Exiled Binghamton Coach Writes Letter To The Editor, Still Doesn’t Get It

Kevin Broadus is still on leave from Binghamton these days. When we last heard from him, the school was inexplicably paying for his trip to the Final Four. He has resurfaced in today’s Wall Street Journal in a letter to the editor, which you can read here, but I’d like to pull out a key passage.↵↵⇥ Let me say, unequivocally, that I am proud of the players I recruited as Binghamton’s head basketball coach. I make no apologies for believing that expanding opportunities for young people to attend institutions of higher education, particularly to those whose chances would be severely limited otherwise, is an ideal toward which we as coaches, as educators and as a society should continually strive.↵⇥↵⇥While some youngsters may indeed fall short, we should never allow one’s socio-economic background to be used as the sole factor in determining who is deemed “too risky” to be given the chance to succeed. As a product of inner-city Washington, D.C., I know firsthand that one’s ability to achieve success is often the result of a myriad of factors, and that by taking a chance on me, many people including my family, teachers and coaches, made it possible for me to pursue my own dreams.↵⇥

↵↵To fully understand whether his criticism carries any weight, you should probably read the column in question from Skip Rozin. I’ll wait ...↵↵... all done?↵

↵↵Perhaps it’s just me, but it appears as if Broadus fixated on a small point in the column Rozin made. To read just what Broadus wrote, you would’ve thought Rozin wrote an entire column on the socio-economic backgrounds of his players and used that as an indictment against Broadus. And that type of stand shouldn’t surprise anyone, as Broadus has filed a complaint against the university for racial discrimination. It feels desperate. It tries to make an entire issue out of a small point, while trying to divert some sort of responsibility or attention away from Broadus and his staff and onto someone else, be it Rozin or the Binghamton administration.↵

↵↵There’s something great about when a kid from a poor socio-economic background makes it in college, whether it’s through an athletic or academic scholarship. I don’t think any sane person reading Rozin’s piece would argue he made a point to the contrary. There is a point of diminishing returns on “taking chances” on athletes. Judging from both Rozin and the university’s report, Broadus and the athletic department at Binghamton did their best to try and give people a second chance, but where they failed the athletes was the point where they became enablers in behavior that created a culture of chaos.↵

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