At 05:12 PM 5/10/97 -0900, Jeffrey Partnow wrote:
>Actually, Libby was more than good enough to give a scholarship to, and
>would have had a bunch of offers, except for "potential" eligibilty
>problems. Some schools viewed them as more serious than did Coach Walsh,
>who was then in his "we can work anything out" phase vis-a-vis the NCAA. I
>am an unabashed Walsh fan, but I wouldn't credit him for making Libby a
>good player, only for making him eligible.
 
While he *may* have been good enough for a scholarship at some schools, he
was not good enough to be given one at Maine.  Granted there may be reasons
as suggested by Jeffrey, but in final anaylsis he wasn't ineligible and he
wasn't given a scholarship.
 
Walsh cannot make a player eligible and in cases where he may have tried he
was caught.  Libby was not one of those cases and without factual data it
is unfair to infer that he broke a rule.  I believe you are referring to
Jeff Tory and not Jeff Libby.  Tory was a talented Canadian defensemen
recruited by other schools, and let go by other schools while Walsh took
him.  Tory was thought of as a good player, but I really don't think anyone
thought Libby was "more than good enough" given what I saw of him when he
came here.
 
Tory's ineligibility helped bring down the NCAA's hand on Maine because it
was the culmination of rules circumventing.  Tory had to sit out a season
and lost a year of eligibility.
 
Libby took a redshirt year in 1993-94, so he was a freshman his second year
at Maine 1994-95.  Given who they lost the past year, if Libby was that
good he would have played.  This is a subjective analysis but as someone
who saw him play he was not a good player.  He got hurt early in his first
season and missed 17 games, and when he returned he played both at forward
and defense.  He played 12 games at defense those split between early in
the season and at the end of the season, and in the middle he played 10
games at forward.  When he played forward he was on the fourth line, when
he played defense he was in the last pair.  Again, he was not that good.
Good enough to play, but I doubt he was highly sought after by many schools.
 
He did get better as that season went on, and the following year he played
defense all year with 0-9--9 but while a solid player was still not one of
the top defensemen on the team by far, but this year he blossomed into one
of the best defensemen on the team and led all Maine defensemen in scoring.
 
In talking with people around the program upon Libby's decision to go pro,
it was the consensus that this kid was not very good when he came here, but
that he had progressed a great deal in his time here -- surprsingly so in
some cases.  You can credit Libby, or Walsh, or both but there is no
argument that he was not terrific when he came to Maine, but left with a
pro contract in hand.
 
---
Deron Treadwell ([log in to unmask])
 
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