Grant Mullins
The University of Georgia really wanted our excellent freshman kicker Oren Milstein last year, but he turned down their scholarship offer to come to Columbia.
Now it turns out the Bulldogs will be getting a top-notch Columbia kicker after all. Graduating senior punter Cameron Nizialek will be joining UGA this coming fall as a grad student to play out his final year of NCAA eligibility. The Ivy League does not allow grad students to play varsity sports under any circumstances.
But wait, it gets worse.
Cal may have lost last night's big hoops game against rival UCLA, but the leading scorer for the Bears was none other than... recent Columbia grad Grant Mullins. Mullins, who missed almost two full seasons for Columbia with a concussion, is starting and starring for Cal because he too is not allowed to continue playing Ivy varsity sports. The only way he could have played for the Lions this year is to have dropped out of school for at least a semester. That's simply too costly for a lot of people.
This is a dumb rule, period. I'm not sure what the Ivy League is trying to protect us from by barring grad student eligibility. Are we worried that our scholar athletes will want to do TOO MUCH learning? Are we protecting the other teams from some kind of geniuses who also happen to be "ringer" athletes?
This is a rule that needs to ends now.
2 comments:
Good for Grant Mullins and good luck to Cameron Nizialek. Bad for the rule which doesn't easily allow a lost year of eligibility (due to injury) to be made up.
I know this is a football forum but, speaking of basketball, the Lions have some great incoming players, led by three star, 6-10 Jaron Faulds. I took a quick look at the other commitments and saw offers from Dartmouth, Princeton and Yale. As for this season, Ithink the basketball Lions will do better than projected during the Ivy season.
Good post. Mullins scored 19 points against a strong UCLA team. He'd be a huge asset for Columbia this year. How is it bad for the Ivy League if a great student-athlete like Mullins is getting his master's degree at Columbia rather than Berkeley?
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