LeQuint Allen is Back

[hoopsupstate]

I think this description illustrates why so many have issues with the penalty. It was one punch in self defense and the penalty imposed was huge, even if it began in the spring. LA would have had to try to take classes at another school to retain eligibility to play football. And another poster laid out the onerous process of regaining admission to SU - proof of classes taken elsewhere and/or records of employment, plus reference letters, and more. A student can't just serve a suspension and return.

I think that is what folks find so unfair. A judicial process that is capricious, a penalty far in excess of the offense, and then a gauntlet to return to school.

This is the judges out in this case. Capricious!

 

[cliftonparksufan]

Oh no, I'm going to rant. As someone who teaches in higher ed., this is one of my biggest bugaboos. An advanced degree is not customer service. It's a service to society. Well-educated people worldwide help buoy their national infrastructure and create technologically advanced societies that help raise the well-being of everyone.

A college degree SHOULD be about a life of the mind. It should be about gaining new perspectives and ideas to create a well-rounded individual who can think critically and act accordingly regarding the world around them. Unfortunately, the American education system is so fundamentally broken at both the elementary and high school levels and the university levels that so few students consider education a way to be productive citizens of an intelligent society.

I blame low-cost student loans. LBJ introduced the government-backed low-interest college loan system, which was a GREAT idea then. Universities and colleges shouldn't be free of charge, but high-achieving students who could make a difference in the world should have the opportunity to continue their education. Unintended consequences are unintended for a reason, and the consequences of this noble idea have helped to tear down the very structure of higher education.

Now that students could access higher education, enrollments started to climb. As competition between universities to grab the best students increased, these institutions decided they needed a better infrastructure to lure students. So they start building gyms, campus centers with myriad dining options, etc.. With all that new infrastructure, they need more employees and administrators to oversee these areas. Tuition started to rise, but for baby boomers and Gen X'ers who never thought they'd have a path to college, the increases were minuscule. The education and the jobs they would get from college overshadowed any slight tuition increase. With interest rates for student loans at 2 or 3%, the cost-benefit was a no-brainer.

People started looking at higher education as job training. As universities went nuts trying to lure students with everything except for better, more highly trained faculty, the arms race began in earnest. This is essentially the early to mid-'90s if you're looking for a time frame. Universities needed to give students all the creature comforts they could want as that would draw in more students. It also increased the cost of going there. It didn't matter, though, because higher education became a birthright for the middle class. Vocations and the military were dirty words for most households. That meant you were "stupid." College was the ONLY way to get ahead.

With this corroding of what a higher education experience meant historically (literally for 600 years, university education was about a "life of the mind"), people began viewing it as transactional. Prices became too high, and student loan interest rates increased mainly based on a formula from the original 1965 act. Many students in the mid-2000s dealt with interest rates as high as 8% on federal student loans. At a place like Syracuse, they were paying more than a quarter-million for a degree they would have to pay off for as long as a mortgage.

These high-interest rates and heightened tuition creep come to a head at the worst possible time - the 2009 recession. All of a sudden, these students can't get jobs, and the ones they are getting aren't cutting them to pay off these loans. Gen X parents and Millenial children become disenfranchised with the entire system (and rightly so) and look at college as a fully transactional customer service. No longer was it "I pay for an education." It was "I pay, and you give me a degree," and by the way, the customer is always right.

It all happened gradually and then all at once. I can tell you that the university I work at 100% looks at the student as the customer, and the customer IS always right. Their college experience is so different from the one you and I went through that it's completely foreign. The food options, the gyms, and the perks (water slides, lazy rivers, free ice cream trucks) are absurd. The quality of life is something they won't experience when they leave college. Paying for a gym membership that could even remotely compete with on-campus facilities would be astronomical. Administrative bloat is at an all-time high. I personally know of nearly a dozen campus administrators who get paid for doing nearly nothing. And they get paid VERY well. I'm not talking about senior admin here. I'm talking middle management types.

Faculty salaries, by and large, are stagnant. Universities decided a long time ago that to entice students, they needed to become country clubs. The education was ancillary. That callous attitude toward education by administrators has created the perfect storm of "I pay, you give me a degree." Education is only a tiny part of why the majority of kids go to college in the first place.

The higher ed. system in this country is built on a house of cards, and it will start tumbling in the next few years (it already has in some cases). Excellent private universities will start to fold within the next three to four years. The number of college-aged students has been rising for decades. For the first time in generations, that college-aged group is falling? Fewer students mean even more competition. Prominent state universities will continue to increase in size, gobbling up small privates in their sphere.

There are ways to fix this, but it will take a herculean effort. For now, though, my job has become akin to a Home Depot return specialist. I know they broke the tool themselves, but I have to give them what they want because that's our store policy. It blows, and it's terrible for everyone.

I told you I was going to rant. If you're interested in how we fix this mess - let me know. I can write another War and Peace on that subject.

What a gem of a great 12 paragraph post tucked within an unfortunate situation for Allen. Whether it belongs in here or not is hard to say, but it can be tied together.

First, to piggyback your comments, yesterday I read an article on St. Rose, a college that at one time had 4000 students and now down to 2800. They are deeply saddled in depth and could possibly face the same fate as Cazenovia College and quite possibly many more colleges in the next five or ten years. It's sad, but due to the reasons you describe, there will have to be a constriction throughout higher education.

Now, let's get back to LA. Many colleges have always been for more than the serious student. It's a four year maturity process where 18 to 22 year old leave home, many for the first time, and "discover" and "learn" many things in the process. Who you are at 18 isn't necessarily who you will be at 22 and probably not who you will be at 30, 40 or 50.

Without parents having the ability to write a check to cover college costs, and without a scholarship available, LA would need to use financial aid and supplement loans to pay for his education until he was reinstated somewhere with the ability to play football again in his future.

Whether he does that or not is almost secondary but shouldn't be. No matter how serious LA might be about his education, he will always be labeled a "football player" first. And he is a very good one, who could possibly have a future making good money. But, as any football fan knows, the road to a successful NFL career is usually a very short and bumpy one. And, for running backs, even shorter than the average position player.

So, hopefully LA is able to resume his education in the fall. Hopefully at Syracuse, but for his sake, somewhere that he can continue his educational path. Others have mentioned a school like OCC which could be a great stop gap if he needs to divert his path.

A lot of people who know LA talk about his great qualities. Let's hope this singular incident doesn't define him and he uses it to become even a greater man. For way after his football career is over.

 

[FrancoPizza]

At this point we won't hear more or anything substantial in this until the 19th, and even then I don't foresee is getting any good news.

I've resigned myself to the fact that our future star RB will never play here, and that it will impact the season, and it will impact recruiting, and it will impact whether or not certain staff members stick around, which will effect future recruiting and stability.

We are primed with the investments and renovations, with some stability and success, to take the next step up in consistency in recruiting - to get those top 35 classes and occasional top 30 classes needed for depth and talent.

To get more and more kids into the league. To keep improving recruiting, and thus, better and more successful seasons.

But the university leaders in general are so ucking short sighted and weak that they are going to throw away potentially tens of millions of dollars in windfall cash from an improved football program - increased attendance, booster engagement, program valuation, advertising revenue, merchandise, interest from future potential students - over one punch on a snowy December in 2022.

Because that's what this school has done since 1994. They have undervalued under appreciated the AD and in particular football, which drove significant revenue, and kept other non AD programs a float. When they pilfered the AD to pay for non AD expenses back in the 90s, instead of reinvestment in their cash cow.

It's been over multiple admins and an issue by many out of touch career administrators that doesn't change. It's cultural on The Hill. The culture is not promoting a strong AD to co-exist with a strong academic and research university. The culture has been stuck in an old school mentality of "nerds" and "jocks" - it's insanity.

LeQuint Allen is just another example of this. This is such an unforced black eye and error by the school. 85% of other schools and probably close to 95% of any P5 would have never let this get to this point.

SU won't respond of course because of ongoing litigation and are so GD by the book and they have a horrific PR team that is advised by overpaid lawyers that they can miss the obvious call.

So long story short, nothing will happen, nothing will change, and I expect Allen will transfer shortly after things go sideways in late July, and have a wonderful career elsewhere - probably Rutgers.

Thanks for the optimism

 

[CuseLegacy]

Axe is wrong

He missed the spring/summer semester suspension because he missed the first disciplinary hearing because his father passed away

His father didn't just die. He was murdered. I can't imagine being an 18 year old and having to deal with that and this bs with SU. Not much compassion on the part of SU in this situation.

 

[kcsu]

No consideration for his Dad being murdered? This whole situation seems so out of sorts. I understand he made a mistake but there has to be something that can be done to rectify this.

 

[310Pigpen]

His father didn't just die. He was murdered. I can't imagine being an 18 year old and having to deal with that and this bs with SU. Not much compassion on the part of SU in this situation.

It’s pretty disgusting really. He’s cooperating with the system, doesn’t lie and this is the lesson they want to teach?

 

[BigNastyJon]

Is there a Special Assistant in the athletics department that can fix this?

 

[Toga]

Can we compile a list of every egregious aspect of what happened regarding LE's suspension? I'll start:
- Zero empathy re his Dad just being murdered

Go

 

[721Comstock]

Can we compile a list of every egregious aspect of what happened regarding LE's suspension? I'll start:
- Zero empathy re his Dad just being murdered

Go

Literally wouldn’t allow him to bring up self-defense or the fact that the other student was the instigator.

Here’s an image of the court when he tried to do so:

 

[atlanticuse]

Oh no, I'm going to rant. As someone who teaches in higher ed., this is one of my biggest bugaboos. An advanced degree is not customer service. It's a service to society. Well-educated people worldwide help buoy their national infrastructure and create technologically advanced societies that help raise the well-being of everyone.

A college degree SHOULD be about a life of the mind. It should be about gaining new perspectives and ideas to create a well-rounded individual who can think critically and act accordingly regarding the world around them. Unfortunately, the American education system is so fundamentally broken at both the elementary and high school levels and the university levels that so few students consider education a way to be productive citizens of an intelligent society.

I blame low-cost student loans. LBJ introduced the government-backed low-interest college loan system, which was a GREAT idea then. Universities and colleges shouldn't be free of charge, but high-achieving students who could make a difference in the world should have the opportunity to continue their education. Unintended consequences are unintended for a reason, and the consequences of this noble idea have helped to tear down the very structure of higher education.

Now that students could access higher education, enrollments started to climb. As competition between universities to grab the best students increased, these institutions decided they needed a better infrastructure to lure students. So they start building gyms, campus centers with myriad dining options, etc.. With all that new infrastructure, they need more employees and administrators to oversee these areas. Tuition started to rise, but for baby boomers and Gen X'ers who never thought they'd have a path to college, the increases were minuscule. The education and the jobs they would get from college overshadowed any slight tuition increase. With interest rates for student loans at 2 or 3%, the cost-benefit was a no-brainer.

People started looking at higher education as job training. As universities went nuts trying to lure students with everything except for better, more highly trained faculty, the arms race began in earnest. This is essentially the early to mid-'90s if you're looking for a time frame. Universities needed to give students all the creature comforts they could want as that would draw in more students. It also increased the cost of going there. It didn't matter, though, because higher education became a birthright for the middle class. Vocations and the military were dirty words for most households. That meant you were "stupid." College was the ONLY way to get ahead.

With this corroding of what a higher education experience meant historically (literally for 600 years, university education was about a "life of the mind"), people began viewing it as transactional. Prices became too high, and student loan interest rates increased mainly based on a formula from the original 1965 act. Many students in the mid-2000s dealt with interest rates as high as 8% on federal student loans. At a place like Syracuse, they were paying more than a quarter-million for a degree they would have to pay off for as long as a mortgage.

These high-interest rates and heightened tuition creep come to a head at the worst possible time - the 2009 recession. All of a sudden, these students can't get jobs, and the ones they are getting aren't cutting them to pay off these loans. Gen X parents and Millenial children become disenfranchised with the entire system (and rightly so) and look at college as a fully transactional customer service. No longer was it "I pay for an education." It was "I pay, and you give me a degree," and by the way, the customer is always right.

It all happened gradually and then all at once. I can tell you that the university I work at 100% looks at the student as the customer, and the customer IS always right. Their college experience is so different from the one you and I went through that it's completely foreign. The food options, the gyms, and the perks (water slides, lazy rivers, free ice cream trucks) are absurd. The quality of life is something they won't experience when they leave college. Paying for a gym membership that could even remotely compete with on-campus facilities would be astronomical. Administrative bloat is at an all-time high. I personally know of nearly a dozen campus administrators who get paid for doing nearly nothing. And they get paid VERY well. I'm not talking about senior admin here. I'm talking middle management types.

Faculty salaries, by and large, are stagnant. Universities decided a long time ago that to entice students, they needed to become country clubs. The education was ancillary. That callous attitude toward education by administrators has created the perfect storm of "I pay, you give me a degree." Education is only a tiny part of why the majority of kids go to college in the first place.

The higher ed. system in this country is built on a house of cards, and it will start tumbling in the next few years (it already has in some cases). Excellent private universities will start to fold within the next three to four years. The number of college-aged students has been rising for decades. For the first time in generations, that college-aged group is falling? Fewer students mean even more competition. Prominent state universities will continue to increase in size, gobbling up small privates in their sphere.

There are ways to fix this, but it will take a herculean effort. For now, though, my job has become akin to a Home Depot return specialist. I know they broke the tool themselves, but I have to give them what they want because that's our store policy. It blows, and it's terrible for everyone.

I told you I was going to rant. If you're interested in how we fix this mess - let me know. I can write another War and Peace on that subject.

There is one tiny thing missing here - international students fund the charade which is higher education, especially things like business schools... They don't get loans, no scholarships - just pay their way in cash, right to the uni, and often (or sometimes?) live on campus out of fear of not knowing what to do in our society (leases, landlords, transportation, etc.). That last part is debatable, with those owning/renting big houses and driving fancy cars.

And now that - with crime and covid - has collapsed.

 

[DoctorBombay]

The "no-fault" nature of the repercussions is what really bothers me. The judicial board geniuses expected LA to get blasted in the face, make like Jesus, and turn the other cheek. But because he defended himself, he's guilty as charged? He does the stand-up thing and tells the truth, yet his punishment is the same as the instigator, as though their roles were equal?

 

[Ozone!]

The "no-fault" nature of the repercussions is what really bothers me. The judicial board geniuses expected LA to get blasted in the face, make like Jesus, and turn the other cheek. But because he defended himself, he's guilty as charged? He does the stand-up thing and tells the truth, yet his punishment is the same as the instigator, as though their roles were equal?

Well said, Doctor!

 

[FrancoPizza]

The "no-fault" nature of the repercussions is what really bothers me. The judicial board geniuses expected LA to get blasted in the face, make like Jesus, and turn the other cheek. But because he defended himself, he's guilty as charged? He does the stand-up thing and tells the truth, yet his punishment is the same as the instigator, as though their roles were equal?

It wasn’t the same. Didn’t the instigator get off?

 

[Cuse'91]

Seems like a lot of us are reaching acceptance stage. Worst possible season to lose the starting running back; Murphy's Law applies here.

 

[DoctorBombay]

Well said, Doctor!

 

[Toga]

I said doctor - is there nothing I can take?

 

[GoSU96]

Is there a Special Assistant in the athletics department that can fix this?

You mean like Ray Donovan?

 

[gmoney44]

No consideration for his Dad being murdered? This whole situation seems so out of sorts. I understand he made a mistake but there has to be something that can be done to rectify this.

There are no checks and balances with any teeth. Similar setup to dictatorships and other organisations that think they are smarter than everyone else.

 

[baggerbob]

So he filed an action, didn’t bother to show to the hearing yet they stabile geniuses on the judiciary board decide to destroy the kid who is cooperating with the “process”

What a joke.

Actually the Adults on the board should face serious consequences for their handling of this case.
The board needs to be abolished, but the Adults shouldn't get off Scott free.
They are supposed to be teaching young students how to live in this society, and in this case failed miserably.

 

[GoSU96]

Actually the Adults on the board should face serious consequences for their handling of this case.
The board needs to be abolished, but the Adults shouldn't get off Scott free.
They are supposed to be teaching young students how to live in this society, and in this case failed miserably.

What do you suggest? Jail, water boarding, tar and feather?

 

[Orangezoo]

His father didn't just die. He was murdered. I can't imagine being an 18 year old and having to deal with that and this bs with SU. Not much compassion on the part of SU in this situation.

This is the part SU needs to be counting their lucky stars there isn't a national media blitz calling them out about yet. It was bad enough without this but now you have a kid staying committed to doing what he came here to do and having been completely willing to do the right thing after this minor incident with major questions around the student with the complaint. Now you add this reality showing a kid also persevering and not falling off his path after such a tragedy.

It's egregious and can't stand.

 

[UpstateSM]

Freeing LeQuint would cure my hangover

 

[DoctorBombay]

It wasn’t the same. Didn’t the instigator get off?

Good catch.
Yes- LA's punishment was worse...for defending and telling on himself.

 

[PhatOrange]

What do you suggest? Jail, water boarding, tar and feather?

I’d start with Catie being fired.

 

[Willy75]

I think this description illustrates why so many have issues with the penalty. It was one punch in self defense and the penalty imposed was huge, even if it began in the spring. LA would have had to try to take classes at another school to retain eligibility to play football. And another poster laid out the onerous process of regaining admission to SU - proof of classes taken elsewhere and/or records of employment, plus reference letters, and more. A student can't just serve a suspension and return.

I think that is what folks find so unfair. A judicial process that is capricious, a penalty far in excess of the offense, and then a gauntlet to return to school.

Who's to say SU would accept the credits from another school? Would fit the pattern for this gang that can't shoot straight.