hmmm, i kind of agree and kind of don't... granted I believe college is a place of learning, but I'll also concede that athletes bring in SOO much money to the schools that without 'em the cost of education would be even higher... I'd like to see higher graduation rates, but at the same time, some of the athletes that go to college have no other prospects for a future other than pro sports and beyond high school there is no place for them to continue to develop those skills... some of those guys couldn't graduate without athletics and would end up in the exact same situation they left...
As long as they exclude those players that turn pro instead of graduating when they compile their statistics, I am all for it. The graduation rate for male basketball players is horrendous. The basketball community of coaches, players, athletic directors, college presidents, and others should be ashamed of themselves for allowing this type of thing to occur.
Anybody have the %-age of NCAA athletes that go on to play professional sports? My bet is it's astronomically low. You'd think this group could be accounted for in the 60 percentile non-graduating "gimme".
i'm sure it is low, astronomically low for that matter... but the way I'm looking at it is that colleges will invariably have to tighten admission requirements to keep out the ones that might hurt their averages, thus, denying some very capable folks the ability to even have the chance to play college and often pro ball (since the high school -> pro jump is even more rare than you suggest the college to pro jump is)....
i heard about this yest. and was actually surprised to hear how low the grad rate was for some schools. not sure why i was surprised, but you do always hear the phrase " student athlete ". i think they should put this into effect, but i know they won't. schools would lose too much money and i don't care what the universities say, they care about money not graduation success.
Why should the graduation rates of NCAA sports teams matter at all? Why should I care about graduation rates of college sports teams?
Well....for one thing.....I'm helping support some of these "student-athletes". You are, too. Do you care that some of them are only there to play sports? Or, would you rather see your support $$ go to someone who actually wants their education? No wrong answer. I understand the athletes bring in money (and a lot of it). It's a "principal" thing, to me.
The major sports programs, football and basketball, pay for themselves and, if the school doesn't suck, also help pay for other sports. So we aren't really helping support these student-athletes. I would be more happy with the "principle thing" if the NCAA didn't try to BS me and blow smoke up my butt saying they care about these "student-athletes". NCAA nor the schools care about them or they would have graduation requirements in line with that particular schools non-athlete graduation rates. Hell, they would never accept half their student-athletes because they don't qualify academically. You want to increase graduation rates? Don't accept students that have no intention of graduating. Schools and the NCAA make 100's of millions off of these student-athletes. They won't do **** to stop the gravy train.
Whoooaaaa. The MAJOR SCHOOLS.....yeah. I'll give you....FOOTBALL probably pays for all the other sports, combined. Conceded. But, I think you'd be very surprised at how many schools this doesn't occur at. You also have to remember how many NCAA schools there are. I'm betting you less than 5% of all NCAA sports programs are self-supported. I'm no "purist". I actually think college athletes should get paid.
I would suspect that graduation rates differ dramatically once you separate the colleges that make money on football and basketball from those that don't . If you are going to tie graduation rates to reprensentation in the post season that would have to apply to football (and other sports) also. There would likely be no football BCS or many bowl games. Why even have "student-athletes"? Why not have a sports team represent your school and pay the athletes with either a college education or money? The current situation will not change much as there is too much money to be made and the pro teams need a proving ground for their incoming talent. No one is going to upset that applecart.
If you used the ACC as your control group......this wouldn't hold water. Ya know, Bruce......I probably shouldn't "care" about this. It all seems really dirty to me, though. I just have a hard time (personally) with schools who are perennial under-achievers in the realm of graduating their players. It bothers me they don't put enough emphasis on it. It also bothers me that they're not ashamed of it....and that they're not trying to change. I'm fully aware that there are players that just aren't gonna graduate. But is it really a coincidence they all seem to congregate to certain schools/coaches? Or, do these schools coaches breed this type of apathy? Just bothers me.
The NCAA and the public breed this type of apathy. Schools and coaches aren't breaking any rules (usually) and, even if they do, what happens? Lets look at your favorite coach, Calipari, and the vacated banners. Did the school lose any money? Coach? Players? and more importantly, the NCAA? NONE of those involved cares that those final fours are not recognized, they already got the money and they are getting paid again, right now, maybe with money you put into the system by purchasing sports paraphenalia, an advertised product, or even PPV games during the season. It bothers me so much on the college and pro level that try very hard not to contribute money to the "sports" systems.
I had 30 freshmen enter with me to play college football. We all came from very diverse economic, racial, and geographical backgrounds. I went to school at one of the best public colleges in the US with a rigorous academic program. I routinely took classes where 30% of my classmates were either the valedictorian or salutatorian of their high schools. Our football program regularly graduated 95% of it's players. Heck, I believe the average graduation rate for every sports team on campus was at 95%. Why? Because the student-athletes took their studies seriously, and the entire athletic department thought school first, sports second. That being said, I was lucky as hell to graduate considering I was being graded using a bell curve against such students as Justice Antonin Scalia's son.
Josh... Don't fret, man....lol....I'm not losing sleep over it! I just wish more schools viewed academics like Brett's. Like the commercial....MOST (a resounding percentage) of these student-athletes will be turning pro in something other than their chosen sport.
Hey,, face it... some of these kids couldn't graduate if they were given 25 years to do it. Stupid is permanent. It will never fly. Hell, even Bill Gates dropped out of college. Maybe we should have banned him from the business world. LOL A sense in who gets money to go to college went out the window with boosters and ethnic quotas.
I will break some things down to people that may not understand the resources that are available to student-athletes at big time/semi big time schools. If you are on scholarship, you are able to get ALL the books for your classes. Some regular students can only afford the core text books. Athletes on scholarship can buy all the supplemental books due to book vouchers. Those supplemental books come in real handy and really add support....in laymen's terms, those books make you look intelligent when you site information on mid-terms/papers/in class discussions. Again, scholarship athletes have ALL the advantages when it comes to class materials. No excuses should be present. If a scholarship student struggles in class, they have access to paid tutors. The athletic department will pay a student to tutor the struggling athlete. I believe they would pay up to 10-20 hours a week in any given subject. How do I know? I used one for French class because I was having an extremely difficult time learning a foreign language. My tutor helped me immensely. If not for her I more than likely would have not passed my mid-level French classes. So, no excuses for scholarship athletes when they struggle academically. NONE. Colleges hold free writing/computer training classes for all students. They literally walk you through the writing process, showing you how to write a competent paper. No excuses for student athletes when it comes to writing papers or manipulating computers. Prior to entering college, I never owned a computer. Most everyone else I knew brought a computer to school with them and were quite proficient. I struggled for a couple of years with computers, until guess what......I talked with and learned from computer geeks in my fraternity. Wow, what a concept. Have a deficiency, recognize that deficieny, seek out someone with knowledge on how to correct that deficiency....some people would rather complain. Again, no excuses for student-athletes when it comes to writing papers or manipulating computers, none. There are many hot girls on campus that would love to tutor athletes for $20 an hour, tons. Why do I say all this....because if athletes cannot succeed given the above mentioned support, then how in the hell are they going to succeed in the real world, where people could give a piss about wether you can tackle someone, shoot a 3 pointer, or hit a home run? They are not. Here is the day in the life of a student athlete as I remember it from college when I was taking an average work load of classes in the middle of the football season: 7-wake up/breakfast 8-class 9-class 10-film study on upcoming opponent/study 11-lunch/study 12-2-chill/study/lift weights/film study/sleep 2-3 class 3-5:30-practice 6-dinner 6-? free time to study/drink/sleep/have pre-marital sex/etc. So you can see that although it is a busy day, one has 6-7 hours a day to study, to learn, to adapt, to ask for help, to focus....NO excuses for student-athletes. And certainly no excuse for ANY college sports team in American to report that only 30% of it's athletes graduate. That is a complete failure, complete. Heck, the Duke basketball team competes at the highest levels in the country, has an extremely difficult undergraduate program, yet graduates 90%+ of it's basketball players. Why? Because of the coach, the tradition, and the actual care put into recruiting the right type of athletes.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/19/AR2010031902879_pf.html Myths, hypocrisies and distortions of the Big Dance [SIZE=-1]Sunday, March 21, 2010; A13 [/SIZE] The Post asked observers of the NCAA and its marquee basketball tournament to share some sour notes about the big dance. Below are contributions from John Feinstein, Joel Sokol, Richard E. Lapchick, Peter A. French, Michael Josephson and John Challenger. JOHN FEINSTEIN Contributor to The Post and author of 25 books; his most recent book is "Change-Up: Mystery at the World Series" Most everyone enjoys the NCAA basketball tournament this time of year. People fill out brackets, gather by TVs and root for their teams and for upsets. It's all good. Well, not exactly all good. The NCAA has this obsession with making college basketball into some kind of morality play: Players can't just be players they have to be "student-athletes." But what's wrong with being a player? The young men competing in this tournament aspire to be just that: basketball players. That doesn't mean any particular player won't graduate -- although if half graduate some day, that will be a good number -- but when they're playing basketball the fact that some might also study doesn't need to be shoved down the public's throat 24 hours a day. How many times do we have to see that public service ad reminding us that most of the NCAA's 400,000 "student-athletes" will be pros at something other than their sport? Maybe someone ought to tell the "educators" running the tournament that "student-athlete" is a redundant term. In order to participate in the NCAA tournament, an athlete is required to be a student -- or at least to be enrolled as one. How seriously does the NCAA take this farce? The handbook given to everyone who works at a tournament site includes this: "Participants should be referred to as 'student-athletes' at all times." Oh, please. Just shut up and let the kids play basketball. JOEL SOKOL Associate professor at Georgia Institute of Technology; co-creator of the LRMC college basketball ranking system Murray State hits an unlikely shot at the buzzer to beat Vanderbilt, and the team is the talk of the tournament. Robert Morris's last shot against Villanova doesn't go down, and the next day it's an afterthought. Do either of those results say anything about the relative quality of the opponents? Of course not. The successful shot could easily have missed, and vice versa; we could just as easily be talking today about how a tough Vanderbilt squad pulled out a close one against a stubborn opponent (who was it again?), while Robert Morris showed how much it belonged in the tournament by beating a Villanova team that choked in the clutch. The numbers show that hitting that last-minute shot is just a matter of luck. Sure, Michael Jordan hit lots of game-winners, but he also missed a lot, too. Really, we should be talking about a Murray State team that played well but also got lucky. Or about a 15th-seed Robert Morris team whose performance against second-seed Villanova deserves just as much recognition as, say, the 15th-seed Hampton team that beat second-seed Iowa State almost a decade ago. After watching game after game on Thursday come down to the last shot, the idea that a single-elimination tournament could consistently identify the best team in the country seems unlikely. Early-round excitement is great, but when we get to the later rounds I'd rather see the top teams play a short series instead of a single-game tournament. That way, the winner is more likely to be the best team in the country, not just the one that was luckiest. RICHARD E. LAPCHICK Director of the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida, which publishes the annual study "Academic Progress/Graduation Success Rates of Division I NCAA Women's and Men's Basketball Tournament Teams" One of the legacies of Myles Brand's presidency at the NCAA is a great improvement in the graduation rates for male student-athletes. But one of his frustrations was that no matter how much that improved, the gap between the graduation rates for African American and white basketball student-athletes remained enormous. This year was no exception. First, the good news: 84 percent of white and 56 percent of African American male basketball student-athletes graduate, up six and two percentage points, respectively, from a year ago. Ninety percent of white and 78 percent of African American female basketball student-athletes graduate, up one and three points, respectively. But the graduation gaps between African American and white basketball players on the men's and women's teams were still a staggering 28 and 12 percentage points. The gap on the men's teams increased by four points. Eight women's tournament teams and 28 men's teams have a 30-point or greater gap between the graduation rates of white and African American basketball student-athletes. That is unacceptable. We need March Madness fans and sponsors to step up and say: "Yes, we want the excitement that the tournament brings, but we also want an equal playing field for all those student-athletes competing on the courts to prevail in our classrooms as well."
