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<p>Best thread summary, ever… :)</p>
<p>I disagree with most of the above assumptions, that schools are admitting tons of just-breathing-but-needs-to-take-his-shoes-off-to-count-to-eleven athletes into schools, just to play football. The NCAA has minimum standards, and they are higher than the ‘developmental’ standards of most public schools. Schools have had developmental admits for decades. My school had courses we called ‘99s’ as there was no credit for them. They weren’t full of football players but students who didn’t get the background education they needed to take the 101 class in English or math. Sure some of these players wouldn’t have crossed 6 states to go to college at Iowa or New Mexico, but then they wouldn’t have gone to college at all. How are they hurt in the process? How are others who don’t play football hurt academically? Most of these schools we’re talking about are so large that the average student could avoid all the ‘football’ courses and majors if they really want to. The fact is that the football players may bring the racial and socio-economic diversity schools are shooting for.</p>
<p>I do think most of the athletes are better off in school, even if they aren’t learning to be rocket scientists, than the alternative. So what if they don’t make it to the NFL - they weren’t going to make it if they didn’t play college ball either and maybe they made connections in college so that they now will be car salesmen or recreation center coaches or own a bar. They aren’t going to be rocket scientists but they weren’t going to be rocket scientists anyway. They haven’t lost any opportunities by going to college and taking a chance. Arade they, personally, better off than if they’d stayed in their neighborhoods or gone to community college? I think they are. They have applied and been accepted to a ‘reach’ college. How is that any different than if your child reached for a college a little better than his test scores and grades indicate he has a right to expect to be admitted to?</p>
<p>I knew high school players who were struggling to keep up in the private high schools they were attending on scholarship. Do I think they were better off struggling at the private high school where 100% of the grads went on to college rather than at the low ranked public school they were assigned to? Yes, I do, even if they needed tutoring and had to play football to attend that school.</p>
<p>“I recognize I’m clearly unrealistic, but colleges are making choices to have football programs that demand all those hours from players. Because of their values. Or lack thereof.” </p>
<p>But recognize that Harvard and Williams significantly change their procedures/values in order to field competitive athletic teams, just as Ole Miss does. To me, it is more understandable why Ole Miss does what it does. </p>
<p>Harvard and Williams athletes are certainly qualified to be college students. But why is it that those selective schools to allocate 20 and 40% of their precious seats to recruited athletes? Their athletic programs (in terms of headcount) are WAY bigger than Ole Miss’ is. But there’s little/no money or branding that comes out of Ivy/NESCAC sports. </p>
<p>The fact that Harvard and Williams do what they do for sports, imho, shows how deep sports are ingrained in American colleges. It will never go away or change very much (for better or worse).</p>
<p>“I think it is important to remember, for better or worse, that those “football factories” are funding merit scholarships, either directly or indirectly, for all those “academic” kids that some would prefer to see rewarded in lieu of athletes.”</p>
<p>At Alabama, yes. It’s working great for them. But most Div I football programs lose money. Just as Alabama is striving to be Michigan in terms of international stature, dozens (hundreds?) of schools are throwing money down a hole trying to be Alabama in terms of having a profitable football team.</p>
<p>“I do think most of the athletes are better off in school, even if they aren’t learning to be rocket scientists, than the alternative.”</p>
<p>I agree with that, but so would their slightly-better-prepared peers. I worry about the effect on the thousands of high schoolers who aspire to be scholarship athletes and don’t make it. If public universities had this many full rides available to low-income academic stars, how would that impact the choices high schoolers make? What’s the result of the fact that disadvantaged kids know that their best shot at getting college paid for is to spend 60 hours a week on the court instead of in the library?</p>
<p>"Harvard and Williams athletes are certainly qualified to be college students. But why is it that those selective schools to allocate 20 and 40% of their precious seats to recruited athletes? "</p>
<p>I don’t agree with that either. At a minimum, they aren’t getting free rides that artists, scientists, and poets don’t get. At the end of the day, this was a dealbreaker for me choosing between Harvard and Stanford.</p>
<p>And as I said above…as long as I’m dreaming, I’d like a pony.</p>
<p>It is great that Ole Miss is trying to improve and the coach cares about education. </p>
<p>As the state flagship in a state that has very poor secondary education, they do the best they can. They have to develop the students they get. It is not its mission to be an elite institution, and it has to deal with many more poorly prepared students than most other schools. What matters is to help students progress and develop useful and marketable skills.</p>
<p>I doubt that many Ivies have this posted on their admissions website:</p>
<p>Students scoring below 16 on the ACT (Composite) or the equivalent SAT are encouraged to participate in the Year-Long Academic Support Program during their freshman year.</p>
<p>“What’s the result of the fact that disadvantaged kids know that their best shot at getting college paid for is to spend 60 hours a week on the court instead of in the library?”</p>
<p>Yes. That’s exactly it! </p>
<p>There aren’t that many football scholarships, only 85 per team. Add another 16 for basketball and the percentage of scholarships given at Alabama is still well under the academic scholarships they are awarding. Some of those athletes may also be great students but I doubt any of the academic scholars are great athletes playing for the school.</p>
<p>Athletes must have a higher score than ACT 16 to be eligible to play.</p>
<p>While the athletic scholarships are limited at Alabama, their generous merit scholarships are not. Even with increased OOS enrollment, especially from high achieving students and NMFs taking them up on the merit scholarships, UA has not put a cap on the number of merit scholarships awarded. So far, it’s a win-win for everyone.</p>
<p>“As the state flagship in a state that has very poor secondary education, they do the best they can. They have to develop the students they get. It is not its mission to be an elite institution, and it has to deal with many more poorly prepared students than most other schools. What matters is to help students progress and develop useful and marketable skills.”</p>
<p>Agreed. Is 40 hours on the football field developing “useful and marketable skills”? Only for the few who turn pro. </p>
<p>I’m sure those who don’t make it to the pros can have a successful professional career if they use their connections to the alumni network to get good jobs post-college.</p>
<p>Just a few comments:</p>
<p>Current NCAA football rules limit required practice time to 20 hours per week in season and about 8 hours a week out of season.</p>
<p>The football academic progress rate (APR) correlates well with graduation rates. Currently Alabama’s APR is similar to Harvard’s. For those schools with high ARP the graduation rate for football players is similar to the graduation rates non-athletes.</p>
<p>Approximately 13% of Harvard freshman class consists of recruited athletes. If collegiate athletics was such a bad thing why would Harvard admit so many recruited athletes? In addition to this about 7% of the freshman class who were not recruited athletes walk on to various varsity teams. The percentage of varsity student-athletes at Harvard is much larger than at most D1 schools. Apparently both the Harvard administration and the student body see intercollegiate athletics as a benefit to Harvard.</p>
<p>I don’t believe the benefits of college athletes is limited to those who go pro. Read the article above on the Rhodes scholar/aerospace engineer who was a lineman at CU during the national championship year. He could have gone pro, but chose academics instead. There are a lot of benefits to being a college athlete, not just connections for those you all feel are too dumb to tie shoes. Athletes learn to work as a team, to respect schedules and plans of others, to listen to your coaches. Isn’t that what college is about, learning? There are millions of college athletes and only a few will go pro. Are they all wasting 4 years of their lives? </p>
<p>Most of them know they cannot be a pro in their sports because some (most) sports don’t even have pro leagues. Some sports that do have pro leagues know they can’t make enough to support themselves. </p>
<p>" Is 40 hours on the football field developing “useful and marketable skills”? Only for the few who turn pro."</p>
<p>No. I think that too much focus on college sports is a mistake for all but a very few elite athletes. Most would be better off in intramural sports or club sports and spending more time learning, in my opinion. </p>
<p>“Current NCAA football rules limit required practice time to 20 hours per week in season and about 8 hours a week out of season.”</p>
<p>The 20 hour rule is widely acknowledged (even by the NCAA and the power 5 schools) to be a joke. It doesn’t count time spent lifting weights, travel time, time spent in certain meetings, film study, game day responsibilities, etc. etc. etc. </p>
<p>According to the decision in the Northwestern unionization case, football players devoted 40-50 hours per week to football during the season and the post-season, and 20-25 hours per week the rest of the year (including the summer).</p>
<p>Today during one of the bowl games, they were showing a virtual reality headset that they have at Stanford, so the quarterback can put it on and simulate him being on the field, changing plays and protections (etc) based on what he sees on the defense.</p>
<p>The announcers made a comment like “if I was the QB, I would be in here all week, because it doesn’t count against the NCAA maximum practice hours”</p>
<p>The kids at the big schools are putting way more than 20 hrs a week into their program.</p>
The majority of college athletes are playing because they like it and not because it will lead to a pro career, just like the majority of high school athletes play because they like it, not because they will continue to play in college.
On my daughter’ hs team, out of 11 seniors only 2 play in college. In class of 425, only about 25 committed to play in college, and those included about 10 different sports and athletes at D1, D2, D3 and community college levels (the school honored all athletes at the ‘signing’ ceremony, even those not officially signing,and those not in NCAA sports like men’s rowing and cheerleading). I don’t think there were any full scholarships except one girl going to Navy for tennis, but of course the scholarship isn’t considered an athletic one.
I think this is a catch-22 argument – of course the majority of student athletes would be better off focusing on academics because they are not going pro, but how are they paying for college then?
If the sports aren’t there, they aren’t getting the scholarships. Sports equal royalties and donations. That money equals scholarships for the players (and for high stat kids at places like Alabama and Ole Miss). Cut the sports and those kids suffer.
Should we reward more kids for academics and less for sports, yeah, probably, but from where is the money coming? I would say the system does stink, but simply wishing that it were different (without any alternative cash stream for scholarships) is not doing anything. There was an article in The Atlantic about the benefits of cutting football programs in high school, which made some great points, but I’m still not seeing anyone come up with an alternative. I think what may happen is that college may be forced to pay in some way student athletes and the whole system may change.
There really are a lot more college athletes who don’t have scholarships, or just a small one, than have full scholarships. Many more are just playing for their own pleasure. Even the big football programs have 30 students on their rosters who are non-scholarship athletes. Thirty playing because they like it and going to school on their own dime.
“If collegiate athletics was such a bad thing why would Harvard admit so many recruited athletes?”
Harvard athletes are in a very different position. They have strong grades and test scores, and the total amount of time required is less than it is at a top 20 program. When a student can strike a good balance, it can be very beneficial. However, when the student begins with a 16 ACT score and a heavy practice schedule, plus exercise plus memorizing the playbook and the tendencies of the next team, it can be overwhelming.
During today’s Georgia Tech / Mississippi State game, one of the announcers said all the Georgia Tech players are required to complete calculus no later than their sophomore year. I’d be interested to hear confirmation if this is true.