After Georgetown’s successful run to the Final Four, Assistant Coach Kevin Broadus was named head basketball coach at Binghamton University last Monday. Broadus came under fire after the New York Times reported that one of the players he recruited, Marc Egerson, received an F as a final grade in 12 courses at his Delaware public high school.
p. The Times reported that Egerson had a grade point average of 1.33 in core subjects such as math, science and English. Not only did he never receive a grade higher than a C in these classes, but he also failed physical education freshman year. While at the public high school, his SAT score was in the 600s.
p. Egerson was recruited after he achieved a better academic standing at Lutheran Christian Academy, a private prep school in Philadelphia. He received a scholarship to play on the Georgetown basketball team in 2005. He left the Hoyas in January, transferring to the University of Delaware. Delaware’s coach, Monte Ross, who recruited Egerson, told the Times that he had “absolutely positively not” failed out of Georgetown.
p. When Binghamton’s Athletic Director Joel Thirer heard that Broadus had recruited Egerson, he told the Times, “Georgetown University accepted a kid like that? Wow.”
p. John J. DeGioia, Georgetown University’s president, defended Egerson’s admission.
p. “Marc fit very well into the Georgetown community,” he said, according to the Times. “There was never a question of his being a part of this community.”
p. When a Times reporter offered to show him Egerson’s public high school transcript, DeGioia refused.
p. “It wouldn’t matter if I saw it now,” he said.
p. While most collegiate coaches refuse to recruit players from Lutheran Christian, the Times reported that Broadus recruited several other players from the unaccredited prep school.
Georgetown does not allow its assistant coaches to speak to the news media, and requests by the New York Times to interview Broadus were declined.
p. John Kaszuba, a student with a 1170 on the SAT, told the Times that he was admitted because he played football.
p. The former Georgetown student body president Nick Murchison told the Times that most students and teachers were not concerned with the situation.
p. “To be honest with you, I think as long as they win, that’s the most important thing for most people,” he said.
p. After the NCAA heard about the players Broadus recruited, as well as several other similar incidents, they changed rules regarding unaccredited prep schools in 2006. Transcripts for potential athletes are no longer accepted from Lutheran Christian at NCAA sanctioned schools.