<p>Whenever the topic of cheating comes up, I think of this excerpt from Coach K’s book, “Leading With the Heart.” (I may have posted this before, but I will now do it again!!) I loved this book and have given several copies to graduating seniors, especially those heading for Duke! Here is how he addresses the issue with his players:</p>
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<p>Unfortunately, cheating is rampant in our schools these days. I dont have the news stories at hand, but recall national surveys finding upwards of 70 percent of high school students cheat, or have cheated. No doubt they feel pressured. Just read these boards.</p>
<p>Props to Coach K for laying down the law to his student athletes. More coaches need to do so because ultimately the one who is cheated is the cheater himself. Its a message all students need to hear early and often.</p>
<p>An analogy Ive used with my own kids is relating it to sports. How good will a quarterback or point guard be on gameday if he allows someone else to take his reps at practice? And, even in academics, gamedays do come whether its taking an SAT, or later in college, or life. Who among us wants to undergo surgery from a surgeon who needed crib notes to get through anatomy and physiology?</p>
<p>Parents need to recognize honest effort. There is more honor in a hard-fought C than in an ill-gotten A. Yes, its important to expect the best effort from our kids, just as we should of ourselves, but we shouldnt forget to love and accept them in the process, whatever the outcome. At the end of the day, success is subjective. Are you happy with your life? Are your victories your own? Do your honors have honor?</p>
<p>I served on the initial Academic Integrity Committee of the HS where I teach. We established a code, etc. Yes, the statistics are correct - over 70 percent of kisd ADMIT to cheating. Yet, what we found was that kids didn’t think it was wrong, because most fo the popular kids go along with it, but they think it’s stupid to get caught! And many parents put up a fight if you give a kid a zero for cheating and send them to the principal’s office. Case in point the kids who cheated on their science fair projects, and the school board overturned the decision to fail them. The kids who didn’t cheat are now screaming that they are going to be made to suffer because fo the rep of the school. Some have quit and are being home schooled. The teacher resigned over this, because she refused to change the grades. This happened in our school, too, and you would have thought the criminal was the teacher! What she had to put up with was little short of psychological torture on the parts of the parents and kids. And the admin backed down a lot! Cheating carries consequences, and if the kids learn this early, it will all end!</p>
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<p>Too bad that Dupont University didn’t have a fine upstanding guy like Coach K.</p>
<p>You guys don’t actually believe the self-serving pablum in a coach’s PR book, ghost-written by a hired newspaper hack, do you?</p>
<p>The interest the coach of national-championship caliber Div I team has in academics starts and ends with NCAA eligibility rules. Any of them who say otherwise are just blowing smoke up somebody’s…</p>
<p>Quote: “You guys don’t actually believe the self-serving pablum in a coach’s PR book, ghost-written by a hired newspaper hack, do you?”</p>
<p>Nope, we are much more apt to believe the fantasy described in a work of fiction (described by some reviews as a “trashy novel”) written to make money! From what I have read on cc, Dupont University is described in Tom Wolfe’s fictional work. Many people may have no idea what Dupont University is. Ummm…it is not real. </p>
<p>Sample review:</p>
<p>"Wolfe is out on the road selling his new novel the way he sold his last two, by deploring the bad behavior he glamorizes and celebrates in the book.</p>
<p>In I Am Charlotte Simmons Wolfe writes voyeuristically about the lives of college students, he exaggerates the excesses for effect, and he assigns motivations to his characters that are based on his need to deplore what is clearly turning him on. Now he’s running around claiming that a fantasy of his own invention is proof that liberals are turning America into a new Gomorrah. The youth of America, Wolfe says cackling like an Inquisitor about to set the match to a particularly succulent young witch, are committing “moral suicide.”"</p>
<p>Coach K has a pretty good record graduating kids. He can’t be held responsible for a Brand or a Magette who leaves after one year to make guaranteed $xmillions. His kids don’t major in PE or sports administration as Duke has a rigorous curriculum. Most of his kids are Mr. Basketball in their home state and all have aspirations only for the NBA. Yet, he recruits them knowing they will take calculus and write 10 page papers which most NBA stars probably never did. Division 1 basketball is wacky, Coach K is respectable in a wacky system.</p>
<p>If you want to pick on a college coach try Huggins at Cincy where virtually no one graduates. Louisville and a lot of the SEC aren’t much better.</p>
<p>I believe that Wolfe’s fictional account of big-time professional-level NCAA Div I athletic programs is probably closer to the mark than the fictional accounts in the PR vanity books published by big-time professional-level NCAA Div I coaches.</p>
<p>Don’t interpret that as a condemnation of big-time professional NCAA Div I athletic programs. I am a strong supporter of those programs. In fact, I believe that they bring enough value to the universities that the NCAA should just drop the pretence and allow the schools to pay the players.</p>
<p>Read “Patriots’ Reign”, Michael Holley’s book on the year he spent sitting in on meetings of the New England Patriots. Read the evaluation of draft prospects and how the team dropped a player from consideration when they found out he had missed team meetings to attend Chemistry class – a sure sign, in their opinion, that football wasn’t important enough to the player. It’s just business.</p>
<p>Coach K is a very successful basketball coach, i.e. a tremendous winning record, which is all that really matters. Let’s give credit where credit is due, but not go overboad.</p>
<p>His graduation rate is OK, but nothing extraordinary. 75% for his white players; 43% for his black players. Big deal. These kids aren’t in college for the academics and Coach K does a terrific job preparing them for their careers in the NBA.</p>
<p>Here’s a list of the grad rates for the basketball programs in this year’s NCAA Div I tourney:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.bus.ucf.edu/sport/public/downloads/media/ides/Table%20-%20Mens%20Division%20I%20Grad%20Rates%20FINAL.pdf[/url]”>http://www.bus.ucf.edu/sport/public/downloads/media/ides/Table%20-%20Mens%20Division%20I%20Grad%20Rates%20FINAL.pdf</a></p>
<p>Coach K does a better job getting diplomas for his boys than LSU does. LSU graduates zero basketball players (which is probably a more honest reflection of the priorities).</p>
<p>Wolfe got investment banking pretty much right on with Bonfire of the Vanities. I think his description of college sports, frats, drinking, liberal faculties and rich vs poor kids at expensive private schools, gives a pretty candid and fair portrayal. Exaggerated and condensed into one book, yes. On balance fair, however. A must read for HS seniors and their parents.</p>
<p>Coach K is a West Point graduate. People there who don’t understand about cheating quickly find out. I tend to take him at his word, even if some newspaper writer did the pencil work to write them down. </p>
<p>No one’s saying the Duke BB players are as good as the rest of the students academically.</p>
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<p>On cheating in general, I’m a little removed from the current events, but I have a sense that there is a slow downward spiral, partly characterized by a reluctance on the part of administrations to actually catch people, since it raises such a can of worms when you do. That reluctance leads to a better set of odds for the cheaters. Its made more problematic by all of the (IMO) ridiculous group and collaborative work done these days, which blurs the line about what is yours vs others.</p>
<p>Based on a description and review of both books, I’d much rather read the one by Coach K.</p>
<p>I don’t know that you can hold it against Coach K when a kid leaves after freshmen year for guaranteed bucks as this spreadsheet implies. The black athletes come from a lot of tough urban high schools that probably have a very low college graduation rate as well.</p>
<p>I think it is a pretty good record all things considered.</p>
<p>I don’t hold it against him. I just don’t put these coaches on a pedestal. </p>
<p>It’s great that Coach K is successful in creating an image of a squeaky-clean NCAA program.</p>
<p>Without a few coaches like Coach K, it would be harder for the NCAA to create the illusion that big-time Div I programs are somehow related to academics.</p>
<p>I thought Wolfe had a great line about big-time NCAA athletics: “Our freaks can beat your freaks.”</p>
<p>“Charlotte Simmons” is a work of satirical fiction. Dupont University is a fictional university–in fact, Wolfe locates it 90 miles southeast of Philadelphia, i.e., in the Atlantic ocean. But just because it is a work of fiction does not mean that it is untrue. Of course he exaggerates for effect. Of course he is “turned on” by the very characters and institutions he satirizes. That’s true of much satire. Sokkermom, I know you love and respect Duke, so do I, but it’s no more about Duke than it is about Stanford, or Michigan, or countless other great, but not quite perfect institutions. I’m surprised by the great number of third rate reviewers that have tried to trash the book. To me it was full of felt truth.</p>
<p>Wolfe’s line could have been applied to more than a few of the academic departments at the elite universities.</p>
<p>For all the criticism he gets, the coach with a great graduation rate is Bobby Knight.</p>
<p>Idler,</p>
<p>I am sure many people who read I’dad’s comment may not have known what or where Dupont U. was. My point was that it is a fictional institution - that’s all. In fact, I did read an interview by the author (Wolfe) who adamantly denied that it had anything at all to do with Duke. I think he actually did his “research” by visiting many schools. He claims he purposely did not visit Duke for research for the book because his daughter graduated from there a few years ago.</p>