“Rutgers basketball fan” is rarely a position or characteristic worthy of envy, but the past few months have been especially hard on that loyal group of Scarlet Knights.
Report: New coach Eddie Jordan isn’t a Rutgers graduate, despite school’s claim
The Rutgers offseason tour of embarrassment continues to roll on.
Rich Schultz
First, there was the standard news of the basketball team underachieving its way to a 15-16 record and a second round exit in the Big East Tournament. Then, perhaps most notably, there was the Mike Rice player abuse scandal which ultimately led to Rice’s firing and the resignation of athletic director Tim Pernetti. In the succeeding April weeks, star guard Eli Carter announced he was transferring and prized recruit Shane Rector decommitted and later pledged his allegiance to Missouri.
The man tasked with the duty of picking up the pieces in Piscataway became former Scarlet Knights star Eddie Jordan. According to the official Rutgers website, Jordan is “RU’s all-time leader in both assists (585) and steals (220), ‘Fast Eddie’ scored 1,632 career points and earned honorable mention All-American honors as a senior in 1977 before earning a degree in health and physical education.”
Except, according to a report by Deadspin’s Josh Koblin, Jordan never graduated from Rutgers.
Despite all the accolades he’s received from the university and despite the school’s many claims to the contrary, Jordan hasn’t actually finished his degree, according to the Rutgers registrar’s office. The office sent me a verification document, found below, that indicates that Jordan attended classes at Rutgers from 1973 to 1977. He went on to take more classes in 1978, 1981, and 1985. There was no degree listed in the document. I called up the registrar’s office on Thursday and asked for clarification.
“He did not receive a degree from us,” an official there told me.
The report begs the question of whether Jordan explicitly lied to the university or if this is simply a case of someone at Rutgers not doing their homework. Either way, it’s yet another embarrassment for a program that has been more embarrassed than any other this spring.
You can see Jordan’s full college transcript right here.
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