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Sporting News, The, Dec 23, 1996 by Steve Harrison

Bad boys?

Renegades. Misfits. Attitudes. These stereotypes sound a little like snobbery (Even Harvard signed a JC player. Kevin Fricka made the jump from Saddleback (Calif.) Community College in 1993-94.), but four-year and junior college coaches agree on this: An athlete with high hopes is in junior college for a reason, be it academic or athletic flaws.

The number of JC stars who never complete their eligibility is startling. Curtis Carrington, a first-team All-American guard in 1993-94, went from Atlanta Metro College to Georgia and flunked out after one season. Raul Hagins, another first-team All-American that year, never played a game for Clemson because he failed to graduate from Anderson (S.C.) College. Last season, Tyrone Foster, a JC All-American in 1994-95, had a solid year for Oklahoma--he was second in the Big Eight in assists--but was kicked off the team for academic shortcomings.

"Part of the reason with the inconsistency with the better players at our level is with the limitations placed on recruiters," Dodge City (Kan.) Community College coach Chad Wintz says. "Coaches can't always have the time to see what's underneath."

"A lot of times the reason they are in junior college to start with is they messed up somewhere," Northeast Mississippi's Lewis says. "Sometimes something motivates certain ones. Some do and some don't."

The scandal at New Mexico State last year has been a public-relations bomb for junior colleges. After two assistant coaches allegedly arranged fraudulent correspondence courses for six recruits from the Southeastern Assemblies of God College in Lakeland, Fla., the NCAA banned New Mexico State from recruiting JC players for next season and the '98-99 season. What message does that send?

Last season, Arkansas JC transfers Pate and Sunday Adebayo were snagged by eligibility problems that forced them to miss most of last season and leave Arkansas. (Pate is playing in the CBA and Adebayo is at Memphis.) And last November, Auburn JC players Moochie Norris and Chris Davis were declared ineligible because of suspect credits from the Southeastern Assemblies of God College.

The cracks in what has often been a JC degree factory are closing, however. Upon transferring to a four-year school, a JC player must sit out a year if he was a non-qualifier out of high school and has failed to complete 35 percent of the requirements in his four-year school's degree program. If a JC player was a non-qualifier out of high school, he can take only nine hours of summer school after his last JC season to graduate and be eligible at a four-year school that fall. (This was passed after Mississippi State's Jones took an absurd 36 hours in the spring and summer to graduate from Northeast Mississippi.)

Higher NCAA standards should mean better prepared JC transfers, who can better handle the academics at four-year schools. These new rules are not draconian. They should not bounce kids out of school, into the NBA or anywhere else, they will simply force players to learn where the library is. And that will help many more JC players reach their potential on and off the court.