Grades Altered to Aid Kimbro, Report Says

Administrators at Louisville forward Tony Kimbro’s high school influenced teachers to give him higher grades than he deserved so that he could meet NCAA academic requirements, the Louisville Courier-Journal reported.

The newspaper quoted several teachers who said that when Kimbro was in his senior year at Louisville’s Seneca High, he was in danger of not meeting the NCAA’s 2.0 grade point average requirement.

The newspaper said Seneca principal John R. Whiting summoned the head of the school’s science department, Sylvia Redmon, into the privacy of an office vault in late 1984 to discuss Kimbro’s biology grade.

Redmon said Whiting wanted her to pass a message to Kimbro’s biology teacher that “He has to have an A or a B in that class to be eligible” for a college scholarship.

When Redmon told biology teacher Tom Beard, Beard said Kimbro had a C and would get a higher grade only if the school administration ordered it, Redmon and Beard said.

“I said, ‘That’s what’s happening,’ ” Redmon said. “ ‘If you don’t want to teach the worst classes in the science department the rest of your career, he’ll get an A or a B.’ ”

Beard said he raised the grade to a B because of the discussion.