Monday, July 31, 2006

Guesly Dervil

This is a really old article about Guesly Dervil coming to WVU, but with the loss of so many DB's from last years team, I thought it might be worth posting.



Dervil, who was ranked as the nation's No. 32 athlete and a three-star prospect in the class of 2005, then failed to qualify academically at Illinois and has spent the past year at home working on achieving a qualifying ACT score. He got that score and then was able to go back on the market, but it didn't take him long to find his new home with the Mountaineers.

"I didn't think at the time, I would end up back there, but I really did like the coaches, the team and the people," he said. "That was also when they had Pacman Jones, and everybody was telling me when I was up there on the visit that I was the next Pacman since he and I are about the same size and same speed.

"I thought it was kind of cool back then, but West Virginia wasn't in my final three. It's funny how things work out. In the end, it was the right place for me afterall."

Welcome aboard Guesly!

Now I came across his name from searching the message boards this evening. In the context of how I found it, ie "did he make the grades", I got to thinking about what a bunch of shitballs we as college football fans are. We cheer, and give them an "ata boy" when they make the grades, and curse them to high heaven when they don't. I just find it despicable that we act as if we have a genuine interest in said players outside of football as long as they can stay eligible. And if they should fail to meet the academic requirements we find it all to easy to cast them off. I suppose in an ideal world we would make an effort to let them know we care either way, but the truth is that we don't. We only care about players that can contribute to us having a happy drunken Saturday afternoon, or Thursday night if you cheer for a Big East team. I guess I was lucky to have played golf in college, because no one cared if I went to class outside of my family and coach. I don't know, something to think about.

No comments: