Within the span of 48 hours this week, Marist accepted and then rescinded a scholarship offer to Cody Joyce, a 6-foot-7, 210-pound power forward from Southern High School in Maryland.
“He’s just overwhelmed and not wanting to talk to anyone,” Brenda Medhurst, Joyce’s mother, told SNY.tv Saturday by phone.
“He went from the happiest moment to this. It’s pretty crushing to a kid.”
Medhurst said Marist athletic director Tim Murray called her Thursday to inform her that the scholarship her son had accepted on Tuesday was being revoked.
“The first thing out of his mouth was, ‘We’re over-enrolled,” Medhurst said Murray told her. “‘That’s why we’re not giving him the scholarship.'”
“Did you just become over-enrolled?” Medhurst asked Murray.
“We’re over-enrolled and I stand by my position and that’s it,” Medhurst recalled Murray saying.
Murray was not immediately available for comment Saturday and he also did not respond to the Baltimore Sun for comment.
Marist head coach Chuck Martin declined comment when reached by phone, but Medhurst said Martin felt “embarrassed” by the whole situation.
“He said, ‘My hands are tied,'” Medhurst said of Martin. “He kept saying he was embarrassed. His hands were tied.”
According to a source close to the Marist staff, Murray rescinded the scholarship because Cody did not meet with all of the required people during his official visit June 26 and thus did not meet “protocol.”
“They felt like, ‘Hey, he’s gotta meet with everyone,'” the source said. “There’s a protocol on campus.”
Meantime, Joyce missed out on several other scholarship offers because the deadline passed while he was committing to Marist.
Joyce’s father, Pete Medhurst, said in addition to several Division 2 and 3 schools expressing interest, Division 1 UMBC and Georgia Southern had shown interest. Some of those schools wanted Joyce to spend a year at prep school, but now the family must decide whether to spend in excess of $20,000 to pay for prep school for a year.
“We’re a middle class income family,” Pete said. “We’re not going to get as much financial aid to prep school as a lot of other kids will. Is it worth $20,000 to $25,000 to a prep school on the chance that Cody will end up in the same position next year?”
Summing up the family’s dilemma, Brenda Medhurst added:
“Cody’s given up a lot of schools. Some of these school have already moved on. There’s no offers on the table now.”
