NCAA Denies Eligibility for Army Veteran with High School Diploma and College Credits

Isaiah Brock graduated from Baltimore's Forest High Park in 2011, a school whose famous alumni include director Barry Levinson of Diner fame. (Presumably, graduating does not require passing a Colts and/or Ravens quiz.) The following year, Brock joined the Army and was initially stationed in Kandahar, Afghanistan. He ultimately ended up with the task of assisting in the extraction of dead American soldiers.

He described his job to Gary Parrish of CBS Sports, who wrote a terrific piece on a soldier of unsung bravery: "You know how there's always a transfer case and then you have a flag draped over the top of the transfer case? That's us. That's what we do."

Brock helped in the extraction of more than thirty soldiers, ensuring their remains were returned to their families stateside. Along the way, he came under fire from a terrorist who had escaped prison and climbed into a watch tower. Brock was a good soldier and has multiple medals, awards, and commendations to prove it.

While stationed in the Middle East, he took college courses online—got Bs in both—and played hoops in the 2015 Operation Hardwood Classic, which brought coaches like Edward Conroy of Tulane to Camp Arifjan in Kuwait. It's a week of basketball for the troops and goodwill for the coaches, but for Brock, it turned into something more. Oakland University coach Greg Kampe liked what he saw so much out of the 6'8" Brock, his leadership skills in particular, that he wanted him to be part of his basketball program. As Kampe told Parrish:

"I just thought maybe I could bring him to Oakland and give back and help this young man get his education," Kampe said. "He's got the GI Bill. But that doesn't cover him like a scholarship would. And I thought him being around my players would just be unbelievable from a leadership perspective. I wanted my players to meet him and be around him. And if he ever played basketball, that would be awesome, too. So I told him I couldn't promise playing time. But I told him I could give him an opportunity to experience college basketball."

Brock was discharged from the Army in April, enrolled in Oakland in June, took two classes for which he received an A and a B, and the NCAA just declared him ineligible.

Apparently, the high school Brock attended had fallen off education-wise; today the number of students who are considered prepared for college is in the single digits. If the NCAA feels your school is substandard, it doesn't matter what grades you got—graduating seniors, no matter how well they did in school, are brought down by the entire population, and will have a hard time meeting NCAA eligibility requirements.That's what has happened to Brock. Never mind that he has a qualifying test score and solid grades in collegiate coursework; it's just not solid enough for the NCAA cartel.

"The NCAA was originally founded to protect and benefit the college athlete. Now, all they do is get in the way," says Bob DeMars, a former USC football player who directed a new documentary about the dark side of college sports called The Business of Amateurs. "Instead of looking after the interests of the athletes, their rules are really set up to protect their interests."

Fortunately for Brock, the NCAA has ways to rectify the situation. Parrish notes the powers-that-be could apply a waiver and reinstate Brock's eligibility right away. It certainly feels like the least they could do for a young man who did so much for his fellow soldiers and their families. It was a ridiculous decision to begin with, but the NCAA could, and should, fix this mess before a different narrative takes hold, such as: Good enough for the U.S. Army, not good enough for the NCAA.

[CBS]