Interesting article on Eric Bledsoe's Birmingham prep grades

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Friend Of Tubby said:
I can see why many schools backed off Bledsoe but UK wasn't the only one who didn't.

I think Calipari will do well at UK. I lived through the Joe Hall (1976 and 1984) NCAA scrutiny and Eddie Sutton NCAA debacle (1989) so it doesn't really bother me. It comes with the territory.

Tubby OTOH succeeded at UK (absent FF appearances) without NCAA issues - but there were several OTC incidents in early 2000's that brought a dark cloud over UK basketball.
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What Is happening here? Are you a FOC (Cal) now? What about FOS (Sandy)? On the Uk board you are a PreacherFan. Are you fan of many people?
 

The-Real-Truth said:
What Is happening here? Are you a FOC (Cal) now? What about FOS (Sandy)? On the Uk board you are a PreacherFan. Are you fan of many people?
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I am not PreacherFan anywhere.

I go by the facts. Calipari has won 77% of his games overall and 70% of his NCAA games. He's one of the Top 5 coaches in Div I basketball and THE best recruiter right now.
 

Well, the report is out. I have read the tweets from Kentucky Sports Report (@MyKSR1), and from those tweets it appears that the law firm that completed the report found that the teacher's reasons for changing Bledsoe's grade were NOT credible. The Birmingham school board is standing by their teacher for now, maintaining that the grade change was acceptable, although they also voted to accept the report. It seems pretty clear to me that Parker High is where to go when you need your grades rigged to get into college even though you don't belong in college. This story probably isn't over.
 

Here's the new article:
http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2010/09/bledsoe_report_teachers_claim.html

Here's some interesting quotes:

"After a three-month investigation by an outside law firm hired by the board, the report concluded Bledsoe's Algebra III grades for first and second terms in 2008-09 were changed by Webster, who acknowledged making the changes , according to the report . The report says Webster explained that Bledsoe completed "make-up and extra work" that justified the grade changes.
"We do not credit this explanation," the report said. "We note that the teacher changed (Bledsoe's) grades far more frequently than those of any other students in his class.""

"In the first term, 10 of the 14 recorded scores/grades, as well as the final grade, "were conspicuously changed," according to the report. The report says the grade book shows that the orginal scores/grades were written over to reflect higher grades.
In the second term, seven of the 10 recorded scores/grades, as well as the final grade, "were conspicuously changed" and the grade book shows the original scores/grades were written over to reflect to higher grades, according to the report."


^^ sounds like a pretty clear-cut case of the Algebra 3 teacher cooking the books in order to make Bledsoe eligible even though he didn't deserve it. I know athletes often get treated a little differently than others, but this is academic fraud IMO. I think the NCAA ought to do something here since an independent investigation essentially found that Bledsoe's Algebra 3 grade shouldn't have been changed, and with the grade he actually was given, would not have passed the clearinghouse. Will the NCAA act? I don't know, but they should.
 

hate to say I told you so ,Truth, but...... any school that saw his transcripts, including the Gophers, went running as fast as they could. To say coaches across the country we're rolling there eyes when he was accepted and cleared at kentucky is an understatement. Cal is the master though and he is usually does an outstanding job at keeping himself out of the paper trail so it never comes back to him directly.
 



FOT seems to think Memphis wasn't recruiting Bledsoe while Calipari was there (ergo Cal would not be behind the academic fraud) but it's not true that Cal/Memphis was not recruiting Bledsoe. While Cal was apparently focused on John Wall & reportedly never visited Bledsoe in Birmingham, Josh Pastner was on Cal's staff and was recruiting Bledsoe for Memphis while he was an assistant for Calipari during the '08-'09 season.
http://www.straitpinkie.com/sports/cats/eric-bledsoe-in-memphis-kentucky-next/

Pastner "remained in contact with Bledsoe and was in attendance Feb. 27 as Bledsoe led his Birmingham Parker team to an upset of Mobile LeFlore and former Tiger commitment DeMarcus Cousins in the Alabama state semifinal."

Pastner was named the coach at Memphis on April 6, 2009, the same year he attended the Bledsoe-Cousins HS game during the Memphis/Calipari recruitment of Bledsoe.

I'm not saying Calipari was behind the Bledsoe academic fraud, but you can't say he wasn't recruiting him while he was at Memphis.
 

OSUfan said:
FOT seems to think Memphis wasn't recruiting Bledsoe while Calipari was there (ergo Cal would not be behind the academic fraud) but it's not true that Cal/Memphis was not recruiting Bledsoe. While Cal was apparently focused on John Wall & reportedly never visited Bledsoe in Birmingham, Josh Pastner was on Cal's staff and was recruiting Bledsoe for Memphis while he was an assistant for Calipari during the '08-'09 season.
http://www.straitpinkie.com/sports/cats/eric-bledsoe-in-memphis-kentucky-next/

Pastner "remained in contact with Bledsoe and was in attendance Feb. 27 as Bledsoe led his Birmingham Parker team to an upset of Mobile LeFlore and former Tiger commitment DeMarcus Cousins in the Alabama state semifinal."

Pastner was named the coach at Memphis on April 6, 2009, the same year he attended the Bledsoe-Cousins HS game during the Memphis/Calipari recruitment of Bledsoe.

I'm not saying Calipari was behind the Bledsoe academic fraud, but you can't say he wasn't recruiting him while he was at Memphis.
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I don't believe there is any evidence whatsoever that Calipari was involved in academic fraud reagrding Bledsoe, either at Memphis or UK. Link whatever you have in that reagrd.
 

JohnnyGopher said:
hate to say I told you so ,Truth, but...... any school that saw his transcripts, including the Gophers, went running as fast as they could. To say coaches across the country we're rolling there eyes when he was accepted and cleared at kentucky is an understatement. Cal is the master though and he is usually does an outstanding job at keeping himself out of the paper trail so it never comes back to him directly.
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Some coaches declined to pursue Bledsoe but others recruited him hard. Cincy and Bama are 2 that did.
 



I said I wasn't saying Cal was behind the Bledsoe fraud, but it's not like Cal was as far removed from the situation as you seemed to think - he/his staff WAS recruiting Bledsoe while he was at Memphis, during the time when this apparent academic fraud occurred. The independent report put a big dent in FOT's "the teacher said it was the right grade, so it was the right grade" argument. The Birmingham school board obviously doesn't have a spine. It baffles me how a school board could vote to accept a report that said their teacher changed a grade without a credible explanation and then take no action. I guess it's up to the Alabama state HS authorities and/or the NCAA to take action.
 

It is notable that Derrick Rose had his HS transcripts changed fraudulently, and then a year later another Calipari recruit has his transcripts changed fraudulently. You can say it's just a coincidence, but does Coach Cal really deserve the benefit of the doubt? There is an unusually high concentration of serious eligibility issues among Calipari recruits the past couple years.
 

OSUfan said:
I said I wasn't saying Cal was behind the Bledsoe fraud, but it's not like Cal was as far removed from the situation as you seemed to think - he/his staff WAS recruiting Bledsoe while he was at Memphis, during the time when this apparent academic fraud occurred. The independent report put a big dent in FOT's "the teacher said it was the right grade, so it was the right grade" argument. The Birmingham school board obviously doesn't have a spine. It baffles me how a school board could vote to accept a report that said their teacher changed a grade without a credible explanation and then take no action. I guess it's up to the Alabama state HS authorities and/or the NCAA to take action.
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http://www.aseaofblue.com/2010/9/24...l-instant-analysis-of-the-eric-bledsoe-report Lots of facts here.
 

OSUfan said:
It is notable that Derrick Rose had his HS transcripts changed fraudulently, and then a year later another Calipari recruit has his transcripts changed fraudulently. You can say it's just a coincidence, but does Coach Cal really deserve the benefit of the doubt? There is an unusually high concentration of serious eligibility issues among Calipari recruits the past couple years.
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I thought the issue with Rose was test score (ACT or SAT). NCAA Clearinghouse approved him TWICE just like Bledsoe. And many schools (not just Memphis) recruited him hard, EG Illinois.
 



Yeah, Rose had SAT fraud as well. But he did have his transcripts altered.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/education/1596666,derrick-rose-simeon-grades-cheat-memphis.article

The ESPiN slant on the Bledsoe story makes it sound like UK is safe - the logic is, since Bledsoe's HS transcript has not been officially changed, the NCAA can't review it again - the only review cases like this once there's an official change to the transcript, and obviously the Birmingham SB never wanted Bledsoe to be ineligible. I guess the only possibility for change now is if the Alabama state dept of education decided to take up the issue.
 

OSUfan said:
Yeah, Rose had SAT fraud as well. But he did have his transcripts altered.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/education/1596666,derrick-rose-simeon-grades-cheat-memphis.article

The ESPiN slant on the Bledsoe story makes it sound like UK is safe - the logic is, since Bledsoe's HS transcript has not been officially changed, the NCAA can't review it again - the only review cases like this once there's an official change to the transcript, and obviously the Birmingham SB never wanted Bledsoe to be ineligible. I guess the only possibility for change now is if the Alabama state dept of education decided to take up the issue.
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http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=5612393 here is ESPN story.
 

OSUfan said:
Yeah, Rose had SAT fraud as well. But he did have his transcripts altered.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/education/1596666,derrick-rose-simeon-grades-cheat-memphis.article

The ESPiN slant on the Bledsoe story makes it sound like UK is safe - the logic is, since Bledsoe's HS transcript has not been officially changed, the NCAA can't review it again - the only review cases like this once there's an official change to the transcript, and obviously the Birmingham SB never wanted Bledsoe to be ineligible. I guess the only possibility for change now is if the Alabama state dept of education decided to take up the issue.
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Both Illinois and IU recruited Rose HARD. Why would Big 10 schools (the BOTB in my view) recruit Rose if he were a known cheater on grades?
 

IU had Kelvin Sampson at the time - 'nuf said. Illinois is harder to explain, but the bottom line is Illinois was never going to get Rose the way his recruitment was handled.

Rose added Illinois to his list (which was then a final 3 w/ IU and Memphis) in the last month before he made his decision, which to me was just window dressing. Weber was not going to give Reggie (Derrick's brother) the extra benefits he wanted, and Reggie was handling the recruitment, so Derrick was never going to go to Illinois. Memphis was found to have provided Reggie with some illegal (per NCAA) benefits.
http://www.illinihq.com/news/mens_basketball/2009/04/04/2007_poy_derrick_rose/

"If Rose had his way, he said, he would have ended the recruiting process early. So he asked brother Reggie to handle most of it."
"His recruitment eventually snowballed from a minor ruckus to a full-fledged circus when he made a visit to Illinois for a preseason scrimmage. The visit was based on a genuine interest, he said. It wasn't a publicity stunt, as Rose said some suggested."

^^ So Rose said there was genuine interest in Illinois, but he also let Reggie handle his recruitment and Reggie was calling the shots. Illinois wouldn't play ball with Reggie, so Derrick went to Memphis.


Here is another fishy passage about Bledsoe's grades from the story I linked to in an earlier post:
"The report released Friday says that a grade-change form for the first term of the class was dated Dec. 12, 2008 with Webster's name printed on it and signed by the Parker night school principal. The grade-change form for the second term of Algebra 3 is dated nearly a month earlier -- Nov. 14, 2008 -- than the first term's grade-change form, the report says. The second-term grade change form also shows the teacher's name printed and signed by the night-school principal, according to the report.
The grade changes for the two terms were entered into the school's computer system on April 28, 2009, according to the report.
Two days after the report says Bledsoe's final Algebra 3 grade was entered in the computer, Bledsoe took an official visit to the University of Memphis. He then visited Kentucky a couple of days later."
 

Wow - my original take on this was some teacher trying to help the kid. Now I am wondering if some money might have changed hands (agents?) since it seems like this was well coordinated with the college visits.
 

OSUfan said:
IU had Kelvin Sampson at the time - 'nuf said. Illinois is harder to explain, but the bottom line is Illinois was never going to get Rose the way his recruitment was handled.

Rose added Illinois to his list (which was then a final 3 w/ IU and Memphis) in the last month before he made his decision, which to me was just window dressing. Weber was not going to give Reggie (Derrick's brother) the extra benefits he wanted, and Reggie was handling the recruitment, so Derrick was never going to go to Illinois. Memphis was found to have provided Reggie with some illegal (per NCAA) benefits.
http://www.illinihq.com/news/mens_basketball/2009/04/04/2007_poy_derrick_rose/

"If Rose had his way, he said, he would have ended the recruiting process early. So he asked brother Reggie to handle most of it."
"His recruitment eventually snowballed from a minor ruckus to a full-fledged circus when he made a visit to Illinois for a preseason scrimmage. The visit was based on a genuine interest, he said. It wasn't a publicity stunt, as Rose said some suggested."

^^ So Rose said there was genuine interest in Illinois, but he also let Reggie handle his recruitment and Reggie was calling the shots. Illinois wouldn't play ball with Reggie, so Derrick went to Memphis.


Here is another fishy passage about Bledsoe's grades from the story I linked to in an earlier post:
"The report released Friday says that a grade-change form for the first term of the class was dated Dec. 12, 2008 with Webster's name printed on it and signed by the Parker night school principal. The grade-change form for the second term of Algebra 3 is dated nearly a month earlier -- Nov. 14, 2008 -- than the first term's grade-change form, the report says. The second-term grade change form also shows the teacher's name printed and signed by the night-school principal, according to the report.
The grade changes for the two terms were entered into the school's computer system on April 28, 2009, according to the report.
Two days after the report says Bledsoe's final Algebra 3 grade was entered in the computer, Bledsoe took an official visit to the University of Memphis. He then visited Kentucky a couple of days later."
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Both had recruited him for a while. UK recruited him when Billy Gillispie was HC too.
 

Another interesting tibdbit: the teacher who's grade change for Bledsoe was deemed "not credible" also has a felony conviction on his record (which the school board apparently did not know about until recently):

"Parchman, the school board attorney, said the system will investigate not only Webster's actions regarding grades, but also a 2006 Class C felony conviction after Webster pleaded guilty to possession of marijuana and received a suspended sentence. She said the school system officials were unaware of the conviction until asked about it by The Birmingham News.

State Schools Superintendent Joe Morton said Friday that the state Department of Education may ask for a copy of the Bledsoe report and will also investigate the felony conviction against Webster, who teaches math at Wenonah High School in the Birmingham system. It is allowable, Morton said, for a person with a criminal record to teach if cleared by the state department."

http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2010/09/bledsoe_report_teachers_claim.html
 

OSUfan said:
Another interesting tibdbit: the teacher who's grade change for Bledsoe was deemed "not credible" also has a felony conviction on his record (which the school board apparently did not know about until recently):

"Parchman, the school board attorney, said the system will investigate not only Webster's actions regarding grades, but also a 2006 Class C felony conviction after Webster pleaded guilty to possession of marijuana and received a suspended sentence. She said the school system officials were unaware of the conviction until asked about it by The Birmingham News.

State Schools Superintendent Joe Morton said Friday that the state Department of Education may ask for a copy of the Bledsoe report and will also investigate the felony conviction against Webster, who teaches math at Wenonah High School in the Birmingham system. It is allowable, Morton said, for a person with a criminal record to teach if cleared by the state department."

http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2010/09/bledsoe_report_teachers_claim.html
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Back seat driving in the rear view mirror.
 

Well, per Andy Katz, the NCAA has said this case is closed since the Birmingham School Board is not going to change his transcript. Teflon John escapes again.
 

OSUfan said:
Well, per Andy Katz, the NCAA has said this case is closed since the Birmingham School Board is not going to change his transcript. Teflon John escapes again.
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Beldsoe's name is Eric, not John. Calipari had nothing to do with this.
 


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