Friday, January 27, 2006

That's how Rajon Rondo rolls.

I thought some of you (Sivart) would love to see this little article I read courtesy of the Lexington Herald-Leader. It's a story about the vehicle that Rajon Rondo, point guard for the University of Kentucky, drives. It is a 2006 Yukon Denali with a suggested retail price of $50,000. Pretty sweet ride for a college sophomore.

Now here is the interesting part, if that wasn't interesting enough. The Yukon is registered to former UK Wildcat, Derek Anderson.

Dun, dun, duuuuun.

Looks like the Wildcats have some 'splainin' to do. Or do they? Apparently not. It seems that UK has cleared this with the NCAA. In fact, the NCAA has known that Rondo has had a mentor/protege relationship with Derek Anderson for years. UK even called the NCAA to clear this up when Rondo was still in high school.

While I enjoy the perks of being a fan of a big time school, such as sometimes getting away with minor violations, this seems a little creepy to me. I am sure the relationship is genuine, but it still seems wrong somehow for a college sophomore to drive around in a $50,000 car of a former alum and current NBA player. What I am most upset about is that the NCAA has no problem with this, but will kill people on stupid insignificant things. It makes me wonder what is going on in the ivory towers of the NCAA.

5 comments:

BRATCH said...

This is a little bit different situation. It's not like Derek Anderson Sr. realized when Rondo was in 7th grade that he would be a great ball player. Maybe he was a great player in 7th grade, but we are talking about seven years after the fact at this point. So who knew?

Either way, they bottom line is that they cleared it before he got the SUV. If the NCAA had said no, like they do most of the time, he would be driving a '96 Camry.

To me the crazy part of this story is that Derek Anderson,who is maybe 30 or 31 years old, has a kid who will be in college next year.

Travis said...

Delusional UK fans may disagree, but this doesn't really pass the smell test with me. I'm not surprised UK got around it, they usually do, but it's awfully convenient.

Boy without Derek Andersen being Rondo's mentor and Tubby finding the incredible re-appearing fax, UK would be terrible this year.

FYI, WKU 94-ULL 81.

BRATCH said...

If you think it smells funnny, you don't have call it funny because of UK. You call it funny because the NCAA is apparently cool with it.

To me it would be different if he happened to have it and there was a big blow up over it because no one knew, but they ran it by the NCAA and they said OK. In fact that article was more about the right way to do things than how wrong everything is and I'm sure most of the WKU faithful are seething over it.

Contrary to popular belief, UK isn't the epicenter of all the evil of college basketball.

It's more the NCAA being the epicenter of double standards and stupidity. Like that Bloom kid that the NCAA wouldn't let play football and still continue his professional skiing career.

Travis said...

Actually most of WKU-dom couldn't care less. My point is that it didn't hurt UK when they recruited Rondo that a former UK player just happened to be bankrolling his rides. The NCAA is a joke and it has been for years. It's gotten worse with Brand running it.

Bloom's a great example.

By the way, a federal judge once told Adolph Rupp that UK represented all that was wrong with college athletics. That was a long time ago, but it's still funny. UK may not be the epicenter of evil, but they're a typical SEC school, and that's evil enough.

Piccu said...

I find it very hard to believe that most of WKU-dom could care less. I will be very surprised if law enforcement officials in Bowling Green do not find a huge number of deaths caused by massive head explosions.