Wednesday, January 30, 2008

OK sir, your total will be $115.65

I remember during the 2004-05 school year, I was grabbing some food at Schine’s cafeteria between classes. I had about $6 or $7 worth of food and stepped in line before a mammoth white guy. It was former Syracuse Basketball center Craig Forth. Now while a Craig spotting isn’t as exciting as say, seeing Hakim Warrick, it was kind of cool. Craig was treating his girlfriend (I believe) to a nice romantic Schine dinner, and in an act of great kindness, turned towards me and said to the cashier, “swipe for him too.” After I thanked him, Craig said “you’re welcome” and walked away as if it were no big deal. When I got to class I told a friend about it, and he said that athletes get around $2,000 on their SUpercard (used for campus eateries outside of dining halls) per semester. Regardless, I still thought it was a nice gesture.

So why am I telling this irrelevant Craig Forth story? He’s been long forgotten on the Hill hasn’t he? Well, with the recent development of why SU’s latest scholarship guard is not playing, it’s quite relevant. Scoop Jardine, a freshman that had stepped in for the injured Eric Devendorf and Andy Rautins, was suspended because he had knowledge of a purchase of $115.65 on a stolen student SUpercard. Apparently, according to the Syracuse Post Standard, Jardine had his 40 year old cousin Robert Washington visiting. Washington and two girls ordered a lot of food and had it delivered to Scoop’s apartment. Scoop had knowledge of the whole thing and apparently helped carry the food inside (nearly $120 of food is gonna take some extra hands).

OK, so it’s not as bad as we probably thought. But it’s pretty boneheaded. With $2,000 on your SUpercard for the semester, there is no way Scoop maxed it out a few days into the spring semester (that is if they reset it before January 13 – it may have counted for the end of the fall semester, but I doubt it). And then ordering it to your apartment, brilliant. Scoop had to know this was going to come back to him, all for some crappy Campus Delivery pizza and wings. Honestly, what did they get for nearly $120? That’s more than 4 people could eat for dinner. Were they stocking up on Campus Delivery sandwiches? Let’s be honest, their food isn’t that great. I would have at least sent someone out to Kimmel to nab a couple hundred tacos from The Bell. I believe athletes also have card access to dining halls (and if they didn’t I’m sure they’d be let in anyway), I used to see basketball players at Sadler all the time. So you really have to question why Scoop and his cousin had to splurge on Campus Delivery, when they could have easily gotten food elsewhere. Or we could just blame it on the student who’s ID card it was. You gotta cancel the lost card, and then swiping it would not work…and Scoop would still be playing.

So what do you think the order was that now has given Syracuse a rotation of 4 good players, and 3 guys who probably wouldn’t be playing normally?

First, it was a Sunday. It could have been slightly after midnight Saturday night, and they could have been intoxicated like many college students are at that hour, so I’ll consider that in my estimation here:

Judging from the Campus Delivery Menu (below), I’d say the threesome (we won’t include Scoop I guess because according to his cousin he didn’t eat anything) ordered a combination similar to this:


- 100 wings: $65.29
- 4 extra blue cheese sauces: 4 @ $0.79 each = $3.16
- 2 supreme Sbarro pizzas: 2 @ $14.99 each = $29.98
- 3 Pints of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream: 3 @ $3.59 each = $10.77
- 3 Gatorades: 3 @ $1.69 each = $5.07
- 1 bottled water (for the next morning): $1.49

Total: $115.76

So give or take a couple dimes that could be a possible order. I don’t even think ordering that much Campus Delivery is worth the risk of an indefinite suspension. Let’s hope Scoop did nothing more. It could have been a lot worse, and hopefully the SU Judicial Board will realize that and just force Scoop to take the student out to dinner. Sounds fair to me.

-Pat

Photo credits: foodservices.syr.edu, rivals.com

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

i am still in awe that you can order food to your dorm room on your meal plan. thats basically room service. i went to the wrong school.