Great. Just great.
Pitt announced today the suspensions of senior cornerback Aaron Berry, senior defensive tackle Tommie Duhart and sophomore offensive lineman Wayne Jones for violation of team policy.
There is no one thing.
Wannstedt declined comment but issued a release which said the three were suspended for unrelated incidents which were “violation of team policy”
All three are out for the rest of spring practice including the Blue-Gold Scrimmage on Saturday.
No official word as to what. Academic issues are presumed for the majority.
Tommie Duhart has been in and out of Coach Wannstedt’s doghouse for at least the past year or so.
Aaron Berry is a starting corner. Trying to get some consistency. He’s been getting a lot of work against Jonathan Baldwin.
Wayne Jones was in the mix at center.
Not happy about this. The good thing is that Coach Wannstedt remains very dilligent and not afraid to suspend players who don’t meet the standards. You prefer to not have to have it as any issue, but that is just never going to happen anywhere.
Also, I heard that when you do that, your team winds up losing to Iowa during the regular season. And say what you will about Pitt, but at least we beat Iowa this year.
I’m sure some players really struggle with it, and I also have to believe some of those same kids persevere and do what’s required not only to stay on the team, but to finally get a degree.
Anyway, like almost every other thing in life – there are individual choices to be made and no one said they would all be easy ones.
I am not sure of what you intended to say, but it seems like DW and the athletic department take academics seriously. A number of universities do. Rutgers has an excellent program in place which contributes to a high graduation rate. A lot of schools are unfairly criticized. The student-athlete, however, must have a desire to emphasize the student half of his life.
Reed is referring to the academic support programs that Pitt has in place for student athletes. Like at other big athletic programs, there is a lot of help and support for the student-athlete to help them perform on the student side.
From tutoring, to rooms for studying, computers, and people checking on progress to make sure the kids are staying current on their work.
Then there are the “easy” majors — and you can find this at any school no matter how academically reputable. You can usually locate it by the disproportionate number of student athletes gravitating towards on.
The point being, as long as the student-athlete is not blowing off classes and at least is willing to give some effort it is not that hard to stay out of academic problems.
You have to be a complete moron or do absolutely no work to fail in those courses based on the subject matter and resources available to athletes and the mandatory requirements the athletic department imposes on the academics of the athletes.
As far as I’m concerned, that alone validates his time at Pitt.
