Let's Clean Up College Basketball and Football

Athletic Recruits
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<p>Article by Arne Duncan, US Sect of Education</p>

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<p>[Let’s</a> Clean Up College Basketball and Football - Yahoo! News](<a href=“http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20100116/cm_huffpost/425818]Let’s”>http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20100116/cm_huffpost/425818)</p>

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<p>Part of the problem is our belief that every varsity athlete is expected to dedicate a minimum of 20 hours per week to a sport (especially given that we know it’s significantly more if you count the overhead time of travel, meet-and-greets, etc.), and then expect these athletes to also graduate in four years. Varsity athletes should be given five years of academic time, and playing time because that’s their incentive, to complete their degree so that reasonable planning can go into that schedule. Additionally, if colleges were required to only accept athletes that were in the upper half of that college’s SAT and GPA standings for freshmen then it would have a signficant impact all the way back to high school in providing incentive.</p>

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<p>I think sports should be clean but I don’t agree with Arne. For instances several of those b-ball players who didn’t graduated signed million dollar pro-contracts. They left for the money, yet Arne suggests they flunked out. Further those various football players that are in trouble are always the top players at the top teams, and why? because everyone is watching them. But ncaa infractions go on daily on teams that no one watches and with athletes that no one watches. Maybe the solution is to change the ncaa rules, the notion that a college is some how competing unfairly because a player gets to use an alums suv for a week is a joke. The suv had zero impact on why that player chose the school and zero impact on the performance of the team.</p>

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<p>and high pay for hi-performing coaches is called capitalism, and that’s a good thing!</p>

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<p>Actually, I think booster support would be a key incentive to students and not inasmuch as an unfair advantage, but when you have a kid whose only gift recognized to date has been athletic, it might go a long way to teach these kids some social graces. That they are not “allowed” to build relationships with the community is a real detriment to some of these kids who might, through community service and connection, become much better people. The Blind Side, the movie, is a case to this point. And the gun-toating NBA suspensions points to the lack of civility that seems to grow when you world becomes increasingly ego-centric.</p>

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<p>^excellent point</p>

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<p>I completely agree.</p>