So Channel 3 “scored” the first big interview with former Tiger point guard Andre Allen since he was kicked off the team three days before the Final Four. The station even trumpeted its “exclusive” with Allen, which aired during the 10 p.m. news cast on Thursday night.
The truth is, there is only one question worth asking Allen, and it’s absolutely the first question I would have asked had I been in position to interview him: How in the world could he have failed a drug test during the NCAA Tournament?
Yet, Claudia Barr never asked that question. She didn’t even bring up the subject of drug tests. Or if she did, it wasn’t included in the on-air package. There was no discussion at all about why Allen was kicked off the team. WREG owes an apology to everybody it hoodwinked into watching that interview. Yes, Allen apologized for “what happened.” But what was the point of the interview if there was no explanation of, well, what happened?
As I wrote about on April 4, Allen was one of just two players in recent memory to fail a postgame drug test in the NCAAs. To have it happen right before the Final Four, on a team as high-profile as Memphis, was stunning. Allen said in the interview that “people make mistakes,” which is undoubtedly true. But given the nature of that mistake and the stage on which it happened, casting him as a sympathetic figure is uncalled for — at least, unless there’s a valid explanation he’s willing to talk about.
Instead, the most stunning revelation in the report was that Claudia Barr thinks that the Booker T Washington team in her day could have beaten Allen’s Booker T squad.
in Tiger Basketball
Responses to “Andre Allen”
May 9th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Give it a rest. Everybody knows what happened.
He failed it because he didn’t think he’d get
tested. The same reason anyone else would fail
a drug test.
C’mon…what are the odds????? It happened and he has a sympathizer in me and a lot of others.
Lesson learned!!
May 9th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
I completely agree with you Mtown. Give it a dam rest. This is the best you can do Dan. You act as if you have never done anything wrong. All the good things Andre brought to this team and he was never acknowledged the way he should have been by the media.
He was after all a 2 Time Mr Basketball two years in a row. No one throughout all the years he played for Memphis ever mentioned it. He could have gone anywhere and started for any team in the country. He is that Good!!!
So what he made a mistake. You mean to tell me you have never tried alittle pot in college or dranked some liquor when you were underage. Andre is still a teenager and here you are wanting to dump on him the first chance you get.
Why don’t you follow up on the Devin Ebanks recruiting and do what we are paying you for….. hmmmmm
Enough said–frankly I cannot believe you would stoop this low
Tiger fan for Life
May 9th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Re-read Dan’s post.
It’s not about Andre Allen. It’s about the ridiculous “interview” that Channel 3 put on the air. There wasn’t a single shred of news in the whole segment, just some silliness from Claudia Barr.
May 9th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
Some question don’t need to be asked…Like the one ask to CDR, about how did he miss the free-throw in the KU game…Duh
May 9th, 2008 at 11:24 pm
excuse me Raleigh Bartlett Andre Allen is not a teenager I think he’s at least 22 and experienced enough to know that the NCAA would be random drug testing after playing two previous seasons. I agree with Dan no one’s looking to humiliate Andre but it’s the media’s job to ask the questions that fans want to ask and Claudia didn’t do that. It’s amazing how basketball fans (not necessarily you, Raleigh) are so forgiving of players. I guarantee you some of these same fans wouldn’t be so forgiving if Andre didn’t play basketball. Trust me there’s plenty of guys his age being arrested for drug possession every day in the news but some of these fans are not saying poor guy, everyone makes mistakes…we forgive you
May 9th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
As a huge Tigers fan, I feel Andre’s pain and embarassment. But actions speak for themselves. Allen’s many positive contributions to the Tigers ball club have been marred by his mistake. And as Dan rightfully points out, the Tigers’ national image was especially hurt by his timing. No amount of love for Andre changes the truth about that.
Making a mistake and really owning it is one thing. Sweeping it under the rug is another. There is a right way to put a mistake behind you–trying to slide isn’t it.
In Allen’s defense, he is 22, and he has been watching us. The example set by many “older, wiser” public figures of the day is to evade accountability with club in hand. Since we are obsessed with drug testing athletes, why not start testing politicians, law enforcement, health professionals, college professors, teachers, and journalists? Allen’s choices are certainly not where the problem begins.
I have great respect for Andre Allen. And I’d respect him even more if he’d man up on this one. As fans, we’ll do a greater service to encourage him compassionately in this than to pretend it didn’t happen for the sake of his short-term comfort. Without the kind of closure that comes from “getting real”–even if nobody ever says another word about it–it will gnaw on him for the rest of his life.
May 10th, 2008 at 8:21 am
I agree with Dan. What was the point of coming on TV if he wasn’t going to address the main issue. All of those telling Dan to “give it a rest”, uh, it was AA who went on TV and, Dan didn’t just bring it up. AA is fair game for criticism. We only had two Memphis players on the team this year and they both left the Tigers down.
May 13th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
What do you mean? How could he fail a drug test? He used drugs. Everyone knows that. What did you want him to say? What would have been a good answer to that question? Why don’t you ask Cal how he lost that game?
May 14th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
I feel for AA but I must agree, he is not a teenager. He’s a young man in transition to manhood. Part of that transition was his enrolling in UM to not only try to win a position on the team but to further prepare himself academically for Life! It was a bad choice and from my understanding…it wasn’t his only shortfall since becoming a Tiger, i.e., the solicitation of a prostitute a few years back. True, everyone commits mistakes but you expect people to learn from them. And when you’re already in the spotlight on a highly visible team like Memphis, ya’ gotta’ know that anything you do out of character is going to make the news. The NCAA administers drug tests because they are fully aware that drug use exists on college campuses. Their actions are an attempt at becoming a deterrent against this activity. But some students and athletes, as in community life, just don’t think they’ll get caught. Some people lost their jobs due to failed drug tests, AA lost a position he strove for and attained until this recent mistake. And like any big city, Memphis has it’s share of young people and adults making disasterous mistakes that impact their immediate futures. Yes I feel for AA. I was hoping he would be able to come back next season to allow the team to have some needed continuity in the point guard position. With the returnees and new recruits, I believe this will be a weak area unless someone develops into a decent point guard.
Oh well, such is life!
May 18th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Raleigh_Bartlett, have you lost your mind? I can forgive AA, but he needs to apologize to ALL Tiger fans first. Let’s first address some of the ignorant comments you made:
“He could have gone anywhere and started for any team in the country. He is that Good!!!”
I’m not going to refute the 2-time Mr. Basketball, even though I don’t think that is true. However, I do know he wasn’t good enough to start anywhere in the country. He was a walk-on at Memphis. He could have started for Arkansas State, UT-Martin, or maybe Austin Peay, but not anywhere in the country.
“You mean to tell me you have never tried alittle pot in college or dranked some liquor when you were underage. Andre is still a teenager and here you are wanting to dump on him the first chance you get.”
Even with the built in spell check you still typed dranked. That’s hilarious. Anyway, he’s not underage, which also means, he’s not a teenager. He’s either 22 or 23.
The bottom line is Andre Allen was a significant contributor to the Tigers. I believe 100% that if Andre was eligible to play in the national championship game, we wouldn’t be talking about what happened in the last 2 minutes, because Memphis would have won the game. We will never know for sure, because Andre made a dumb, immature mistake. When he publicly apologizes for letting his teammates down, the coaching staff down, and the city that supported him for so long down, then I will forgive Andre.
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