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Dear Ole Miss Fans,
In recent weeks the saga of Jerrell Powe has played out for all fans of college football to see. Debate rages on the Internet and in coffee shops as to who is to blame for Powe’s inability to gain admission to the University of Mississippi and clearance from the NCAA to participate in college athletics.
Much of the blame has been laid at the feet of Chancellor Robert Khayat and Athletic Director Pete Boone. I find it appalling that many fans of Ole Miss would be so short-sighted as to as to blame these two men for this debacle.
As the former publisher of RebelSports.net I’ve been as involved in Ole Miss athletics as one can be without drawing a paycheck from the University. Now that I’m on the outside, I’m so glad I’m no longer there. Watching the event unfold has been sickening and I’m thankful I’m not there to have to cover it as part of my job.
People have completely lost sight of what’s important here.
It’s a game, they are all games…played by young men..almost children.
The sad truth is were the majority of ‘fans’ of Jerrell Powe to see him in a dark alley in Oxford, Waynesboro or Jackson they would put their hand on their wallet and move to the other side of the street.
They likely do not care if he ever earns a degree from Ole Miss or even attends a class. Just so long as he trots out on to the field on Saturday turns to the crowd and says “We who are about to die…” in the style of ancient Rome and plays until he drops. Then they are happy. So what if he tears up his knee, never plays another down, never gets to the NFL, and drops out of school? The only thing people will be then concerned about is whether his back up can at least maintain the level of output and not have that much of a drop off.
It’s a sick game in which the affluent in the South can still be entertained by young men. Those affluent care not about their well-being beyond 60 minutes on Saturdays.
Yet one player, who hasn’t produced a thing on a football field in years, is causing this much of an uproar?
It happens every year, a much-heralded recruit flops out of school or never makes it to fall camp. Most of the time fans chalk it up to a player lax in his academics or a coach who cares not about his players. This has been the case for numerous Ole Miss recruits like Dion Gales, Alton Pettway, and Aubrey McPhadden. All these players were linemen who could’ve helped Ole Miss in the trenches (Powe is a defensive lineman) but no one cares to trumpet their academic dreams as being dashed by a tyrannical Ole Miss Chancellor. Why? Because they weren’t five-star rated players who made such an egotistical fuss during their recruitment.
So Jerrell Powe, in the last three years, has attended Waynesboro High School, Christ Missionary and Industrial College High School, and Hargrave Military Academy all the while taking classes via the Internet through BYU and a school called Penn Foster High School.
Five schools and he can’t gain eligibility.
Why not champion a cause that makes sure it never happens again? Rather than holding Khayat accountable, what about the Mississippi public schools, his parents, his high school coach, or his guidance counselor? They’re the ones who have truly failed Jerrell Powe. He was allowed to float by for 13 years without anyone so much as raising a finger to help his learning disability.
And the only reason we’re aware of it is because of his abilities as a football player. How sad is that?
For every Powe there are 100 unnamed children who aren’t in college now and working some minimum wage job because their education system failed them.
All those that would blame Khayat – and the University – on this are as hypocritical a bunch as I have ever seen. He’s the one who’s trying to uphold academic standards in a state and at a University that is more concerned about cartoon mascots and flags than it is about education and health care.
Think about that this fall as you sit in your chair at Vaught-Hemingway.
Grant Gannon
Ole Miss ‘04
Dallas, TX
Great job, Grant. My thoughts exactly.
August 9th, 2007 at 8:14 am
Grant, you seem to have sports confused with state government and social issues. Is the Powe story indicitive of problems in the Mississippi school system? Absolutely, but without the added media interest generated by sports, he would be another nameless, faceless casuality of a failing system. As it is, we have all been made more aware of the problems the not only face this state, but many around the country. “How sad is that?” you ask. Not nearly as sad as never being aware of it. Either way, it is not the job of fans to “care if he ever earns a degree from Ole Miss or even attends a class.” If he is given an opportunity to get a free education and squanders it, that is on Mr. Powe, not the fans of the football program.
I disagree again with your absurd notion that football, “a sick game in which the affluent in the South can still be entertained by young men.” Sport, whether it is the World Cup, Major League Baseball, The Olympics, or college football, is a uniter of people from all social, racial, cultural, geographic, and economic backgrounds. Total strangers celebrate touchdowns, goals, and homeruns together in stadiums, bars, and cafes around the world. How on earth can you cast all these as “affluent,” or southern?
When I sit in Vaught-Hemmingway this fall, my thoughts will not be on health care, the school system, or your embarassingly underdevoloped rant. It will be on the Rebels, a drink with friends, and the comradery that being a sports fan brings.
August 9th, 2007 at 8:35 am
Let’s not forget about the NCAA’s failure in all of this. If the average Ole Miss fan doesn’t care about Jerrell Powe as a person, it’s certainly inexcusable. But the fact that the NCAA, champion of the “sutdent athelete” doesn’t care about Jerrell Powe as a person it’s downright dangerous. The fact is that the NCAA is making an example out of Powe, clearing other players with the same credentials, but in order to maintain their facade of academic integrity, they’ve made Powe the sacrificial lamb. If the NCAA really cared about Powe, they would either simply clear him or reject him instead of giving a bogus list of 27 items to show in order to stall enough for him not to play. It’s downright disgraceful. It’s this simple; Powe has an infinitely better chance of getting out of Wayne County where the school system and his situation failed him if he plays college football. If he isn’t cleared, sure, maybe he can try out and make an NFL roster, but the fact is he probably would just end up being another victim of the bush league governing body known as the NCAA that allows for four out of every five high school students good enough to play college football to never qualify. And now they’re raising the eligibilty standards under the guise of academic integrity, but the fact remains that recruiting and the college game will continue to be every bit as corrupt as it was before, and the NCAA will continue to be a joke of an organization and will continue to fail the “student athletes” that they claim to care about so much.
August 12th, 2007 at 11:22 am