By Eamonn Brennan
Ken Mink's is by now a familiar tale. The Roane State College walk-on who was according to his account falsely accused of delinquency as a college hoopster in 1956, revived his career this year at the ripe age of 73. It's a goofy little feel-good story about a man fighting back against the march of time. Or something. It's really just an old dude that gets to sit on a basketball bench for a season, but it's fun, so I blog about it.
Anyway, there's some slightly shocking news regarding Mink, news that you might want to be sitting down for. (Are you sitting? Of course you are. You're at a computer.) It seems Mink has lost his eligibility after failing a Spanish class, and his team is being asked to forfeit a game. College kids these days. Does the "student" in "student-athlete" mean nothing to them?
The NCJAA reportedly ruled that Mink had not maintained the minimum required number of credits an athlete must pass in a semester in order to remain eligible to participate in sports. "I told coach (Randy Nesbit) early on that I was having trouble in Spanish," Mink told the News Sentinel.
Fearing he might fail the Spanish class, Mink said he enrolled in a Sociology class on another campus, hoping that a passing grade there would give him the credits he needed to retain his eligibility. But that class was apparently completed too late to apply to the semester in question.
Mink is contending that it's the administration's fault for not sorting out his transfer to the Sociology class, and that he shouldn't be blamed for the eligibility issues. First of all, as Rush the Court notes, that sounds conspicously familiar to Mink's explanation for his original dismissal in 1956.
Second of all, sorry, Ken. That's not how it works. Believe it or not, I went to college, and in college if you're failing a class you have to drop it before the drop deadline. What's more, you don't just get to pick up another class on another campus. You take a "W" on your record and you deal with it. (If you play your cards right, you sneak out of Indiana University with a way better GPA than if you had stayed in Finite Math for a whole semester.) In any case, Mink was the one failing Spanish in the first place. He has to take the rap on this.
And here we were, still innocently thinking some college athletes cared about their educations. For shame, Ken Mink. For shame.
Related: Ill-behaved People, Peculiarity, Mid-Majors and Below
Ken Mink's is by now a familiar tale. The Roane State College walk-on who was according to his account falsely accused of delinquency as a college hoopster in 1956, revived his career this year at the ripe age of 73. It's a goofy little feel-good story about a man fighting back against the march of time. Or something. It's really just an old dude that gets to sit on a basketball bench for a season, but it's fun, so I blog about it.
Anyway, there's some slightly shocking news regarding Mink, news that you might want to be sitting down for. (Are you sitting? Of course you are. You're at a computer.) It seems Mink has lost his eligibility after failing a Spanish class, and his team is being asked to forfeit a game. College kids these days. Does the "student" in "student-athlete" mean nothing to them?
The NCJAA reportedly ruled that Mink had not maintained the minimum required number of credits an athlete must pass in a semester in order to remain eligible to participate in sports. "I told coach (Randy Nesbit) early on that I was having trouble in Spanish," Mink told the News Sentinel.
Fearing he might fail the Spanish class, Mink said he enrolled in a Sociology class on another campus, hoping that a passing grade there would give him the credits he needed to retain his eligibility. But that class was apparently completed too late to apply to the semester in question.
Mink is contending that it's the administration's fault for not sorting out his transfer to the Sociology class, and that he shouldn't be blamed for the eligibility issues. First of all, as Rush the Court notes, that sounds conspicously familiar to Mink's explanation for his original dismissal in 1956.
Second of all, sorry, Ken. That's not how it works. Believe it or not, I went to college, and in college if you're failing a class you have to drop it before the drop deadline. What's more, you don't just get to pick up another class on another campus. You take a "W" on your record and you deal with it. (If you play your cards right, you sneak out of Indiana University with a way better GPA than if you had stayed in Finite Math for a whole semester.) In any case, Mink was the one failing Spanish in the first place. He has to take the rap on this.
And here we were, still innocently thinking some college athletes cared about their educations. For shame, Ken Mink. For shame.
Related: Ill-behaved People, Peculiarity, Mid-Majors and Below
