Tell you about the time I accidentally, indirectly got Arkansas State put on probation and had to vacate wins. I got to Arkansas State as receiver’s coach for those people that don’t know, these football staffs have grown in the last 15 years, whatever. The academic departments, Neil, were not as like, you know, you look at academic departments now, they got four, five, six people in there and they get all, you know, they’re in it. What Arkansas said at time, we had like a former player that was just in that job and it was kind of like a way to take care of former players. So Arkansas State made this big thing. They went, hired a real like another person to put in academics and me in charge of everything. They gave her a bunch of titles and all that stuff. And she was kind of in charge of the academic meetings and eligibility and all this stuff. Well, I coach.
Receivers historically don’t make great grades, Neil. I don’t know if you’re aware of that or not. Every single academic meeting we’d have, like the academic meeting Monday, you know, it’s just like a kick in the balls, man. I go in there, the head coach, you get pissed at me like I’m the one taking the test, you know? I mean, it’s just, it was a kick in the balls meeting every Monday at like noon. We’re going through all the guys.
I said, so I’m good, right? I knew that my three guys that I was worried about made their grade. So I said, I’m good, right? All my guys made it or good. And she’s like, well, yes, those three are good. But we have a small problem. And I said, what’s that? She goes, one of your walk on wide receivers. So I had a walk on wide receiver named Bud Tillman. Shout out to Bud. Hope everything is going great for you, brother.
But really smart kid, Neil, like probably the smartest kid I had in my room. Okay. All right. He was a nursing major and had like a 3,6,5 or something in nursing. Really? So for those of you don’t know, going to nursing schools very hard. She comes and she goes, buds, not gonna be eligible. And I said, I said, bud, I said, you tell my bud Tillman. She says, yeah, he’s not eligible. I said, he’s the smartest kid in my room. And I’m sitting here going, that guy’s ineligible.
I said, how many hell is he ineligible? She goes, well, he didn’t meet his progress towards agree. I said, that’s impossible. Progress towards agrees. So people know, as you have to be after your second year, you have to be percent of your degree. Then it goes to after, then it goes 60 and then 80 going into your last year. And if you don’t meet your progress towards your degree completion, you’ll be ineligible. I go to the staff meeting, I’m like, this is . I was like, there’s no way that this kid that made progress.
Stores agree. And this is like right before camp started. So we could invite him into camp. He’s gonna be part of our 1:05. We couldn’t bring him in, not the first week of the season. We’re getting ready for Texas anyway, and we start, people start showing up around though football facility. We didn’t know who the hell they were. And we start figuring out, well, long story short, they come to us the day we’re leaving on Friday to get on the bus to go to Texas, Adam, to go the airport, to go the bus, okay? And they come to us and say like, all these players can’t go on the trip cuz they’re ineligible. I’m not talking about just random dudes. I’m talking about like eight of our starters cannot go because they’re ineligible. And we’re like, whoa, one of them I remember was Matt Mandish. He was our start and left tackle guy had given up a sack in his entire career. It’s from Hattiesburg, Nancy. Double. A granted appeal allowed in play.
Here’s what had happened, Neil. Our academic department, sometime between the time they showed up. So when they showed up as freshman. All right, Neil, you started as a PE major, whatever, right? And you change your major, the mechanical engineering. It didn’t matter, right? Yeah, the academic department or the person in charge of our academic department just kept scheduling classes inside the wrong degree. Oh, no. For three years, for all of 2005, all of 2006, all of 2007. And so, and so they were taking all these classes that didn’t even go towards a degree. Now, they were horror classes. All these kids were having, like Neil, we had like 7 kids with 3,5 above that wasn’t labeled ineligible. So they come back and because I raised hell because of Bud Tillman, they come back and do they vacated all the winds from 2005,2006,2007, lost scholarship and all that stuff. So are those winds still vacated? Oh, yeah, we’re still vacated. So stupid. Still vacate.