I can’t remember the last time a college athlete did something so selfless that it actually made it in the spotlight. There are good kids all over the place, but they don’t always get the press. This kid got press because he doggone well deserves it.
Current UCONN center Michael Bradley gladly gave up his scholarship so that the Huskies could bring in Andre Drummond. The way Bradley says it, it’s something that is good for him:
“It was a chance to first, better myself, by going against a more competitive person each day. So that was a great opportunity. And, it was a chance for our team to get better, that was also a great opportunity. So, I felt like sometimes you have to make a sacrifice if you really want to get better.”
“I don’t want anybody to pity me. That is the one thing that I don’t want. But, I’ll just say I made a lot of sacrifices growing up that were kind of forced on me. It was kind of hard, but it wasn’t too bad.”
This kid is a wonderful example of team sacrifice. We could easily say that Drummond doesn’t deserve it because he’ll probably only be at UCONN for a year, but that’s not the way that we should look at it. Bradley saw an opportunity to help, and he did. Apparently, he wasn’t the only one. Jim Calhoun said:
“No one lost a scholarship. Michael wasn’t the only guy who came to the coaching staff when we were talking about this and said, ‘Coach, can I help.’ Within teams, people make sacrifices… in this case that’s what happened.”
I love the attitude, and it makes me believe that UCONN can put themselves on good footing to repeat. It’ll be hard, but they have the character for it, I think.
