Carmelo Anthony earned a 1.8 GPA in his first semester as a college student. It's not exactly Rhodes Scholar material, but Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim thinks that, all in all, Anthony did a good job.
Anthony's grades are revealed in Boeheim's new book, Bleeding Orange, which he wrote with Sports Illustrated's Jack McCallum.
Boeheim states that Anthony managed four C's and one D, but that the coach was impressed with how well Anthony handled all of his student-athlete obligations.
The 1.8 GPA did, however, disqualify Anthony from the Wooden Award, given annually to college basketball's top player, which requires at least a 2.0 to be a nominee. (T.J. Ford of Texas ended up winning the 2003 Wooden Award.)
"Nevertheless, this much is certain: No college basketball player in America was better than freshman Carmelo Anthony over the course of the 2002-03 season," writes Boeheim.
For more context, the full paragraph can be seen below:
The last paragraph of this page discusses Melo's grades: pic.twitter.com/4YMIwJN0SX
— Chris Herring (@HerringWSJ) October 9, 2014
One point of concern is that, by revealing Anthony's specific grades, Boeheim might have violated FERPA, a federal act that protects student information unless a party has written consent to make the information public. But based on statements Boeheim made later to The Wall Street Journal, it sounds like he had at least discussed the matter with Anthony before putting that information in the book.
At any rate, Anthony and Boeheim have maintained a close relationship after the Syracuse star left for the NBA after his freshman season. And given all the praise Boeheim has smothered him with over the years, it's hard to see Anthony making much of a fuss.
But maybe Anthony will tell us what courses he took that semester since Boeheim didn't cite them by name.