University of North Carolina Athletics
Former Tar Heels Return For Degrees
January 18, 2000 | Men's Basketball
Jan. 18, 2000
By Robert Peele
Guest Columnist
So exactly why was there so much attention given to the degrees awarded to former Tar Heel greats Antawn Jamison and Jerry Stackhouse last month?
Unless you spent the entire month of December in a bunker waiting for the Y2K disaster that wasn't, you couldn't have missed it: every major sports cable outlet did a feature story on the Carolina duo. USA Today devoted a cover story to the pair's achievement. In Detroit, the Pistons, Stackhouse's current team, planned a major promotion around his commencement, making a donation to the UNC Scholarship fund in his honor as well as offering free admission to anyone wearing a cap and gown to "Jerry Stackhouse Graduation Night".
ut Jamison and Stackhouse are hardly the exception amongst ex-Carolina players who have left early for the NBA. They are simply the latest in a line which includes names like James Worthy, Michael Jordan, and J.R. Reid. Indeed, it's no surprise to Tar Heel fans when these players return for their degrees, we're proud of these guys, without a doubt -- just as proud as we were when they were leading their teams to championships during their playing days -- but it would have been a bigger surprise had they not kept their promises of coming back to earn their diplomas. The big deal for us, it seemed, was that it was such a big deal to everyone else.
In one sense it was quite predictable that the NBA and those who cover it in such great detail would seize upon this story. Over the past five years the trend towards early defections has been criticized not only for depleting the college game of some of its biggest stars before their eligibility was up, but also for causing teams to risk high draft picks on players who have shown little more than physical potential.
The league has gone to great lengths to promote players like Tim Duncan and Keith Van Horn, who stayed for their senior seasons at their respective schools and came into the NBA with a physical and mental maturity that, presumably at least, they would not have possessed had they come out early. Even as the practice of drafting players directly out of high school has become almost a yearly occurrence, the NBA wants and needs its public relations machine to dispel the notion that it encourages basketball prodigies to forsake their studies for the guaranteed millions promised to a first-round pick.
Enter Jamison and Stackhouse, two poster-boys for the ideal that players can have the freedom to enter the league when talent dictates -- and fairness demands that they be able to do so -- while still fulfilling the goal of a college education. Yes, some of last month's hype was due to the novelty of two of the most celebrated college players of the last five years graduating on the same day from the same university. But in almost every case the stories chose to emphasize an angle which is apparently big news in other parts of the country: namely, that these guys can have their cake and eat it, too -- that "I'll still have time to get my education" doesn't have to be an empty promise when uttered by an NBA lottery pick.
Which is a fact we've known in these parts for two decades, at least. Jordan is the most famous example of an ex-Tar Heel great returning to get his diploma, but he wasn't the first, Worthy did it before him. J.R. Reid earned his degree with little fanfare. Vince Carter, the 1999 NBA Rookie of the Year, also has returned in each of the last two summers and is just a few credits from graduating with a degree in communications studies. Each of them came back during the summers following their departures to take a few classes (and participate in those legendary scrimmages against current and former Carolina players, of course).
It happens every summer in Chapel Hill -- rarely, if ever, making news. It's no coincidence that the same school which has been "hit" by early departures more consistently than any other is the same school which sets the standard for players going the extra mile to graduate after they do leave. The players seem to understand that there is something special about Carolina, something that transcends basketball.
And what's more, the UNC coaching staff has an unparalleled reputation for giving its players an honest assessment of their draft prospects, and encouraging those who will be picked high in the draft to leave a year or two early, as the case warrants. The players respond to that loyalty by keeping the promises they've made to themselves, their families, and their coaches, and completing their education.
So congratulations to Antawn Jamison and Jerry Stackhouse, not only for fulfilling a dream they'd had in common, but also for surviving the onslaught of media attention that their achievement created. Thanks for proving yet again that basketball and education aren't mutually exclusive pursuits.
We could have told the reporters that a long time ago, if they'd been listening.
