Reaching a new level
These guyās aināt stupid.
Take a few hours out of your day and walk into most college gymnasiums around the country just about the time the menās basketball team is finished practicing. Now walk up and introduce yourself as a reporter to a player. Almost anyone will do.
Donāt worry about not being a real reporter. I donāt.
What you will get is the anti-sentence. Itās a jumbled mess of cliché-ridden, chest-thumping, street-speak.
You canāt really blame these guys. They are a product of an environment to some extent. Except for the kid from the Cherry Creeks of the world who has decided to change everything about himself to fit in.
Donāt get upset if someone calls you ćdog.ä Itās a good thing ÷ really.
Things were not much different here at Metro as little as 10 months ago. But now, thanks to a coach who accepts nothing less than a top performance academically, and one who recruits to meet that goal, conversation is back en vogue. Grades are up.
The Metro menās basketball team raised its cumulative GPA from a paltry 2.28 at the end of the summer to a healthier 2.78 at Christmas. That is a nice leap.
Coach Mike Dunlap, The Savior, hasnāt scheduled a party, but he is happy with the progress.
ćIām really proud of what they did academically,ä Dunlap said.
Maybe the most stunning part of the accomplishment is that while the team has faired well in the classroom, it has also dominated on the court.
Metro recently experienced its first losses of the season. Both happened on the road in the two toughest places to play in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference at Nebraska-Kearney and Fort Hays State, where 101 Things to do With Corn is reportedly a best seller. The Roadrunners are 13-2.
Metro had a chance to win both games. They lost by five to Kearney and three to Hays.
DeMarcos Anzures took the last shot trailing by three in Fort Hays. A panicked crowd of more than 2,000 watched his trademark feathery three-point jump shot float through the air. They fell silent. The Tigers have won 45 straight at home.
The shot fell short. Pandemonium.
It was yet another learning experience for the Roadrunners, Dunlap said. Although it came later than expected, the team finally learned how it feels to lose.
ćI think the players have done a very good job with humility,ä Dunlap said, ćwhether we win or lose.
ćWe are not happy with losing at all, but we didnāt have any idea of what that would be like. Now we know.ä
Before losing, the Roadrunners were ranked No. 14 in the nation. They have since fallen to No. 25.
When he arrived at Metro last spring, Dunlap said he would be tough about grades. He said there would be a reckoning should any player slack off. He boasted that heād never failed to graduate a player.
Thatās right. Never.
We believed he might have meant what he said at the time. But, after all, this is college basketball. Since when did grades start to matter?
We were hesitant before. Now we are sold, at least until May.
Should Dunlap continue to get these same results, he is assured of a job here as long as heād like one. Itās not as if former coach Charles Bradley was about to be fired before he left last spring for a Division I job in Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount. Bradley went 13-13 last season. Half the team hated the other half. You realize, of course, that a 2.2 cumulative GPA means that there were players who fell below that fell below that mark.
Now we know why only five players stayed on with Dunlap.
I can hear some of the players who left now. ćYou mean we actually got to go to class, dog? Uh, I mean, coach Dunlap.ä
Metroās gym, the Auraria Events Center, is a saner place now. Itās at least one gym in America where you can go to get an articulate comment from men who care about where they are and why they are there.
Credit Dunlap. The Savior.
