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JasonEvans
08-18-2012, 09:00 PM
All of you need to read this NY Times story (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/sports/basketball/basketball-star-jonathon-hargetts-story-is-a-cautionary-tale.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&ref=sports&adxnnlx=1345316479-NYstwylR/6VWUJVzncWalw&pagewanted=print) on Jonathan Hargett. Some of you will recall his name as he was a big-time recruit a few years back as he played at Mt. Zion in Durham.

Hargett was a stud. I remember his recruitment. Despite a strange high school career (detailed in the linked story) Dave Telep had him as the #7 recruit in the class of 2001. His career... well, just real the story.

And one reason I linked it was because of a conversation we had related to the Rodney Purvis high school questions. Purvis went to a tiny school that appeared to maybe be a basketball factory. It led me to comment on how many schools like that seem to crop up in the Triangle area. Toward that end, I provide this quote from the NY Times article:


Hargett next went to play at Mount Zion Christian Academy in Durham, N.C., where he teamed with the future N.B.A. players Stoudemire, Marquis Daniels and Jarrett Jack. Hargett said any academic concerns he had at Highland Springs disappeared at Mount Zion.

“I mean, we really didn’t have to do nothing,” Hargett said. “But we just had to show up, and we did have to at least put some effort in. The professors made sure as long as we were there, we were going to do something.”

Still, Hargett was there for only a short time. He and a number of his teammates left the school on a February night, following a Mount Zion assistant to Emmanuel Christian Academy, an unaccredited school that operated out of the basement of a day care center.

-Jason "read the article, trust me" Evans

PackMan97
08-18-2012, 10:43 PM
Purvis went to a tiny school that appeared to maybe be a basketball factory.

Upper Room may be many things (still to be determined), but a basketball factory it ain't. Purvis was the only player to sign a basketball scholarship.

Starter
08-18-2012, 10:53 PM
It's a good article on a sad topic. Luckily, it really seems as if the time away has done wonders for Hargett's perspective.

johnb
08-20-2012, 01:30 PM
It's a good article on a sad topic. ..

I would suggest that the "sad topic" is not basketball recruiting but rather the sad state of American education (+/- society). As with a lot of other things (such as health care), American schools excel at the high end, but many students end up without the tools to think critically AND the social/family safety net that can cushion young people from mistakes. We might see his experience as odd, but, for whole semgments of society, the only unusual thing about it is that he happened to play good basketball.

greybeard
08-21-2012, 02:17 AM
New coach comes in, Haggart complains because he didn't get all the 20K promised, coach goes to Univ President and says what's up with that, president says, "if this goes any further, well bury you," the coach's wife answers, "Say what?", and they return to the coach's old school probably a million dollars poorer.

How can this article be about Haggert. HOW Freakin could it. Who preceded this coach to WVa and made this deal, and who is this president threatening to "bury a coach for blowing the whistle on this oprobious action?" Why was this president kicked out of the Universary in lieu of say a 1 to 5 death penalty to be determined latter, why was the then WVa coach not broke to book about this, er, little violation, and how did 'west Virginia escape getting banned from post season play?

Throw the player under the bus and the rest run scot free. "And, they tell, me, over and over, and over again, "the NCAA," is not an organization rife with cooperationl."

DTW, this War on Drugs sure is working. A kid who is getting a measily 20 grand while mult millions going to his coaches and schools off his name and product bearing it, who is barred from taking some cash to you know, get a little something for himself, sells some weed and other stuff, not big amounts by the way to an undercover narc who infilitated a little partying club, you know, like a frat house, and 5 years for dealing. A life ruined and for what? a war that can never be won, a war that has more black young men in jail or with jobs or with any prospect of them in the near future, that makes black youth by far the biggest prison population on earth, that has destabilized any number of countries in central and south America, our neighbor Mexico which is a virtual war zone. The War that has now brought El Quita to our doorstep, that with control over the poppie trade in Afganistan or at least a substantial part of it, it can finance operations in Afganistan, Iraq, Eygpy, Yeman, Syria, and I must be leaving out someone.

But let's get balk to sports. Test for drugs, performance enhancers, if you must (I call them a necessity to recover from the unconscionable beating these guys take, but Lord, keep your freakin nose about how they get their jollies. Jollies are what Sports are supposed to be all about by the faithful who watch them. How many of them smoke weed all the time. How many of them would car one whit if a guy they love to root for, who makes their Saturdays more exciting, gets a little something for himself. None of them, who. But, these same guys would have a fit if the war on drugs were to be called a "victory,:" and ended. What about the kids, they would ask, it's for the kids they would have these laws.

"Hey, Johnny, could you pass Daddy the little green box and those rolling papers please."

Hagart did nothing wrong but get caught by a coach who was too naive to know what is what in real life, which nobody told him has nothing to do with what he came from. Nobody, except his new University's president, who threatened to bury the guy for being such a hick and the NCAA which oh so predicably turned a blind eye.

When will anybody tell the freakin truth on that august body, until it falls of its own weight, which I expect will be soon. I wish I could say the same about this War on Drugs, a war more than any American history has ruined so any lives, cost so much treasure, and ruined regimens and created outlaw states where El Quito and Hesbella can fester on our own borders. But, the kids, we have to do it for them. Please.

rthomas
08-21-2012, 09:00 AM
Being at WVU and being at WVU during Haggart and the last of the Catlett years, I can say that this was a dark and gloomy time for WVU. However, I'm pretty sure that Dakich is embellishing a bit, probably to get a little limelight for his ESPN/Skip Bayless-type radio show that he is doing now instead of coaching.

First, Dackich did not simply leave WVU after a couple weeks. About a week after he accepted the WVU job and signed a contract, Dakich tried to renegotiate his contract so that he would make an additional $150K a year. He only left after WVU refused to pay him more. If he had been threatened and was so upset about it, why not simply leave instead of asking for a raise?

Second, it was not a huge secret at least around Morgantown at the time Catlett resigned midseason that the NCAA was sniffing around and there were abundant rumors that Haggart had an agent and was living the life in Morgantown. The Pres. of WVU had little to gain by threatening Dackich. And WVU (not Dakich) reported what Dakich said to the NCAA anyway.

Did someone at WVU or a booster promise to pay Haggart? Maybe. Clearly his agent was paying him. I don't deny there was money involved. And I don't deny that Haggart was an ugly recruit for WVU. The NCAA investigated and dropped it.

In the end, Haggart turned out to be a really good thing for WVU. Catlett, who could not coach to save his life, resigned because WVU only won 8 games with a "talent" like Hagartt. Coach Beilein followed Dakich and restored WVU's basketball tradition, albeit in a nontraditional manner.