Purple Aces: Put your sleeves back on and the problems will go away

Three UE basketball players booted from team for stealing

By Dick Rogers, THG Sports

December 5, 2004

University of Evansville head basketball coach Steve Merfield dismissed three players from the team last week for stealing from fellow students’ dorm rooms during the school’s Thanksgiving break.

The few dozen folks who still consider themselves University of Evansville basketball fans should have seen this coming.

When Jim Crews left and took the job at Army, the new guy (Merfield) came in with a bunch of new-fangled ideas about recruiting athletic players so the university could have a more exciting, fan-friendly brand of basketball.

Sure, this sounded great, but to accomplish his goal Merfield would have to do the unthinkable: take the sleeves off of the team’s uniforms. 

Sleeved jerseys had become the team’s trademark, having been worn by Purple Ace’s teams for the better part of the last 55 years.  The Aces were the only team in men’s basketball that still wore them until Merfield decided to make a pact with the devil and scrap them in 2003.

I can see his reasoning behind this change; the only players UE was able to recruit were skinny, athletically-challenged stiffs who were more than happy to cover up their emaciated shoulders and biceps with the Purple Aces’ sleeves. 

To get the blue chip athletes, strong ones who can run and jump and maybe throw down a dunk once in a while, Merfield knew he would have to have a uniform that would allow them to show off their guns and collection of tattoos.

The updated jerseys did help Merfield accomplish his goal—he has been able to recruit better athletes (though basketball aficionados might argue that he hasn’t recruited better players than Jim Crews).  Too bad three of them won’t be around to help out the Aces in the coming years.

A side affect of the uniform change that perhaps Merfield didn’t consider is this: with greater athletes come greater problems. 

The players UE used to recruit were decent ballplayers and good kids who were surprised a school would even give them a scholarship to play basketball.  Most knew that when they left college, they would become accountants and school teachers so they worked hard and stayed out of trouble, not wanting to screw up their free ride.

Now UE is like countless other schools that open their doors to the criminal element in hopes of getting a few more wins and making a few more dollars in ticket sales.  They recruit kids who are used to being treated like stars and getting away with murder just because they are great athletes. 

Is this worth the negative publicity the university will receive as a result of these players’ actions?  I think not.

To remedy their problems, all Coach Merfield has to do is bring back the old uniforms.  This will weeds out the bad players, who care more about style than substance and will transfer to other thug-friendly schools, like Creighton. 

The Evansville community will then once again have a team they can be proud of.

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