And what’s worse – this is slowly spreading across the New Jersey media. I first heard about the news last night when my roommate told me that the Asbury Park Press was running a story on the suspensions. Hearing this, I went over to the Hawks Nest blog and found the linked article (which I made a comment on, by the way – more on that later). Then this morning I received an e-mail from a friend with a link to a story on the Star-Ledger’s website talking about the suspensions. I’m just waiting for the Pressbox at New Jersey Newsroom to pick up the story and then pretty much all of the sites where I go to get news on the Monmouth basketball team will be covering the story. It’s ridiculous.

The situation itself, though, is pretty pathetic and here’s why. If we believe that there is really an academic problem with these students (and I have no reason to not believe that poor academic performance is the cause for the suspensions), then you have four students who obviously just received their final grades for the fall semester and they failed. Sure, I could go on about how I graduated from Monmouth and the classes aren’t that hard and the students should be able to pass them with flying colors, etc, but that’s not only not the point, it’s also unfair to the students. But what I am pretty aggravated about is the fact that three of these kids are juniors and you don’t just magically underperform academically in your third year of college. If you made it that far in college (especially as an athlete), then you should be performing at a fairly successful level in the classroom.

However, if you’ve made it to your junior year of college and you’re not performing successfully in the classroom and you’re a student athlete, then you shouldn’t be on the team, period. But here’s the part that bothers me – someone had to see this coming with these three junior students! You mean to tell me in a big-time, Division I basketball program that plays in a $57 million building that there’s no one assigned to watch over these student athletes academically? They have no team-based tutor or some other such position that could have said to the coaching staff, “Hey – so and so on the team needs some extra study time because they’re going to fail whatever class.” That doesn’t exist? Come on!

But the biggest concern that I have about this story concerns Jordan Davis, the freshman who is suspended. What is going on at Monmouth that a young kid like Davis can’t pass his first semester classes? Typically, the first semester at Monmouth is filled with 101 or 050 (remedial) classes. These classes are really, really easy to pass because the content is so easy to grasp. Usually first semester classes are more of a test of self-confidence and college preparedness for most college students rather than a test on classroom content. And I don’t really blame Davis for his poor academic performance because if he failed some of these freshmen level classes then he clearly is in need of additional help. And if he’s in need of additional help I absolutely cannot believe that Monmouth was unaware of that fact when they asked him to come and play for them.

So where was the additional help for this young man? And where was the additional help for the three junior students? Where is the concern for a student’s academic performance? Hell, I’d be more than happy to sit down with these students and tutor them – someone needs to watch out for their best interests!

Anyway, you’ll remember that a few paragraphs up I reported that I made a comment on the Hawks Nest blog. It was in response to someone else’s comment that, I thought, was dead on accurate. Here is the comment that I responded to:

As usual, the “bunker mentality’ has taken over. Phone calls not returned etc. The spin may go something like this. “After reviewing the events of this past season which the Administration deems to have been out of his control, we will be extending Coach Callowy’s contract for an additional one year period. The Administration feels confident that Coach Calloway will continue to make the progress that was seen last year up until the unfortuante loss of personnel due to academic suspensions.”

Look, I don’t have anything against Coach Calloway or how he chooses to run his team. I’ve never been a head coach and I don’t think that I ever will be so I really don’t have much to say about any of the anti-Calloway stuff going around. But I have been an organizational leader and a public relations person that had to deal with the press and I have a lot to say about the “bunker mentality” that tends to take over every single situation at Monmouth University. Here is the response that I posted to the comment above:

jflan is right about the “bunker mentality” taking over. It’s like my fellow MU alumni and I have been saying for the last two years – there are 57 million different reasons why that bunker mentality needs to be broken at ALL levels of this school’s administrative structure. You don’t get to spend that type of money to build that type of structure and yet hold on to the quiet vestiges of yesteryear.

Time for the MU administration to grow up and answer the questions. Or… they risk keeping the school an irrelevant “hidden gem.”

Like I said in my response above – you don’t get to spend $57 million on a 4,100 seat arena and then start having media blackouts when big stories like this hit your sports teams. It’s well past time for an upgrade in the university’s administration and public relations that is on par with the upgrade in its facilities.

Jesse Steele on defense

Your best review of the game including post-game quotes from the Hawks head coach Dave Calloway and some of the players will come from Tony Graham at The Hawks Nest. Here is a quote from Jordan Davis that appeared on The Hawks Nest after the game tonight. I think Davis’ quote pretty much sums up the game tonight:

“We just never give up,” Davis said. “We keep fighting and we keep fighting. Today was a perfect example. We came back and finished it up.”

I have a bunch of comments that I’d like to make about this game on a variety of topics, but I’m exhausted and I have to be awake early in the morning to get to work. The two comments that I’ll make right now before I turn in, though, is that Phil Wait had a monster game tonight and I use the term “monster” because I think tonight was the first time that I saw him really dominate on defense. Here’s a guy who is some seven feet tall and the idiots on Bryant’s squad were dumb enough to run directly into him. If I’m not mistaken, that happened twice and both time the poor fool that ran into him fell on their ass with no foul called. The second time it happened I said to my buddy, “That’s what happens when you run directly into a brick wall.”

Here’s hoping that Wait has more performances like he had tonight against the rest of the Northeast Conference competition.

The second comment that I’ll make is that I love when the Hawks get focused and aggressive in their play. Going into the second half, I think it was obvious to any fan watching that something changed in the team’s play. As a guy who played sports at a highly competitive level, I’m always looking for that type of aggressive and diligent performance from the athletes. Sometimes it’s hard to find that with the Hawks (especially during the first half of their home games). However, the Hawks that played in the second half of tonight’s game were focused and aggressive and it showed. They outscored Bryant 36 to 9 in the last 18 minutes of the game.

That’s something to be proud of and the Hawks should be proud of their performance in the second half tonight.

Below are some 36 pictures from tonight’s game. Sorry, no captions right now since I’m rushing to get to bed. I’ll try to come back tomorrow with some additional thoughts on the game embedded within this post. Check back tomorrow after 5pm to see if I have any additional thoughts and some of the captions for these pictures. In the mean time, enjoy!

Justin Sofman on Defense

However, as a Hawk fan I was glad to see our guys win. Overall, I thought the Monmouth defense was sluggish in the first half, but much better in the second half. It seemed like some of the players may have taken Bryant for granted and thus didn’t expect to be behind by almost ten points a few minutes into the game. Also, I’d be remiss if I didn’t say that some of the Hawks didn’t seem to have their heads in the game for the first half. On that note, if you head over to The Hawk’s Nest blog on the Asbury Park Press website, you’ll see that there are some interesting “notes” for the game. One of the notes says that Dutch Gaitley started for the Hawks last night because Freshman Ed Waite came late to the pregame shoot around. Frankly, Waite’s play seemed to be affected by his not starting the game. Some of that may be age-related, but since I don’t know the entire story of why he was late to the pregame shoot around, I can’t be sure of the circumstances.

Yet it wasn’t just Waite who seemed distracted last night. Another Hawk walked off the court after being substituted out and yelled, “Fuck!” because he wasn’t happy with his performance. The same player did the same thing a little bit later in the game. That’s not acceptable. Being a college athlete is not an easy responsibility to shoulder and I understand that pressure. However, there’s little that can be said to defend a player when he walks off the court and yells “Fuck!” twice in one game.

At the end of the day, though, Monmouth is on a four game winning streak and making waves in the Northeast Conference (NEC). Their next home game is on Thursday, January 21st against Saint Francis of Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, I will not be at that game because – fortunately – I will be teaching that night. I’ll be back watching the Hawks and taking pictures on Saturday, January 23rd when the Hawks take on Robert Morris – a game that will be broadcast on MSG.

Some other thoughts from the game…

One of the pictures below shows some Bryant fans with signs supporting their team. I thought that was great – even though the team is down 18 straight games, their fans are making the trips to away games and bringing signs to show their support. That’s great. I’m always impressed with Head Coach Dave Calloway and the way that he commands his team on the court. He’s got to be the hardest working coach in the NEC, hands down. Also, Travis Taylor started off the game a little bit slow, but I thought that he did a great job on defense. Take a look at one of the pictures below where Taylor blocked a Bryant player’s shot like it was no big thing. Taylor is a tough player and a great asset for the Hawks. Not enough good can be said for Will Campbell and his consistent levelheadedness under pressure. Campbell sunk five separate three point shots, two of which were in the last few minutes to seal the victory for the team. Very impressive. Some more on Campbell’s game-winning pair of three pointers from The Hawk’s Nest:

Campbell, who ended with a game high 19 points, sent Monmouth in front 64-62 connecting from the right corner with two minutes left.

With 15 seconds remaining Campbell struck again from the right wing after Monmouth coach Dave Calloway called time with seven seconds showing on the shot clock.

“Obviously on that last play there, we’re looking for Travis (Taylor) or Will,”
Calloway said. “Those were the two calls.”

Bryant (0-16, 0-4), which has lost 18 games in a row dating back to last season, double-teamed Taylor and point guard James Hett got the ball to Campbell.

“James made the right decision and went towards Will and Will hit a big shot,” Calloway said.

Below you’ll find nearly 30 pictures from last night’s game. I’ve been trying to refine the pictures a little bit more than from the first few games so that they all don’t look exactly the same (it’s a basketball game and I have a stationary seat, what do you expect?!). Enjoy.