From March Madness to Banking Big Shot
Now that Cornell has shocked the bejeezus out of the college basketball world by handily beating better-on-paper teams Wisconsin and Temple, they face their biggest challenge of March Madness, the University of Kentucky.
Of course, the men who make up the Cornell University team have a different perspective of the college basketball tournament, which is to say their perspective is so far off the basketball radar, it's a surprise these guys know what a basketball is.
Take Mark Coury, one of Cornell's backup forwards. He averages 2.5 points a game, which - and this is just a guess - is a great average for a guy on an Ivy League basketball team. He has an internship lined up at Goldman Sachs this summer.
"Right now, I'm concentrating on the internship this summer," Coury told Bloomberg. "I need to see what fits me the best and if I want to pursue it as a career."
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Fair enough. All students need to concentrate on their internships. And they need to concentrate on their futures. But since Cornell is the first Ivy League school to reach the regional semifinals since Penn in 1979, Coury could probably hold off on his investment banking dreams until Cornell wins the championship (unlikely), or until Kentucky pounds them into the sand Thursday night (altogether more likely).
"For these kids, this is it, this is the pinnacle," Cornell coach Steve Donahue told Bloomberg. "There are four guys on Kentucky that will be millionaires in six months. It's a whole different approach."
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Donahue means that the Kentucky players are much more likely to land in the NBA than the Cornell guys, most of whom will not play professional basketball. But based on Coury's upcoming internship and the fates of former Cornell players - grad and former Cornell basketball player Jason Battle is a securities analyst at Goldman Sachs - the guys on the current team aren't going to be break dancing in the subway for Happy Meals anytime soon.
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