.com/getting-up/2009/07/duke-recruits-and-a-walk-on-ready-to-save-the-depleted-blue-devils/

[Lord Ash]

An earlier piece on Peters; he had a nasty ally-oop in the UNC/Duke managers game, and can apparently play a bit.

http://www.ahherald.com/index.php/Schools/rbr-graduate-realizes-his-dream-to-play-basketball-for-duke-university.html

[roywhite]

An earlier piece on Peters; he had a nasty ally-oop in the UNC/Duke managers game, and can apparently play a bit.

http://www.ahherald.com/index.php/Schools/rbr-graduate-realizes-his-dream-to-play-basketball-for-duke-university.html

...and his sister Haley, a rising senior at the Peddie School in NJ, recently committed to play basketball at Duke for Coach P.

[Hancock 4 Duke]

Oh yeah. I met him at the Duke Basketball Camp. He was really good for a walk-on. He was in a dunk contest. He looks about 6'5". He has some nice hops and can really dunk.
P.S. He is also Kyle's roommate. He said he would give me the address, but he never did. I was talking to him for like fifteen minutes, and I ddidn't even know who he was. :O

[Rudy]

From an article on both Peters (Casey and his sister Haley)

"Peters was so intent on playing at Duke that he accepted an academic scholarship at the school despite not earning a spot on Coach K's roster, passing up on scholarship offers from prestigious colleges such as Yale, Dartmouth, Amherst and Williams. For two years, Peters served as the team's manager, traveling on the road with the team and logging practice time, hoping to get his chance to walk on to the celebrated team.
****
Casey is double majoring in economics and environmental policy at Duke, and hopes to continue this study in Duke's business school as a means of launching a career in the emerging field of green alternative energy."

http://hub.gmnews.com/news/2009/0723/sports/042.html

[Bluedog]

From an article on both Peters (Casey and his sister Haley)

"Peters was so intent on playing at Duke that he accepted an academic scholarship at the school despite not earning a spot on Coach K's roster, passing up on scholarship offers from prestigious colleges such as Yale, Dartmouth, Amherst and Williams. For two years, Peters served as the team's manager, traveling on the road with the team and logging practice time, hoping to get his chance to walk on to the celebrated team.
****
Casey is double majoring in economics and environmental policy at Duke, and hopes to continue this study in Duke's business school as a means of launching a career in the emerging field of green alternative energy."

http://hub.gmnews.com/news/2009/0723/sports/042.html

Yale, Dartmouth, Amherst, AND Williams don't offer athletic or merit scholarships (the former two as part of the Ivy League, the latter two as part of DIII for no athletic scholarships and their own policies for no merit scholarships). So, there is no conceivable way he passed up scholarship offered from them unless the author meant financial aid (which I'm sure he'd qualify for at Duke if he qualified there). Also, he's not on the University Scholars list or AB Duke list. He doesn't qualify for the Trinity Scholarship since he's not from North Carolina, the BN Duke since he's not from the Carolinas, or the Reginaldo Howard Scholarship since he's not African American. In other words, he doesn't have an academic merit scholarship to Duke either. Perhaps he has a financial aid "scholarship" or outside scholarships not from Duke. Not to take anything away from him or anything, just wanted to clear that up.

In any event, a welcome addition to the team! I'm glad he gets to realize his dream as he seems like a great student and contributor.

You can follow him on twitter here:
http://twitter.com/casey_peters

[jimsumner]

"Yale, Dartmouth, Amherst, AND Williams don't offer athletic or merit scholarships (the former two as part of the Ivy League, the latter two as part of DIII for no athletic scholarships and their own policies for no merit scholarships."

Ivy League schools offer need-based scholarships. Lots of those end up in the hands of athletes. Lots.

[Bluedog]

"Yale, Dartmouth, Amherst, AND Williams don't offer athletic or merit scholarships (the former two as part of the Ivy League, the latter two as part of DIII for no athletic scholarships and their own policies for no merit scholarships."

Ivy League schools offer need-based scholarships. Lots of those end up in the hands of athletes. Lots.

Right, I know. Need-based. Not athletic or merit based. The article implies that the university's athletic departments offered scholarships - not that his financial situation determined that he'd get grants based on financial need. Around 50% of students at Duke and Ivy League institutions are on "scholarship" if you include need-based. I wouldn't really say he "passed up scholarship offers" if it was need-based offers, since Duke would likely have similar packages (to Dartmouth, Yale's fin aid is certainly a bit better). I was just taking slight issue with the author's wording - that's all. Lots of athletes could get full rides to Ivy League school's though, that's for sure...Even if they're not *officially* on athletic scholarships.

Edit: Woo hoo! Christian Laettner status!

The Ivy League schools, most notably Harvard under our very own Tommy Amaker, are doing their best to up the level of aid that they can offer to students in order to make the end result aid packages similar to athletic scholarships. They're doing this through deep pockets, little piecemeal scholarships from concerned alumni and heavy grants which are offered to athletes. As Amaker has said before, they're not quite the same thing, but they can balance out most of the costs.

I expect this will become even more commonplace as time goes by. Ivies hate losing in basketball when other academic powerhouses like Duke and Stanford put out top-caliber teams year in, year out.

Definitely. But the difference is that this increase in financial aid isn't exclusive to athletes. Harvard has just increased its financial aid across the board for ALL of its students. If your parents make less than $60,000, Harvard tuition + room and board + all other expenses are FREE. Less than $80,000 and I believe tuition is essentially FREE. And between $80,000 - $180,000, they expect your parents to contribute about 10% of the annual income towards tuition (e.g. if make $150,000, tuition is 15k a year). Certainly it might be equivalent to an athletic scholarship at another school, but the aid is the same regardless of if the student is a varsity athlete or not.

[thewiseben]

The Ivy League schools, most notably Harvard under our very own Tommy Amaker, are doing their best to up the level of aid that they can offer to students in order to make the end result aid packages similar to athletic scholarships. They're doing this through deep pockets, little piecemeal scholarships from concerned alumni and heavy grants which are offered to athletes. As Amaker has said before, they're not quite the same thing, but they can balance out most of the costs.

I expect this will become even more commonplace as time goes by. Ivies hate losing in basketball when other academic powerhouses like Duke and Stanford put out top-caliber teams year in, year out.

[sagegrouse]

The Ivy League schools, most notably Harvard under our very own Tommy Amaker, are doing their best to up the level of aid that they can offer to students in order to make the end result aid packages similar to athletic scholarships. They're doing this through deep pockets, little piecemeal scholarships from concerned alumni and heavy grants which are offered to athletes. As Amaker has said before, they're not quite the same thing, but they can balance out most of the costs.

I expect this will become even more commonplace as time goes by. Ivies hate losing in basketball when other academic powerhouses like Duke and Stanford put out top-caliber teams year in, year out.

I don't think you can give credit to Tommy amaker. Two years ago Harvard announced that it would no longer charge tuition to students whose family income was under $60,000 per year. Moreover, those families earning less than $180,000 per year would only have to contribute 10% against the $48,000 cost of a year at Harvard. This obviously covers many potential athletic recruits. Other schools followed suit, but probably did not fully match Harvard's program. The use of the vast Harvard endowment has come under criticism from certain alumni and student groups for its unimaginative use. IIRC Harvard's endowment reached $36 billion before the market tanked and later declined to $29 billion. Many pointed out that Harvard could easily suspend tuition payments in toto, if it so chose. The tuition of $33,600 for what I believe to be 6,500 undergrads totals $220 million, or less than one percent of the value of the endowment.

Anyway, Tommy Amaker probably doesn't get the credit for the expanded scholarship program. But, for once, Harvard seems interested in fielding a winning program. This has twice attracted the attention of the New York Times in two horrible series of articles (don't get me started). The crux of the issue is that Harvard will use the same admission standards for athletes as the rest of the Ivy League (somewhat lower than before Amaker).

Just maybe, given the record of Penn and Princeton over the past 20 years and the positive examples from some pretty terrific young men who played at Duke, the powers-that-be have decided that winning isn't so bad after all.

More than anyone wanted to hear on the subject of Harvard athletics.

sagegrouse

[jimsumner]

"The article implies that the university's athletic departments offered scholarships - not that his financial situation determined that he'd get grants based on financial "

I agree that this was badly worded. A more accurate statement would have been that Peters was recruited to play basketball at schools A, B, and C.


Over the years we've been treated to some hyperbole about walk-ons; D Bryant, J.D. Simpson, Mark Causey and others were all supposed to be ACC-scholarship equivalent talents. Didn't turn out that way. So, I'll assume Peters is a good practice player until and unless proven to the contrary.