12th Man Magazine

Editor
Homer Jacobs

Contributing Writers
Rusty Burson
Jim Molony

Contributing Photographers
Kevin Bartram
Glen Johnson

Inside the Aggies | Q&A with Rich Coady | Slocum in the 1990s

Inside the Aggies.

By Homer Jacobs

In a recent survey of Division I schools, Texas A&M finished in the bottom 10 for the percentage of football players who had enrolled in the 1990-91 academic year.

A&M graduated just 26 percent of eligible seniors during that time, and athletic director Wally Groff acknowledged that there is a lot of work to be done to bring A&M football players up to par academically with the rest of the nation.

What Groff was not allowed to expand on in most of the newspaper articles were the academic minefields student-athletes must dodge during their stay at A&M. In fact, with an average SAT score of incoming freshmen students surpassing 1100, the academic climate at A&M is as intense as ever. And what A&M student-athletes must go through to earn their degrees will be worthy of another in-depth article altogether.

Needless to say, I'm glad the academic requirements weren't as tough in my college days as they are today. I can only imagine what it's like to cover UTEP football.

What little surveys and bottom 10 graphics can't reveal, however, are other stories of academic fortitude. They don't show the smile and pride that dominate the face of a student-athlete who overcame long odds to even stay in school, much less graduate.

The numbers in a newspaper don't capture what is must have felt like for this guy to walk across G. Rollie White's stage when the only walk previously inside that gym meant traveling and the ball going the other way.

Graduation rates don't do justice to Joe Wilbert, Texas A&M's former standout basketball player who used to go by the nickname of "Big Money," but avoided being consumed by the big money in order to attain his degree.

Wilbert was never focused on school, having been forced to attend Tyler Junior College after his career at Bryan High School. A&M coach Tony Barone later signed Wilbert, and the 6-6 post man went on to dominate the Southwest Conference, leading the Aggies in scoring in 1994-95 with a 22.9 average.

And after his playing days at A&M were over and he went undrafted by the NBA, Wilbert headed overseas to play ball in France. He was not happy in a foreign land, so he decided to return home to Bryan.

He gave school another try, hoping to finish the final 18 hours of his sociology degree plan. That didn't work out, either, as Wilbert didn't have the urge to walk across the campus for an 8 o'clock at the Blocker Building.

Wilbert withdrew from school, and he seemed headed down the unfortunate path so many athletes take: Pay me now, and I'll pay for the lack of a degree later.

"I didn't have the motivation to go to school," Wilbert said. "I was making more money than I could dream of. Then I started feeling guilty, going around to schools telling the kids to stay in school."

But Barone kept pestering Wilbert to finish what he had started at A&M. And Wilbert's guilt kept growing, to the point where he said he had endured enough.

"No. 1, I went back for my parents and family," said Wilbert, one of the more popular players in recent A&M history. "And I don't want to be remembered as just a great athlete, but that I took care of business on and off the court. You can close the book at A&M with me."

And to think Wilbert didn't really want to open one to begin with. Yet, he has become a classic example of how athletes can make it in the A&M academic system, no matter how tough it is.

After enrolling at A&M in the fall of 1996 and taking six hours, Wilbert returned to Europe to play basketball in the spring, signing with Luxembourg, a country the size of Brazos County.

There he became the star of the country, earning the nickname of "Jumpin' Joe." He averaged 30 points and 12 rebounds and became the team's highest-paid player, earning $3,000 a month plus bonuses.

Wilbert, 24, hopes to play six more years and then return to the United States to put his degree to work. At least he can join his new wife, Shanae Ford, a former A&M women's basketball player and current nursing student at the University of Texas-Arlington.

But before Wilbert left for Luxembourg this summer, he was spotted in Cain Hall. You couldn't miss the smile or mistake the engaging voice.

It was just two days before he would make The Walk, having returned to A&M in June to complete his final 12 hours.

"I never thought I'd walk that stage again," he said. "I walked that stage back in 1991 for Bryan High. But all that work I did at A&M, it was worth it when they called my name."

When Wilbert strolled toward the sheepskin, the G. Rollie White crowd erupted. President Ray Bowen congratulated him and members of A&M's Board of Regents stood with high esteem.

"When I walked across that stage, I did it for everybody - Bryan, the kids of Bryan, A&M and Coach Barone," Wilbert added. A lot of people were involved in me graduating."

None were as involved as Barone, who has had to defend his team's win-loss record, but not the program's graduation rate. And while Wilbert brought Barone some success for his basketball program, the idea that "Big Money" had graduated seemed to bring Barone much more.

Barone made sure to call from Chicago to offer his congratulations when Wilbert finally finished his schooling.

"I know for Coach Barone, that meant a lot to him," Wilbert said. "He stayed on me. People don't really know what kind of coach Coach Barone is."

Wilbert continues to perform as "Jumpin' Joe" for foreign basketball fans, and he does so without any reservations. He knows if the basketball deflates tomorrow, it will signal the start of his real career, wherever his sociology degree will take him.

And if he could give the graduation address at Reed Arena in May or sit down with rising star Jerald Brown in the back of the locker room, his message would sound the same.

"I really can't tell a guy not to go for the money," Wilbert said. "But I can tell him to please go back and get your degree. If I can do it, anybody can do it."

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