First, it was sad to see the loss of Fab at such a young age. He was a member of our community and anytime we lose a member of our community it causes us all pain.
I remember at one point I had posted that Fab was among my least favorite Orange players. I posted that because at the time I was too enamored with wins and losses, being undefeated, and wanting a second title. It was especially painful at the time because we may well have been robbed of our second title due to the untimely Onauku injury, and now to be robbed again due to untimely academic issues just seemed so unfair. Two times we probably had the best team in the country and came away with nothing in terms of NCs.
It was so easy to blame Fab at the time. Well, just maybe, that blame was unfairly placed. We knew when we recruited him that there would be academic issues. Maybe Fab wasn't college material, maybe the language barrier was too much (I certainly understand being linguistically challenged). Nonetheless, the decision was made to take him. Did we just take him because we were blinded by how well he would fit with our team on the court or did we also believe that we had the appropriate support structure for him to be academically successful ? I certainly can't answer that question. Hard to say if best intentions just went south or if we took him wo regard to our ability to provide the levels of academic support and tutoring that he would need.
There really cannot be any question that whatever was done in terms of "academic scandal" was at least equally on the university and on the staff as it was on the kid. probably much more so, because the university and the staff was in the best position to know the rules and to act appropriately. We will never know the real truth as to whether or not Fab didn't apply himself sufficiently and did in fact let his team down or if the academics were simply beyond him even if for no reason other than language barriers. It can only be said that in the end poor choices were made as a result.
Anyways, that brings us to Fab's passing and Joyce's unfortunate comments. Many, many posts in this thread about Joyce's commitment to the university and her generosity to many. Who can argue with that ? Who can dispute her loyalty ? Who cannot say that she is amongst the most well respected posters on this forum everything else aside ? Never to the best of my recollection did she ever criticize Jimmy no matter what. However, unfortunately, that loyalty to the university and to Jimmy turned out to be her Achilles' heel.
There can be no question that the net effect of Fab was a tarnishment to both the university and to Jimmy, whether Fab was to blame or not. And it is my opinion, that in a moment of weakness (that we all have at times as fans), that Joyce put wins and Jimmy's legacy ahead of the real tragedy, which was a young man passing away at an early age. She has apologized. I, personally, don't believe that she even mean what she said, and that it was just a careless blurt.
I for one will say, that as a fan, that Joyce deserves better than all of this controversy and that I hope she is not suffering any personal pain as a result of a few words that I believe she did not even mean.