CHRISTOPHER JAMES McCOLLUM, “C.J.” — -LEHIGH UNIVERSITY, CLASS OF 2013
It’s common knowledge to some thinking folks — or should be — that big paydays are often gifted to the wrong sector of the working population. Professional athletes, university presidents, multinational conglomerate CEOs for example. Doctors and lawyers in some cases.
Teachers, nurses, law enforcement agents, firefighters, first responders and even big-time college athletes are among the ones who are compensated the least and in a perfect world should earn the most.
Let’s add professional scouts to that list. That’s right scouts.
Not the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Cub Scouts or Brownie factions, noble enterprises though they may be.
Not those characters who sniff out prepubescent ballplayers, convince them to specialize right away and steer them toward today’s ‘guaranteed’ accepted outlets such as the AAU in order to pave the way (grease the skids?) for college scholarship offers.
No, not they.
Rather those grizzled bird-dog lifers who scour the country and the world via the back roads and main thoroughfares, looking for the talented yet largely unknown or unlikely athlete who will make it big in the professional ranks, be it in baseball, football, basketball, hockey or soccer.
Professional scouts couldn’t be paid enough, commensurate with the unyielding effort they expend panning for gold in the name of the organization employing them.
It’s a thankless job in which the success rate is appallingly low. Finding that diamond in the rough, that mass of clay waiting to be sculpted and later cast in bronze is near-impossible.
But it can happen. Even a blind squirrel can find a nut once in a while.
Lehigh University is recognized as one of the nation’s premier research institutions, offering a rigorous and challenging academic regimen for over 7,000 students. The curriculum boasts more than 20 interdisciplinary programs spanning multiple colleges and a 9:1 student-faculty ratio. There are over 100 undergraduate degree programs and majors.
Lehigh was the 6th. university in the world to be designated an NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) by the United Nations and the average starting salary of its 2017 graduates was estimated at $61K.
Ninety-six per cent of the class of ’17 found itself either employed or attending graduate school within 6 months of commencement.
The acceptance rate at the university as of 2016 was 25.5%.
As for campus life Lehigh, located in Bethlehem, PA. engages in 25 NCAA Division 1 intercollegiate sports for men and women and promotes more than 150 clubs in addition to 43 intramural and club sports to help round out the interests and college lives of the student population. There are 31 fraternities and sororities affiliated with the school.
Mark Antony De Wolfe Howe, an American editor and author graduated from Lehigh in 1886 and won the 1925 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography (“Barrett Wendell and His Letters”).
Joe Morgenstern, a film critic, journalist and screenwriter, has written movie reviews for the Wall Street Journal since May 1995 and is a proud Lehigh graduate, Class of 1953. His Pulitzer Prize for Criticism was awarded in 2005, making him only the third film critic to be so honored; Roger Ebert (1975) and Stephen Hunter (2003) preceded him.
And Marty Baron ’76, the former editor of the Boston Globe and the current editor of the Washington Post, nabbed his Pulitzer in 2003 as part of the Globe’s courageous, comprehensive and driven investigative team coverage of the Catholic priest sexual abuse scandal.
Jack Dreyfus (1934) founder of the Dreyfus Fund; Lee Iacocca (1945; Hon.D.English 1965) former chairman of Chrysler Corporation; Edward Avery McIlhenny (1896) CEO of McIlhenny Company, the makers of Tabasco sauce; and Joseph R. Perella (1964) former chairman of Investment Banking, Morgan Stanley headline the list of business luminaries holding Lehigh degrees.
The worlds of entertainment, law, medicine, science and engineering, sociology, the military and politics all include the names of notable Lehigh alumni.
And then there is Lehigh’s rich history of successfully blending academics and athletics.
On May 16, 2018 the NCAA announced that a school-record 16 Lehigh Mountain Hawk athletic teams were named Academic Progress Rate (APR) Public Recognition Award Winners. Each year this honor is bestowed upon teams scoring in the top 10% in their respective sport on the APR scale which measures eligibility, graduation and retention — by term — and offers a clear picture of each team’s academic performance.
Seventy percent (16 of 23 or 69.5652% to be more precise) of Lehigh’s varsity sports programs received APR awards, ranking the Mountain Hawks fourth among Division 1 institutions with respect to highest percentage of teams so recognized.
Lehigh has boasted no fewer than nine award-winning programs in all thirteen years of the APR Public Recognition Awards’ existence and this year’s 16 honorees surpassed the mark of 15 set in 2006-’07.
The Patriot League in which Lehigh competes ranked #2 in both the number of teams and percentage of teams honored, trailing only the Ivy League.
The roster of Lehigh athletes who have continued to distinguish themselves in sports following graduation is impressive. Rabih Abdullah ’98 played running back for three NFL organizations and was a member of the 2004 Super Bowl champion New England Patriots. Craig Anderson ’60 pitched for the Mets and Cardinals. Paul Hartzell ’76 pitched for the Angels, Twins and Orioles. Kim McQuilken ’73 played quarterback for the Falcons and Redskins. Roger Penske ’59, a NASCAR and IRL team owner, is a member of the International Motorsports Hall of Fame. And Bobby Weaver ’81 was a gold medal winner in wrestling at the 1984 Summer Olympics.
On the executive side Joe Alleva (BS Finance, 1975; MBA 1976) is the current Athletic Director at LSU; he held the same position at Duke from 1998–2008. Lon Babby (BA Political Science, 1973) a longtime NBA player agent was named the Phoenix Suns President of Basketball Operations in 2010, before becoming the team’s senior adviser in 2015. And Finn Wentworth (1980) was the President and CEO of the New Jersey Nets and the President, COO and CEO of YankeeNets.
Clearly on the path to becoming Lehigh University’s GOAT as far as pure professional athletic achievement is a fellow by the name of Christopher James McCollum, “C.J.” (BA Journalism, 2013).
Selected by the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers in the first round and tenth overall in 2013 — the first Lehigh player ever drafted — McCollum apprenticed as a reserve during his first two seasons, became a shooting guard and now forms one of the league’s most dynamic and prolific backcourts with point guard and three-time All-Star Damian Lillard.
At the close of 2015–2016, his third year in the league, McCollum was named the NBA’s Most Improved Player. In 2017 he was the NBA free-throw percentage champion. On January 31, 2018 McCollum went off, scoring a franchise-record 28 points in the first quarter and finishing with 50 (in only three quarters of play) leading the Blazers to a 124–108 victory over the Bulls.
He joined an elite circle of Portland hierarchy including Lillard, Damon Stoudamire, Brandon Roy, Andre Miller, Clyde Drexler and Geoff Petrie as Blazer players to tally 50 or more points in a game.
Pundits Bill Simmons and Zach Lowe spoke recently on The Bill Simmons Podcast about potential NBA personnel moves which this summer’s post-draft bartering and horsetrading could engender.
They float the notion that McCollum has played his last game as a Blazer. McCollum to Philly? To Indiana? Chips could come in the form of a Markelle Fultz and Philadelphia #10 draft pick package, or something involving the Pacers’ Myles Turner, a tantalizing up-and-comer.
And there has been some sort of insider dialogue regarding a possible McCollum for Andre Drummond deal in an exchange of big-money contracts, essentially pushing the reset button for both clubs. Perhaps a little less likely on the face of it.
However it all shakes out, “C.J.” McCollum the Journalism major from Lehigh, Class of 2013 has indelibly made his mark and things are just starting to percolate.
[Editor’s Note: This piece was written by Mr. Kaplan in May 2018.]
