National Communists Against Athletes strikes again

[Saniflush]

http://blogs.ajc.com/georgia-high-school-sports/2009/04/28/ncaa-rules-prevent-ugas-mark-richt-from-attending-high-school-graduation/

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AJC All-State offensive lineman Chris Burnette will be speaking at Troup High School's graduation ceremony on May 23

It looks like Georgia coach Mark Richt won’t be attending Troup High School’s graduation after all.

Georgia officials had unofficially contacted the NCAA to ask for permission for Richt to attend the graduation if Troup offensive lineman Chris Burnette would be speaking. But Burnette, who has already signed with Georgia, narrowly missed out on being class valedictorian.

When Richt asked to attend the May 23 graduation anyway, NCAA officials said that request was unlikely to approved.

“Mark still wanted to attend the graduation to support Chris,” UGA compliance director Eric Baumgartner said. “However, after speaking with the NCAA, they were comfortable with [Burnette] being valedictorian, but the NCAA couldn’t get there for [Richt] to attend the ceremony without Chris being the valedictorian.”

Richt didn’t know that NCAA rules prohibited him from attending such ceremonies until after he had promised to try to attend Burnette’s graduation if the lineman earned the school’s No. 1 academic honor.

Violating the rule likely would result in a secondary NCAA violation. Georgia athletic spokesperson Claude Felton said, at least for now, Richt will not be present at Burnette’s speech.

“If, for some reason, circumstances change, then I’m sure we’ll reconsider our position,” Felton said.

NCAA spokesperson Stacey Osburn said Tuesday that the sport’s governing body has not denied a waiver for Richt to attend Burnette’s graduation because an official request was never submitted.

“Ultimately, the university decided not to file a waiver,” Osburn said. “If a waiver request was filed, it would have been considered like any other waiver request from a member institution.”

Will Georgia file a request? “No, because we have received verbal indication from the NCAA that if Chris is not valedictorian, then there would probably be no extraordinary circumstances that would be grounds for a waiver,” Felton said.

Burnette said Richt delivered the bad news on Monday. “He was disappointed. [But] I’m still thankful that Coach Richt even tried as hard as he did to attend. The NCAA has rules, and sometimes there’s just no way around them.”

The 6-foot-3, 286-pound Burnette has a 5.12 GPA on a 4.0 scale and has made nothing but straight A’s since kindergarten.

Burnette had initially planned to graduate after his first semester at Troup so he could enroll early at Georgia to get a jumpstart on his college football career. However, Burnette changed his mind and decided to stay in high school this spring to compete for valedictorian honors, with the full support of Georgia’s coaches. Richt said he had never recruited a valedictorian before.

The NCAA’s David Pickle helped bring the story into the spotlight of the college football world when he blogged specifically about Burnette on the NCAA’s official website last week before it was revealed that Burnette barely missed being valedictorian. [Note: Click here to go to the NCAA blog]

“Surely we can stipulate that the appropriate outcome here is for Mark Richt to be able to attend the graduation ceremony if he wants to do so,” Pickle wrote. “One of the hallmarks of Myles Brand’s administration as NCAA president has been to provide flexibility to schools when the circumstances of a situation appear to fall outside of the intended scope of a rule. This case seems to fit exactly with that philosophy …”

[Snaggletiger]

Okay, slap me for being lost and stupid on this one. (It's happened many times before).  I'm not getting what the problem is here.  Burnette has signed with UGA.  Richt wants to attend the graduation ceremony in support of his future player's accomplishments.  So, if Coach Richt attends the ceremony and applauds this high school graduate...it would be an NCAA violation because.......?

[Saniflush]

Okay, slap me for being lost and stupid on this one. (It's happened many times before).  I'm not getting what the problem is here.  Burnette has signed with UGA.  Richt wants to attend the graduation ceremony in support of his future player's accomplishments.  So, if Coach Richt attends the ceremony and applauds this high school graduate...it would be an NCAA violation because.......?

Exactly

[AWK]

Okay, slap me for being lost and stupid on this one. (It's happened many times before).  I'm not getting what the problem is here.  Burnette has signed with UGA.  Richt wants to attend the graduation ceremony in support of his future player's accomplishments.  So, if Coach Richt attends the ceremony and applauds this high school graduate...it would be an NCAA violation because.......?

Swine flu

[War Eagle!!!]

Swine flu

How DARE you insult pigs that way. We are all God's creation...

GENEVA – The World Health Organization said confirmed swine flu cases rose to 257 worldwide Thursday and announced it will would stop using the term "swine flu" to avoid confusion over the danger posed by pigs.

The global body said the number of confirmed cases in Mexico rose to 97 from 26, with seven deaths. The WHO confirmed tally from the United States now stands at 109, with one death.

Other confirmed cases include 19 in Canada, 13 in Spain, eight in Britain, three each in Germany and New Zealand, two in Israel and one each in Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands.

WHO spokesman Dick Thompson told reporters in Geneva that at least one of the Spanish cases involved a person who had not traveled to Mexico. Spanish officials said that was a man who apparently got the virus from his girlfriend, who recently returned from Mexico.

Thompson said the flu name change comes after the agriculture industry and the U.N. food agency expressed concerns that the term "swine flu" was misleading consumers and needlessly causing countries to order the slaughter of pigs.

"Rather than calling this swine flu ... we're going to stick with the technical scientific name H1N1 influenza A," he said.

On Wednesday, Egypt began slaughtering its roughly 300,000 pigs as precaution, even though experts said swine flu is not spread by eating pork.

WHO raised the pandemic flu alert to phase 5 on Wednesday, one step away from the highest level indicating a global outbreak. WHO flu chief Keiji Fukuda said Thursday there were no indications in the past day that would prompt the U.N. body to raise the alert further.

To move from pandemic alert level 5 to level 6 means that WHO believes there is evidence of big outbreaks in at least two world regions and a pandemic is under way.