<p>Very few CC can provide the level of support to students that a big-time college sports program can. Study halls with dedicated staff, computers, and other resources. Monitoring of class attendance and assignments, etc etc. Even kids who start out behind most students can gain lots of ground with intensive help. I have seen amazing progress from year 1 to graduation.</p>
<p>Barrons, I agree 100 percent if they get the support. That doesn’t seem to have been the case at UNC, or maybe they just didn’t trust them enough to succeed doing honest classwork.</p>
<p>I was a student-athlete a couple of years ago for four years at a ‘Division 1’ university that had over 400 men and women participating in its athletic dept. The football team had around 100 participants…I would estimate about 25% of football and also the men’s and women’s bkb teams were students who needed special tutoring and extra help with academics…other student-athletes could do academic work without much extra support. I would bet this ratio would be about the same as at most other big university athletic depts. with football and bkb teams.</p>
<p>The athletic dept. had a full blown academic support unit for all its student-athletes, including about 5 academic advisors and a study hall in athletic building that had required attendance hours for some student-athletes who didn’t keep grades up. Our professors got photos from athletic dept. which they pasted on their classroom seating charts to send special attendance reports to athletic dept to monitor our attendance at courses. The university had minimum academic requirements in place for student-athlete admissions, and also for continued participation on sports teams. A special (independent from athletic dept.) academic review committee made up of academic deans made decisions on admitting borderline student-athlete applicants…the academic committee did turn down kids’ admissions who sometimes ended up going to other universities our school competed against, which was often a sore point with our coaches.</p>
<p>Anyway, at a university with around 40,000 students, I figure maybe only 40 students in the athletic dept. were borderline admits who needed really special extra academic motivation and support to succeed in college. I don’t think 40 out of 40,000 poisoned the academic integrity of the university. More importantly, I think it is positive giving the few academically challenged student-athletes an opportunity to get a college education…better giving them a shot than closing the door on them and not giving them a chance at a college education and graduating with a degree.</p>
<p>I didn’t witness student-athletes being taken advantage of and thrown to the curb by my university’s athletic dept…I saw good outweighing any bad.</p>
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<p>Oh, it drives me nuts, the number of smart, competitive, “well educated” kids who regularly show an inability to differentiate between those three words here on CC. Truly one of my major pet peeves…</p>
<p>Concerning the athletes at the center of this shocking report, it should be noted that UNC is only the last in a sad line of academic institutions that failed to look after their best interests. The fact that these kids can’t read cannot have been discovered only after they were admitted to college. All along the way, adults responsible for their welfare chose to allow them to play competitive sports even though they were abysmal academic failures. Starting with the parents who thought their only obligation was to send these kids to school, to the teachers and administrators who wrote them off as irretrievable failures, to the callous and jaded college athletic departments that only saw glory and dollar signs where these kids were concerned, to an over-arching national culture that finds it completely acceptable to use them in this way—a pox on all our houses. What would happen if no child in this country was allowed to play high school team sports unless he/she showed minimal academic competence (ie., grade-level in math, reading and writing)? So, you’ve got tremendous athletic talent? Great! But, we’re much more interested in whether or not you can read, write in complete grammatical sentences, and count back change without a calculator. Is that really too much to ask?</p>
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<p>Knowingly admitting so much as one student who can’t read poisons the academic integrity of a university.</p>
<p>I didn’t say 40 couldn’t read. I said: “I figure maybe only 40 students in the athletic dept. were borderline admits who needed really special extra academic motivation and support to succeed in college.” They can read. Kinda like a medical doctor who graduated at bottom of his class…borderline, but meeting requirements.</p>
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<p>I agree, but whether it is too much to ask depends partly on whom you’re asking it of ( I know…prepostion). John Thompson was famously against raising (minimum) admissions standards. </p>
<p>All you have to know is in the eligibility standards. See
<a href=“http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/bc/genrel/auto_pdf/dI-eligibility-standards.pdf[/url]”>http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/bc/genrel/auto_pdf/dI-eligibility-standards.pdf</a></p>
<p>The chart shows that you can essentially fail the SAT (200 score per section on math and verbal) and still be eligible if you have attained a 3.55 average. It would certainly be interesting to meet such a student. I assume that one must exist. </p>
<p>If you have a 3.0, you only need a combined 610 SAT to be eligible. If you have a 2.0 average, you actually need to score 500 per section (1000 total) to be eligible. Its pretty clear that there is a premium on finding kids from schools whose grading standards are so far off the norm that they are useless.</p>
<p>Can’t read? Hmmmph. Some of the ex-athletes hired to do TV commentary (i.e. paid to speak) can’t even utter one intelligible sentence, let alone string two or three together in a row. </p>
<p>I would be shocked if, for example, Ladanian Tomlinson can read beyond a See Spot Run level.</p>
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<p>I’m raising an incredulous eyebrow at these sorts of comments. Most NBA athletes, and indeed most college athletes, come from middle class homes where not a thought was ever given to “running drugs,” see <a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/03/opinion/sunday/in-the-nba-zip-code-matters.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/03/opinion/sunday/in-the-nba-zip-code-matters.html</a>. Even among poor urban black people, drug dealing is hardly the most common profession, for goodness’ sake.</p>
<p>"Hustling’ can mean lots of things besides dealing drugs. Property crimes a big one. Ticket scalping. Lots of off the books temp employment.</p>
<p>Exactly. Hustling could be working as a used car salesman, a life insurance salesman, manual labor, temp jobs, most anything to put a buck in pocket, unfortunately maybe possibly even doing something more sketchy or even illegal. </p>
<p>Many college athletes don’t come from well-heeled families…especially in football and basketball. I’ve seen players go out to eat with their visiting mom and brothers and sisters game weekends…going to grocery store and buying loaf of bread, pack of bologna, and bag of cookies paid for with mom’s EBT card…they eat in the car. They don’t go to Chilis or Carrabba’s like some team families who are better heeled.</p>
<p>To be clear, I started this thread but I don’t expect any changes at all. I expect mostly denial from the NCAA and from schools - and most of that in the from of stonewalling, meaning no response about the dirty secrets. </p>
<p>My personal response is that I don’t watch or support major college sports, meaning the big time sports of football & basketball. My comments clearly don’t apply to crew. (They may apply to a few specialty sports schools, like big in lacrosse or wrestling, but most sports aren’t that competitive for $$$$ that they’re infected by this.)</p>
<p>Remember a few years back the schools were hit by terrible publicity about low graduation rates. They raised those. Many have, it turns out, raised them by directing these athletes into easy classes - including a number that didn’t meet or where no work was required. </p>
<p>It’s also helpful to think of the numbers. If 10% can’t read at 3rd grade and another 15% are below high school, then a middle group is “competent” though likely unqualified to compete at quality schools and another group is certainly able and another, smaller group is academically well off. The issue isn’t the top through the middle but the bottom groups. As I noted in my original post, spend any time with professional athletes and one thing that strikes you is they’re smart. It takes intelligence to make it as a pro. These kids with really bad academic skills aren’t going to have careers and they aren’t getting an education. They are just there to entertain students and alumni and to make sure the coaches and athletic directors get their big paychecks. I find that shameful so I don’t support. That is my personal decision.</p>
<p>This horse galloped out of the barn years ago.</p>
<p>Are big-time college sports corrupt?
Are the athletes (some of them) exploited?
Do the athletes voluntarily walk head-first into this system knowing full well what’s expected of them?</p>
<p>The answer to all three is yes!</p>
<p>Toss in the nexus of race, class and money and the result is a troubled system made even worse. But it’s not going to change anytime time soon. College athletes only feel exploited when they think they are not getting their fare $$ share; see the example of the U Michigan Fab Five Freshmen. Otherwise, they’re darn happy with the status quo, particularly when no one makes them go to class.</p>
<p>It’s only in America where college athletics is exploited as major entertainment for the masses. In Europe and Latin America, club teams dominate the sports scene and inhale all the sponsorship dollars. UNC is just trying to keep up in a game long dominated by collegiate giants (and their alumni) who’ll do just about anything to keep the program at Ol’ Alma Mater U winning. If august institutions like UNC were fully commitment to the off-field success of their players they would guarantee their scholarships for at least 5-years.</p>
<p>The majority of these young boys are fatherless lack options and enter Concussion city with the hopes of hitting it big.</p>
<p>I note that Florida State, NCAA football champion, graduates 50% of its African-American football players. That’s lower than the regular African-American graduation rate at FSU by at least 10%. It’s also lower than the white player graduation rate. Football factory/plantation.</p>
<p>Myron Rolle: FSU graduate, former FSU football player, Rhodes scholar.</p>
<p>[Welcome</a> to the Personal Website of Myron L. Rolle](<a href=“http://myronrolle.com/]Welcome”>http://myronrolle.com/)</p>
<p>Just saw this. Very disturbing.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/09/us/ncaa-athletes-unc-response/?iref=obnetwork”>http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/09/us/ncaa-athletes-unc-response/?iref=obnetwork</a></p>