By far the worst situation, the most shocking, is at St. Bonaventure. St. Bonaventure's story began as a case of academic fraud. Player Jamil Terrell was found to have been accepted as a transfer from Coastal Community College in Brunswick, Georgia with only a certificate in welding. The NCAA requires that junior college transfers have a certain number of minimum credits in such core areas as English, history, and science. Terrell's welding certificate does not qualify.
As any college basketball fan knows, academic fraud is unfortunately not unusual. St. Bonaventure President Robert Wickenheiser personally took responsibility for approving Terrell's transfer. As always happens when administrators and coaches cheat, the players on the team who were not involved in the scandal suffer. Terrell had played in twenty-five games, and started eighteen. St. Bonaventure was informed that the team would forfeit six of its conference victories and be ineligible for the Atlantic Ten conference tournament.
Angry over paying for the mistakes of the administration, the players voted not to play the remaining two games on St. Bonaventure's schedule. Although it is understandable that young players angry and hurt about paying for a scandal which they did not bring about would act in this manner, the decision was wrong. Players are given full scholarships- scholarships inner city youth who cannot play basketball well would kill for- in exchange for playing to the best of their ability at all times. The players have a responsibility to follow through on their commitment and play, regardless of what adversity they may face.
The St. Bonaventure coaches and administrators should have stepped forward at that point and explained to the players that adversity is a part of life, that paying for the mistakes of others is something everyone, from garbagemen to the President of the country, will spend a great deal of time doing throughout their lives. The players should have been told that, if their choice was to fail to live-up to their end of their scholarship commitments, that they would lose their scholarships. The coaches should have immediately recruited the necessary number of walk-ons and played the final two games on the schedule.
Instead, the administrators and coaches chose to allow the players to quit the season and to take no disciplinary action and no action toward fielding a team.
