A little bit of must reading as you listen to announcers getting sentimental about Georgetown's trip to the Final Four under John Thompson Jr.:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/30/sports/ncaabasketball/30georgetown.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5087%0A&em&en=56a8077259c31119&ex=1175486400

It's a story of how a player with a 1.33 GPA whose high school transcript had 9 passing grades and 12 F's (including Phys Ed) got admitted into Georgetown (where the average SAT score is about 1400).

The player, who transferred to another Division 1 school this season, was a two time state player of the year who passed through a prep school that the NCAA no longer will accept credits from. His own high school coach openly questioned how he could have gotten into Georgetown.

Here's the fun part.

The article quotes Georgetown University President John J. DeGioia as defending the player's admission and praising the character of players brought in by Coach John Thompson Jr. In one of those breathtakingly insipid statements only an academic can make, he said "I think if you look at the whole picture, and you look at the folks that John has brought in, I think you will find a deep resonance with the tradition and the standards and the character of the program."

DeGioia is probably right about the player fitting into the tradition and standards and character of the program, which is kind of the problem. John Thompson Sr. started that tradition by crying racism any time anyone questioned whether his players met the school's academic standards. In some cases he made valid points about the hypocrisy of college sports, but fawning sports writers and announcers seldom made the connection that his views on the subject meshed with his need to get the best athletes on the court at Georgetown regardless of their academic ability.

Now you could be an optimist and say Georgetown's other players all had far better academic records than this one recruit's. And you could wait in your yard to be struck by an asteroid that you just know will fall out of the sky tonight at 9:37 PM.

What Georgetown did to the player the Times article highlights is the issue and not what they did for him. Georgetown is not a campus where someone who was failing the majority of their high school classes will thrive academically. The article quotes a former football recruit with an 1170 SAT who later dropped football. He summed up the situation by saying "I can't really see where they thought he was going to make it here." Indeed.

So what's the point? Is Georgetown worse than the school it defeated last weekend (the University of North Carolina)? Only in terms of degree. Both recruit players who aren't viable candidates for admission, then manage to keep them afloat long enough to get degrees (or not). What this case does point out is in an ethical swamp, Georgetown appears to be one of the biggest alligators.

You won't hear announcers say that this weekend. The road to the Final Four is full of empty platitudes about what a great school Georgetown is and what fine men John Thompson Jr. and Sr. are. The Georgetown story will be made to sound like an episode of "The Waltons" before CBS gets done.

One more irony for the road. President DeGioia is a member of the Knight Commission, the watchdog group for college athletics. Wonder how that's working out for him.

And a final quote, from the outgoing student body president at Georgetown. "To be honest with you, I think as long as they win, that's the most important thing for most people." Now there's a student whose Georgetown education wasn't wasted on him.