Integrity - Required for SMU's Basketball Coach

[Cheesesteak]

In addition to evaluating coaching ability and recruiting skills, etc., I expect the SMU Basketball Search Committe to place a high value on each candidates professional integrity.

Obviously, Jim Harrick Jr. won't be a candidate but I would not support any potential coach that has demonstrated a lack of integrity.


Cake walk
Final exam in Harrick Jr.'s class at Georgia was absurdly easy
Wednesday March 3, 2004
Sports Illustrated.com

ATHENS, Ga. (AP) -- Talk about a slam dunk.

Most college students dream of getting a final exam with easy questions like: How many goals are on a basketball court? How many quarters are in a high school basketball game? How many points does a 3-point field goal account for?


To top it off, there are multiple choice answers.

Those were among the questions about basic basketball knowledge on the final exam, and only test, that students took in Georgia assistant men's basketball coach Jim Harrick Jr.'s Coaching Principles and Strategies of Basketball class in the fall of 2001.

The 20-question test and transcripts of interviews with some of the students in Harrick's class were among 1,500 pages of documents released Wednesday by the university in its response to the NCAA regarding four rules violations in the basketball program.

The university agreed with the NCAA's findings, which included violations of academic fraud and improper benefits.

The NCAA concluded Harrick Jr. "fraudulently awarded grades of A to three men's basketball student-athletes" enrolled in the course he taught in the fall 2001 semester by allowing them to miss class and tests. Harrick Jr. also allegedly provided an extra benefit to student athletes by the manner in which he conducted the course, the NCAA found.

After the allegations came to light, Georgia last March chose not to renew the contract of Harrick Jr., the son of former head Georgia men's basketball coach Jim Harrick.

An attorney for the Harricks said Wednesday that Harrick Jr. would not comment, and that a federal lawsuit filed last week is their response. That lawsuit accuses university officials and others of defamation.

According to the documents, one of Harrick's students called the final exam in the class, "the easiest thing that I've ever taken."

"I remember when he assigned that, you know, he didn't seem to care if anybody showed up to take the final because he said, 'Well, if you know of anybody who is not here who needs to take the final, just tell them to come by my office. It's no big deal,"' the unnamed student told attorney Ed Tolley, who conducted the school's investigation of the charges, according to the transcript.

The names of Harrick's students who were interviewed were blacked out in the papers.

"He always joked with us about the NCAA, you know, about all kinds of stuff, never really seemed to take it seriously," the same student said.

All the students in the class were given an A grade, according to the documents.

In its investigation, school attorneys said they contacted 18 of Harrick's 39 students, who all said they took the test, but said that scholarship basketball players -- Chris Daniels, Rashad Wright and Tony Cole, a former player, did not take it.

It was Cole who who went public last year with his allegations of receiving academic and financial benefits from the coaching staff.

Another student-athlete in the class told Amy Chisholm, Georgia's assistant athletic director for compliance, in an interview in March 2003 that it was a "fairly easy class."

The final "was short and easy," the student-athlete said. "A lot of times Harrick Junior would not come to class towards the end so I do not remember any study sessions for the final. I think I did well on the final."