Crimson Red Sports

http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2012/02/darius_philon_was_more_committ.html

 :shake:

 :deadhorse: There was no scholarship pulled away, it was only delayed. Both of these players had serious knee surgery, which in most cases take months to fully heal and then more time is needed to get their agility back as far as playing shape is concerned. The grayshirt would have benefited both, they would have the time to heal and get back in playing shape as well as get their scholarship at a later date.

I'm thinking each wanted their day in front of the media for their big splash, signing, but the grayshirt does take this away. If they really wanted to play for Bama the grayshirt would have made no difference. There have been players this week that turned down scholarships at other schools to walk on Bama, these are players that wanted to wear that crimson jersey and I say Roll Tide to them, and hope they will earn their scholarship and wear that crimson jersey on gameday in front of 100,000 plus fans, something that a particular two will not. Roll Tide!!

Indeed, Roll Tide. 
I wish them both well.

Not a bad place to have to go to a SEC school. Free ride for an education. We had to pay for my daughters education at Bama.

I am tired of hearing this stuff. If anything those kids are victims of the SEC's new oversigning policy. They could have waited until August to enroll at Bama.

Eli Gold this morning on radio (The Zone):

"I've got to believe the kid knew he was being greyshirted."

Good discussion, and Eli acknowledged that CNS was in a difficult position.

Asked, "Don't you think coaches should honor their offers?"
Eli: "Yes, but there is a broad range of conditions and circumstances (paraphrased), give and take."

I understand the disappointment the kids feel when asked to greyshirt but a parent or coach should step in and talk some sense into them. They are injuried and unable to train and get ready for next season. If they signed they would be redshirted. By accepting the greyshirt they delay enrolling by one semester. They get to finish high school and have time to get healed up. They will get to go through spring practice next year which gives them a head start on other incoming freshman. They will also be a year older and a little more mature when they get to campus.

Part of CNS success is getting the players to buy into his process. These kids did not buy in and choose to go to other good schools in the SEC. Good luck to them. I hope they have good careers. CNS has to made difficult personnel decisions everyday. I'm sure he tries to be honest and as fair as possible with each recruit but the overall team must come first.

This kind of yellow journalism is going to continue as long as CNS is at Bama and Bama continues to kick tail in every conceivable way. It's good to be hated. ;)

The press in general is always looking for bad news or to put some bad news spin on a story.  Scarbo is well known for his anti-Bama bias, so stories like this come as no surprise.

This is a loose-loose situation.  The kids don't want to accept the consequences of the bad luck of an injury/surgery situation.  The schools (Bama) work with them as best they can but circumstances with other recruits intervene in the process.  A greyshirt is not the worst thing especially for an injured player.  I would argue that Bama kept it's committment, it just had to delay the start of the offer for the good of the overall team.  If there weren't this 25 player cap, this issue might have been different, (or it might have been the same with other players.)

At the end of it all, players and coaches have to make choices.  The player could have come to Bama a semester later and a whole lot healthier.  He chose not to.  Godspeed young man.  Hope it works out for you.

I hope he sets records at Arkansas, (except when Bama is playing them)

I feel bad for him but at the same time He will get a good education and play in the SEC, i think he will be fine.

I don't know ALL of the details, and neither do the media types...but my guess is that it played out something like this.

1.  He knew he could be impacted by the number crunch.
2.  He chose to keep his focus on Bama, even though he knew it might not work out, because it was his dream.
3.  When it didn't work out, he was crushed.

All of this would be normal for a teenager.  So, I don't see anything overly unusual about how this played out...he saw a dream slipping away from him and it hurt, hell yeah, it hurt...and then he had to go out in front of a camera and deal with it...hey, no pressure there...

Everyone has had some sort of big thing in their life turn out in a disappointing manner.   I know I have...  However, most of us don't have to go through it while in front of a TV camera, and have it reported statewide, or even further after it happens.

So, the media types doing all the moral grandstanding on this should do the following;

1.  Stop promoting the widespread coverage and hype, yes, you are part of this
2.  When something like this crops up, engage that moral compass that you purport to have and turn the da#@ camera off !!!   How long did they keep the camera on him after he spoke and was just there fidgeting?   They knew quite well that he was uncomfortable.

As a secondary note, he could have gotten some better support from the adults around him, coach, parents, etc.   When he knew what was going down, somebody should have just had him NOT go to the big announcement show.   Then, in private, he could better evaluate the situation, and make a decision, not under duress...and not while overly emotional...

I bet at a later time, having the benefit of hindsight, he will realize that his decision to go to Arkansas was made hastily, and emotionally, and blocked out his long term dream, which was to go to Bama... 

And that sucks for everyone, except the media leaches, who got their big story... >:(

I have no ill feeling toward this young man. He's a kid, he's disappointed, and I feel bad about that.

But to all the grown folk, let's just step back here a minute.

Johnny Smith is accepted to (insert school of self-righteous whiner). He is told that his admission/scholarship is contingent upon him maintaining his grades. He doesn't. He either loses his scholarship or even his offer of admission.

Bob Smith gets a scholarship to play football at (insert school of self-righteous whiner). In January he is involved in a tragic car accident and loses both of his legs. Does (insert school of self-righteous whiner) honor his scholarship offer and medical red-shirt him for 4 years. I don't think so.

My point is that these kids are getting a scholarship for what they will do, not for what they have done. The scholarship is to support them while they play football. If they can't play football they are not entitled to a scholarship. And pulling a scholarship is not only rational, it is practiced widely in academic as well athletic circles.

The media is making much more of this than is necessary. I was listening to WNSP (The Whining about Nick Saban Program) here in Mobile this morning, and Mark Heim and some other goob he had with on this morning were painting CNS out to be the devil incarnate who squashed the dreams of this 18-year-old kid, saying that there was no way he knew about the grey shirt possibility prior to Wednesday. The problem with this is that these two idiots continued to accuse Bama fans calling in to question them that they(Bama fans) were making assumptions. Umm, well Mr. Heim, are you not also making an assumption?

I keep posting this, Scarbo is a school of journalism Florida graduate. So is Izzy Gould.

PF said on his show yesterday that he thought Philon was hasty in his decision to go to Arky and predicted that he would never see significant playing time there.

There were MANY more factors with Philon. He is from Prichard near Vigor HS, one of the toughest areas in the country. His grades are looking OK, his ACT score was way too low, bit that never came out, Saban 1st ASKED about a greyshirt 2 months ago, Philon vehemetly denied, about 4 or 5 weeks ago Bama staff suggested JuCo or prep school to get that ACT and get him out of the area, trying to give him other options beside a greyshirt so he could move away. For a reference point, there was a kid his age arrested yesterday (not sure if you guys saw on the news) in the area, the kid stabbed one officer in the neck killing him, through the bars of the police car, somehow injured 2 other officers, stole the police car, drove it a few blocks before the police caught and shot him, but not before he had entered a home and police had to smoke him out with tear gas and eventually shot the 18 year old. I tell you that story because he was a friend of Philon's growing up and a member of a local area gang that is really bad news, I'm not sure if Philon was involved in gang activity, but from a coach in that area, he was also pretty bad news and had a lot of terrible influences and needed to leave the area immediately, maybe to even stay alive, Saban tried his best to get him out even if it was a JuCo or prep school, the kid rejected it and when a spot wasn't there (Saban took Tomlinson instead, a 3.9 GPA student with great character and a 32 ACT score and a Harvard offer etc) he was desperate to get out of the area and Arkansas provided what Bama couldn't. I good he has a great career, I agree he rushed to a decision, but when you understand the whole story it makes a lot more sense.

Wow! Some of us followed the story in the "Daily Thread" yesterday concerning the Wallace boy. I had no idea that there was a connection there between him and Philon. You're right, Pritchard is a bad, bad area. He does need to leave there. Now, I'm kind of glad he is going to Arky. Maybe not the best decision, but it will at least get him away from there.

Thanks Tox, for the "rest of the story".

There are always 2 sides to every controversy.

Thanks for the post Tox. CNS has stated to us many times that no player has ever been run off intentionally from his program. There are always some circumstances that he had rather not reveal to the public that caused the player to leave or not come to Bama. Hopefully Philon will go to Arkansas or a Juco far away from the Mobile area and and find a way to clean his life up and get an education.

I wish someone like Finebaum could get his hands on this info and share it with the rest of the nation.

Great post!!  #+ #+

I agree, J. The other day, PF was pretty much slamming the kid.

Thanks for the info. The media uses mis-information to make unfair and unwarranted attacks on CNS.

Really, really appreciate the accurate news.

Thank you!

 #+

CNS does a great job in disguising these situations with these athletes. It's sad he has to do it this way and it's for the players benefit, but it lets folks like me somtimes come to the wrong conclusions about what really happened.

Thanks Tox. This puts a whole new light on the whole story. I agree, Prichard is no pacle for a young man to be if he wants to achieve anything in life. I hate it didn't work out for him here, but hopefully Arky will offer him a chance to make something of his life.

SUNDAY morning:

"Nick Saban's actions show commitment not two-way street..."
http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2012/02/nick_sabans_actions_show_commi.html

Mobile paper keeps trashing CNS, saying "What his actions have told future recruits, however, is that if you get hurt, that commitment isn't necessarily a two-way street."

IMHO, what it says is "unless you meet the NCAA academic requirements, plan on attending JC or taking a greyshirt, regardless of what school you'd prefer to attend."


Soapbox:  Few of these recruits are scholars; scholarship is a misnomer: "Grant-in-aid"

 :deadhorse:

http://bamahammer.com/2012/02/05/alabama-and-arkansas-media-narratives-paint-differing-picture-of-nick-saban/

Alabama and Arkansas Media Narratives Paint Differing Picture of Nick Saban


Arkansas media being more fair to CNS than Alabama media!

Since reading some of the information that has been provided I'm starting to wonder if there may have been more to Philon's situation than I first realized.

I may be wrong on this but doesn't a high school athlete have to provide his or her own insurance. If the answer is yes, and I'm sure it is, I am curious able Philon's insurance status, did he have any when he hurt his knee. It's been a while since he hurt it and nothing has been done. If that is the case I can see why the scholarship was so important to him because he could get his knee fixed then. Surely he was insured when he was playing in high school and if he was why hasn't the surgery already been done.

Personally I don't think he will qualify academically for Arkansas, what happens then? Will Patreno wrap his arm around this kid as Saban was trying to do and get him out of Prichard or will he let him go his own way? If he goes his own way I think we all know what the end result is there. Who knows, if he doesn't qualify for the Hogs maybe CNS will come back into the picture, let's hope so for Philon's sake.

I may be wrong on this but doesn't a high school athlete have to provide his or her own insurance. If the answer is yes, and I'm sure it is, I am curious able Philon's insurance status, did he have any when he hurt his knee. It's been a while since he hurt it and nothing has been done. If that is the case I can see why the scholarship was so important to him because he could get his knee fixed then. Surely he was insured when he was playing in high school and if he was why hasn't the surgery already been done.


Jamos, My son hurt his knee playing football for his high school in Texas. All the player were covered by an accident policy purchased by the athletic dept. that covered his medical expenses on an excess basis. If the players parents didn't have health insurance, the accident policy paid first with no deductible.
Our health insurance paid for all except the deductible. The accident policy picked up the ded. for us so no out of pocket.
I would think Philon's school would surely have a similar program.

I'm very curious about this since nothing has been done for the young man, it sounds like some bad decisions have been made since his injury then and I wonder who made the decisions.

Have you heard any of the Aub faithful question why Darius wasn't offered a scholarship to Auburn?  He was committed there at one time.  Aubs had room for him.

But they'd rather gripe than help him out with an offer.  Maybe it's because they ALSO knew that he was damaged goods and wouldn't qualify.   :eyeroll:

All HS athletes in the state of Alabama, no matter what sport, are required to carry insurance. If the parent is not able financially to carry it, ALLKids insurance will suffice.