Touted recruit Sallie won't join Huskers
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BY BRIAN ROSENTHAL / Lincoln Journal Star
Roburt Sallie did everything asked of him. He attended junior college. He achieved good grades.
With only a couple of finals ahead of him this week, the highly touted Nebraska basketball recruit is on the verge of receiving his associates degree.
“He’s done,” said Justin Labagh, Sallie’s coach at City College of San Francisco. “He’s qualified.”
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Steven M. Sipple and Brian Rosenthal try to make sense of Sallie's situation. (Anthony Roberts / JournalStar.com)...
Yet Sallie is right back where he started two years ago: on the outside of Nebraska looking in.
Nebraska coach Doc Sadler announced Tuesday that Sallie won’t be eligible to compete at Nebraska, or any Big 12 Conference school.
The reason lies in Big 12 Conference Rule 6.2, which states that any student-athlete who enrolls at a conference institution, part time or full time, must meet NCAA initial eligibility requirements.
Sallie had not met those requirements when he enrolled part time and paid for his own classes at Nebraska in the fall of 2006. At the time, Sallie, a prep school standout who’d signed with the Huskers, was waiting to hear if the NCAA academic clearinghouse would grant him eligibility.
That, despite three appeals, never happened — automatically making Sallie in violation of rule 6.2. Only a waiver by the Big 12 Conference would allow Sallie to ever play.
Nebraska requested a waiver. On Thursday, the Big 12 Council, a group composed of one faculty athletic representative from each school, denied it.
“In order to get a waiver of the rule, you have to be able to show extraordinary circumstances. I disagreed, but I was only one vote,” said Nebraska faculty athletics representative Jo Potuto, who presented the case. “The majority felt that this one didn’t reach the level to warrant a waiver.”
Potuto said the rule, in recent years, has been “interpreted and tightened up more and more.”
Had Sallie enrolled full time at Nebraska in the fall of 2006, he would’ve been in violation of the NCAA rule, too. Instead, he’s only in violation of the Big 12 rule, meaning he can still compete at any NCAA school outside the Big 12.
In essence, Sallie gambled by enrolling part time, and lost.
“It put at risk his ability to ever enroll and compete in a Big 12 institution,” Potuto said.
Why, then, did Sallie enroll at Nebraska, and under whose advice?
“I don’t know whether anybody advised,” Potuto said. “I think he was given the options and the risks involved. I think the people in academics and compliance set it all out for him.”
Later in the phone interview, Potuto said: “He was certainly advised of all the options. I think he really wanted to attend Nebraska. Certainly, even through the time he was at the junior college, he was really loyal to the program. I know everybody feels bad that it didn’t work out.”
Said Sadler: “I’ve never seen a dude that wants to come to Nebraska as bad as he does.”
When the NCAA clearinghouse declared Sallie ineligible and denied ensuing appeals in the fall of 2006, didn’t Nebraska officials know at that time that Sallie’s only hope would be a waiver by the Big 12 Council?
“Nebraska knew, and I believe that Roburt would’ve been advised of what everything looked like,” Potuto said.
She said it wasn’t possible for Nebraska to seek a waiver when Sallie was declared ineligible in 2006.
Sallie didn’t return messages left on his cell phone.
Sadler, speaking via phone from Orlando, Fla., where he’s attending the NBA pre-draft camp, said he was instructed to not comment further on the situation.
In a news release, Nebraska media relations said no other statements would come from the athletic department. Nebraska executive associate athletic director Marc Boehm didn’t return messages seeking comment.
Gary Bargen, assistant athletic director for compliance, wouldn’t comment, saying all questions regarding Sallie should go through Potuto.
The 6-foot-5, 195-pound Sallie, a guard from Sacramento, Calif., originally signed with Washington while he was a teammate of former Husker Jamel White at Laurinburg Institute, a prep school. When Sallie didn’t qualify academically, he spent another year in prep school at The Patterson School in North Carolina and signed with Nebraska.
Sallie, after being denied academic clearance by the NCAA again, sat out the 2006-07 season, then enrolled at City College of San Francisco in the spring of 2007. He played for City College last season and was named the California junior college player of the year.
Sallie, despite strong interest from Kansas and Memphis, re-signed with Nebraska in November, delivering on his promise all along to return to Lincoln.
“Nebraska has showed me loyalty that I will never forget,” Sallie said when he re-signed. “I believe in loyalty. It’s beyond basketball. It’s being able to trust people, and I really trust those guys.”
Reach Brian Rosenthal at 473-7436 or brosenthal@journalstar.com.
