Former UK Recruit At Center Of Academic Scandal

Most of you remember Tony Wroten Jr. from the recruiting scuffles of 2010.  Wroten was recruited by most high major schools, including Kentucky, and was famous for his prolific and sometimes inappropriate use of Twitter.  Wroten was injured for most of his senior year in high school, but put on a very good performance recently in the Nike Hoop Summit. 

Wroten was recruited by Kentucky as a point guard for a long while, but UK never offered him a scholarship and wound up backing off his recruitment. Wroten eventually committed to Lorenzo Romar at the University of Washington.

Wroten's fascination with Twitter has led to an investigation into some of his academic work at Garfield High School.  It seems that Wroten had gotten a blue plate special on a Spanish class from the former athletics director Jim Valiere (did you know high schools had athletics directors?  I didn't.) according to the Seattle Times:

Wroten, the University of Washington's top recruit, found himself in the tiny remedial class after an investigation showed that the Garfield athletic director in 2010 had given him and another star athlete passing grades in a Spanish class that never existed.

Yeah, there's more to that story.  What gets me is the suggestion by Wroten's connections that he was the victim in this process, as if he was simply too innocent to understand that an occasional verbal quizzing while passing in the school hallway was not the way we teach Spanish in this country.

I have always been leery of Wroten.  His questionable use of Twitter was a red flag to me about this kid's character.  Hopefully, he will learn from this and Lorenzo Romar's class will rub off on him, but no matter what, this incident tells me Wroten is likely in need of remediation in more things than Spanish.  Hat tip:  Jeff Nusser via Twitter.