Thursday, November 1, 2007

Pope situation could escalate

I spoke with Coach Menzies prior to practice on Thursday.
First, Pope and Jahmar Young will not play in Saturday’s exhibition game against Cal.-State L.A. Menzies said he was optimistic both could play at Ohio on Nov. 9.
Pope’s situation is getting fuzzy. Whether that means legal action or not, Menzies could not define that when I talked to him, but more could come in the next couple of hours and I will let Menzies' comments speak for themselves.
Menzies has been optimistic about Pope’s return before. He said he was familiar with the time frame it took to get him cleared when the NCAA granted an Initial Eligibility Waiver, as it did a couple weeks ago, but he said he, “has not had anyone in this situation before.”
As a result....
“Now we are at a level where they are questioning the validity of the courses that he was advised to take,” Menzies said. “Now it moves into a realm that I have never experienced before.”
When asked to elaborate, Menzies said he couldn’t yet and then had to take the Aggies through practice. I’m hoping to speak with him soon, but he did say this.
“We may have to move to another level to protect Herb’s best interests and our interests as well,” Menzies said.

JG

7 comments:

Melanie Brooks said...

Disgusting. Absolutely disgusting. If Herb had chosen to attend another school with more prestige, ya think this would be going on? NOPE.

Ross said...

I wonder if Reggie could have swept this under the rug???

Chile Duck said...

Actually I have seen it happen to bigger schools when they have people outside of their programs who want to see them fail and can manipulate the NCAA to hurt them. The sad thing is that there is usually an innocent student (in this case Herb Pope)whose life is severely impacted. Sad indeed.

Unknown said...

Jason,

We're dying for info over here. Got anything more?

Teddy said...

Justin,
Unfortunately, I can't tonight. More to come tommorow when the folks at NMSU decide what option they want to pursue. I had to cover the Aggie women's exhibition Thursday, but Menzies had no new information for me as of 8 p.m.

JG

Anonymous said...

Teddy --

Thanks for the hard work man....you are bringing a tough situation to light for those of us that are not on the inside. I appreciate it.

GO AGGIES!!!

Teddy said...

For those people who have been following this story, I think something important needs to be addressed. Jason Groves is doing the leg work on this one. As much as I would like to take credit for it, I just can't. Notice the JG initial at the bottom of his posts. That should be the giveaway.

Groves has learned everything about my blog, from the password to the postings. He just posts whenever he pleases and holds his own public forums. Groves, can you please get your own blog! Thanks buddy

Ted