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Jarrett Jack graduates ... on same court where he played

By Net Income
Shiz86 via Twitter

Right after the Nets beat the 76ers Friday night, Jarrett Jack boarded a private plane out of Newark and flew due south to Atlanta, where he met friends and family in preparation for the fulfillment of promise and a milestone: his graduation from college.

Ten years --and $31.2 million in salary-- after turning pro, Jack graduated Saturday morning from Georgia Tech, a not too shabby university, with a degree in business administration, finishing up this summer before he joined the Nets.  It's all about his parents. Before they would bless him leaving GT for the NBA, he had to promise he'd return and get that degree.  And now he has.

Jack tweeted out a picture of him in his graduation robes.

Then later, the big moment itself.


"My parents are a special tandem. It couldn’t have been easy when I decided to leave school," he said before the ceremony. "Everybody would’ve been content with that, but they were constantly challenging me in other ways, and this is one of the ways that they challenged me, just to not be like everybody else. It was a long, rough road, but I’m finally here, and I’m happy to get to it."

Fittingly, the ceremony took place at at McCamish Pavilion, the same arena where he played for the Yellow Jackets.

"It’s just something that I definitely wanted to be a part of," Jack told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "I’ve been working very, very hard to finish up my academic requirements and it’s just something I felt like I wanted to be part of."

He was also part of the Nets game vs. Charlotte.  He went 5-of-9, scored 14 points, handed out five assists in only 20 minutes.

Jack was a linchpin of the Yellow Jackets’ 2004 Final Four team, averaging 12.5 points and 5.6 assists and earning most outstanding player honors in the St. Louis regional. He was taken in the draft a year later, after his junior year.

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