What in roycroftmom’s post #111 comes across as hostility to athletes? To me, it looks largely like statements of plain fact. There are cases where athletes are academically matched with the universities they attend, or even on the high end, but more typically the athletes are about a standard deviation below average at the university they attend. There has certainly been publicity about athletes who are functionally illiterate graduating from colleges where the average student is not functionally illiterate. A Div I sports scholarship does tend to be a free ride. Tutors, support, accommodations, and travel are all standard parts of the package. The food at the “training tables” is not the typical dorm food. Some of the sports centers are pretty incredible in terms of the amenities, and they are not usually open to non-athletes.
While the odds of becoming a professional are low, they are not zero, especially for the more athletically talented. I realize that athletes have serious time demands from their sports, including hard work to develop their skills and fitness. There are typically “voluntary” training sessions that go beyond the NCAA-allowed training time with coaches, but that are more-or-less mandatory for someone who wants to play really well. The “travel” has restrictions. There are classes that are just incompatible with the demands of athletics. Still, I don’t see any significant factual errors in what roycroftmom posted in #111.
In my view, part of the problem is that gifted athletes in revenue sports are identified when they are quite young–by middle-school most often–and in many schools and communities, a great deal of slack is cut for them. I commend regions where this does not happen. But certainly, in many schools athletes (especially in revenue sports) are lionized. This may make it harder to develop good judgment. However, “don’t shoplift” does not seem to me to be a challenging rule to learn.
Good point, ohiopublic. We graduated a Vanderbilt basketball player who was a computer engineering major and entered with an 800 Math SAT. But, the CC generalizations abound. Yes, concessions are made for highly talented athletes, but at many D1 schools (not Kentucky, NC or the like) they have to meet the academic expectations of the school.
I am not at all condoning the shoplifting in a foreign country while representing the university and the US, by any means. Idiots! And I Can Not Stand the elder Ball. I honestly don’t know what I think the penalty should be. It should be pretty severe, but I’m not sure I’m at expulsion or permanently off the team.
An example is University of Mississippi, which automatically admits applicants who meet the NCAA minimum standards, so it is not like recruited athletes there are allowed in with lower standards than other applicants there. https://admissions.olemiss.edu/applying-to-ole-miss/freshmen/
Right, twoinanddone I was referring to revenue sports.
ohiopublic, obviously I don’t have access to the athlete’s academic qualifications. But I do have access to 2016-2017 Common Data Set for UCLA, which is on the web,. The average high school GPA of UCLA freshman was 4.33. Students with high school GPA of 3.75+ constituted 95.8% of the entering class. Only 2.5% had high school GPAs of 3.50-3.74, 1% had high school GPAs of 3.25-3.49, 0.6% had high school GPAs of 3.00-3.24, and 0.1% had high school GPAs of 2.50-2.99.
97% of all entering freshmen were in the top 10% of their high school classes, and 100% in the top quarter. (That’s 100%, where numbers that would not round to 99.9% or below become 100%, as opposed to truly 100%, most likely.)
The range from the 25th %ile to the 75 %ile was as follows:
SAT CR, 570-700
SAT M, 580-740
ACT composite, 25-33
ACT M, 26-33
ACT English, 25-34
27.0% of the entering students scored in the 700-800 range on the SAT CR, 41.5% in the 700-800 range on SAT M, 57% in the 30-36 range on ACT composite, 48.6% in that range on ACT M, and 58.5% in that range on ACT English.
You can compare this with the NCAA standards for eligibility.
I don’t doubt that there are athletes who fit the general profile of the UCLA class, but I do doubt that many of the revenue-sports athletes look much like the above.
Not much more to say about this subject. The kids were lucky that president Trump intervened and convinced president Xi to release them. The flak from Lavar Ball will probably assure that this won’t happen for the next set of kids who do something equally or more idiotic. They seem to have no idea what they dodged, and what a disgrace they are for their actions. They ought to be apologizing to their school and to the merchants in China, and to the people of the cities they visited as guests.
The academic level (on the whole) of the entering class at the University of Mississippi is not comparable to the academic level of the entering class at UCLA. For example, 56% of the entering class at the University of Mississippi had high school GPAs of 3.74 or below, while this was true of only 4.2% of the entering class at UCLA. 19% had ACT composite scores between 30 and 36 at the University of Mississippi, vs. 57% at UCLA. 8% had SAT CR scores in the 700-800 range vs. 27.0% at UCLA, and 8% had SAT M scores in the 700-800 range at the University of Mississippi vs. 41.5% at UCLA.
I don’t doubt that there are some incredibly smart students at the University of Mississippi, just as there are at practically any school. However, the overall picture is different from UCLA’s.
The three young men did exactly what they needed to do as soon as they returned to the US. They each apologized in a press conference.
Mr. Ball is a separate person. He is known to promote his family brand, as does Trump, and can respond to questions based on what he knows from having been there and based on how he feels. Whatever. The president is being beyond petty in begging for thanks and now attacking Mr. Ball for his responses and opinions. Ignore Mr. Ball and go run the country. Stop ranting on citizens; it is unbecoming. Leave the young men in China? Really? As the American president? Even if he thought that in anger, he never should have let that horrible comment see the light of day. Scream it into a pillow and move on.
well, TQfromthe U, then we need to make sure we rescue the next choir member, or cheerleader, or student paper editor, who gets into trouble abroad to be even-handed about these things, and oddly enough, other countries don’t really appreciate Americans behaving badly in their countries. Being an athlete, or an American, is not a free pass to ignore laws.
@roycroftmom I’m not in anyway suggesting a free pass for anyone. But tell me, since when do we as a country not try to bring our citizens home? All our citizens?
Pretty regularly. In fact it’s State Dept policy not to get legally involved with American citizens abroad charged with crimes. They might make sure you’re being treated properly, e.g. access to food, water, proper living conditions. But they’re not going to ask the local police/judge/political leaders to help with your legal situation.
the US State Department policy is to visit US citizens imprisoned abroad, without judgment. Interfering with local judicial process has never been the US policy. That is why many Americans are indeed, in foreign jails, (often on drug charges) getting visits from US State Department employees.
True. Unlike my kids’ excellence at poking people in the torso with pointy metal rods (foil fencing), basketball is silly and pointless (no pun intended).
