<p>First of all, people do get mad over athletes. Ever hear the expression “dumb jock”? Well, college athletes in particular hear that phrase alot. However, when you are looking at college athletes, many of them do have academic stats that are within the range of other student until you start getting into certain sports such as football and hockey where more of a “pass” is given. I know a bunch of ■■■■■■■■ tennis players right now, and looking at their resume, you would not blink an eye about where they are going even without the tennis. And for schools where a sport is considered important, evey poll I have seen regarding whether the sport should be kept at this level necessitating a pass for the athletes, it has been overwhelmingly in favor of the sport.</p>
<p>I don’t hold grudges against athletes because I can respect the incredible amount of time and work they put into their sport. I have a friend who’s a track star and he has to train many hours PER DAY with a gruelling trainer. Given that kind of time committment, it’s not wonder that his grades and level of academic knowledge are low. </p>
<p>And of course, though these athletes “coast” into college, many of them will never become a LeBron James or a Peyton Manning. I’d consider them very fortunate to even get drafted in the first place. So what will they do after? The sad thing is that their lack of mental growth during their youth may haunt them once their physical prowess declines; so despite a scholarship to Stanford, they may end up in some very un-Ivyesque job.</p>
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<p>Just a bit of clarification:</p>
<p>The 42% minorities offered admission reflects **all ** minorities including asians and international students</p>
<p>URM’s (blacks) and athletes are the same people you imbeciles except swimmers who are probably qualified anyway</p>
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<p>I understand your point, but try not to be racist, eh?</p>
<p>I’m black, i’m not affended, its how i’m getting in :)</p>
<p>Thanks for your concern though</p>
<p>“URM’s (blacks) and athletes are the same people”</p>
<p>Oh, right. So you’re saying every single black American kid is an athlete (the “same people”)? And that only blacks are URMs? Did you forget about Hispanics and Native Americans? Are they ALL athletes too? Saying blacks and athletes are the same people is such a broad and stereotypical statement. I thought you would know that. At my school there are a lot of blacks who are not athletes, but are involved with things like drama “instead.” Just because you’re black doesn’t mean you’re an athlete.</p>
<p>“you imbeciles”</p>
<p>Wow. That’s a REALLY brilliant way to get people to care about what you say. Call people imbeciles-- you’re really endearing yourself to others, Pusha. Just brilliant, really.</p>
<p>“except swimmers who are probably qualified anyway”</p>
<p>Another stereotype. Not all swimmers are “qualified”-- there are lots of less-academically qualified swimmers. And there ARE black swimmers. By saying “except swimmers”, you’re saying that there are basically NO black swimmers. Another stereotype. At my school there are actually several black people on the swim team.</p>
<p>I hope YOU’RE not black, Pusha. Because there was a lot of ignorance in just that one, incredibly gramatically-poor sentence.</p>
<p>There are black swimmers, but they are very rare. There were only two or three at our state meet out of around maybe 500 athletes. The sport is expensive, and many minority families (as well as many whites) cannot afford this. Regardless, most swimmers are very well qualified academically.<br>
While I know a few who aren’t very bright, most are well-rounded, smart kids. A good friend of mine who is interested in Emory and Wash-U is a good student. He doesn’t have great test scores (I think mid-180’s PSATs). However, he has about a 3.9 UW in very demanding classes, including a lot of APs. This is while swimming about 20 hours a week. He also does EC’s outside of the sport. While some may say any advantage he gets is unfair, he is much smarter than his test scores indicate. A lot of people are. Athletes are just lucky enough to get more leniency in admissions.</p>
<p>swimming is expensive?</p>
<p>Peals:
by putting the (blacks) after the URM i was selecting a portion and where did i say that every black person was an athlete they accept athlete SCHOLARSHIPS i meant that the athletes who get in and the URM’s are mostly the same people</p>
<p>Please tell me why where African Americans make up 10percent of the pop. the make up about 80percent of the athlete scholarships. hmmm</p>
<p>You know some black swimmers good for you tell me which one gets in on pure swimming scholarships.</p>
<p>Most people don’t have pools, and most people don’t have any sort of club membership or even neighborhood membership to the local pools in the area. My school has it’s own pool (just built it three years ago, it’s gorgeous), though, so ANY student can swim there, even if they’re not on the team. </p>
<p>I’ve read articles in which people explain why there are more blacks playing basketball and more whites playing stuff like lacrosse or hockey. They were saying that in general, blacks have much lower income than whites. All you need to play basketball is a ball and two hoops. For something like hockey, you need pads and pucks and hockey sticks and helmets and ice skates etc. With lacrosse you also need more specific equipment. Even with baseball (though I’ve noticed more black kids playing baseball than hockey or lacrosse), you need helmets, bats, balls, the shoes. </p>
<p>So if the people who wrote the articles were saying that blacks in general were lower income than whites in general, that would mean that there would be less of them playing expensive, equipment-requiring stuff like hockey or lacrosse. Or having access to something like a pool.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, there ARE black swimmers, even at my own school. </p>
<p>I live in a city that is almost half black, so I would know and have seen a lot of variance in behavior among black people, just like any other race. I don’t hold towards old stereotypes that all blacks are athletes or that no blacks are swimmers.</p>
<p>It’s hard and simply annoying to try to follow your arguments when every sentence runs together and you use no punctuation or capitalization whatsoever. It’s actually not funny when you call people imbeciles and in turn write like, well… you know. An imbecile.</p>
<p>“Peals:
by putting the (blacks) after the URM i was selecting a portion”</p>
<p>Okay.</p>
<p>“and where did i say that every black person was an athlete they accept athlete SCHOLARSHIPS i meant that the athletes who get in and the URM’s are mostly the same people”</p>
<p>Because you write poorly, I didn’t understand what you truly meant. If you want to be clear about making points and making sure people understand them so YOU won’t be misunderstood, you need to write more eloquently and with more detail.</p>
<p>“Please tell me why where African Americans make up 10percent of the pop. the make up about 80percent of the athlete scholarships. hmmm”</p>
<p>I just barely understand that sentence. “why where”? I don’t think that’s a grammatical possible use of words. Did you say somewhere that you wanted to see if you could get into Georgetown? Hmmm… well, you also mentioned that you’re banking on your blackness to get into college. Well, then, if you say so.</p>
<p>Also, if 80 percent of those on athletic scholarships are black, what about OTHER URMs? As I mentioned, URMs also encompass Hispanics and Native-Americans. If 80 percent of athletic scholarships go to blacks, not that many can go to URMs like Hispanics and Native Americans. And Hispanics make up a huge population of our country, more so than blacks.</p>
<p>“You know some black swimmers good for you tell me which one gets in on pure swimming scholarships.”</p>
<p>Actually, very few people get in on pure swimming scholarships in general from my school. Only two girls from a team of fifty were accepted to even swim at their college this year, and neither got any sort of “scholarship” for it. The best black swimmer at my school is just a sophomore right now, so, uh, I don’t think even that “black swimmer good” (?) has gotten any college offers yet.</p>
<p>It’s not the access to the pool that is expensive, usually. Anyone who wants to swim will be comped by almost any swim club.</p>
<p>There can be expense related to travel, I suppose, as in some regions, meets may be out of the immediate area.</p>
<p>But I would venture to say that the main reason you don’t see black swimmers is the same reason you don’t see a lot of broken-family swimmers. It requires enormous family commitment to support the discipline and huge expense of time that a swimmer gives to his/her sport. I have seen single-parent households manage it, but they are rare. You need a family who sees the future of the swimmer as a worthy focus of their lives and who is willing and able to bend other aspects of their lives to that swimmer’s schedule.</p>
<p>Most of the two-parent families I know think it’s nuts, even indulgent, and wouldn’t waste their time on it.</p>
<p>“Most of the two-parent families I know think it’s nuts, even indulgent, and wouldn’t waste their time on it.”</p>
<p>Swimming is amazing. I don’t see how it takes any more family commitment to support a swimmer than it does to support a football player. Not to generalize too much here, but most of the swimmers at school are tall, very lean, graceful, strong, toned and actually pretty smart. I’m sorry I can’t say as many of the same good attributes for any other athletic players. Swimming isn’t indulgent or useless.</p>
<p>Kids who play hockey usually don’t have an ice rink in their backyards. Parents have to make a commitment to take them to hockey practice. Kids don’t have baseball diamonds in their yards either. Neither do they have a football field in their yards. I don’t think swimming is more difficult to support or have the general population have access to than other sports. Maybe it’s just undervalued, instead of inherently more difficult to support.</p>
<p>“It requires enormous family commitment to support the discipline and huge expense of time that a swimmer gives to his/her sport”</p>
<p>Well, just like any other sport. It takes enormous family commitment to support the discipline and huge expense of time that, say, a soccer player gives to the sport, or a basketball player, or a football player, or even a track runner.</p>
<p>“You need a family who sees the future of the swimmer as a worthy focus of their lives and who is willing and able to bend other aspects of their lives to that swimmer’s schedule.”</p>
<p>Right. I agree, many people undervalue swimming. Which is why you can turn on the TV and see tons of college and pro games of baseball and football and basketball, but who really sees swimming competitions, besides during, say, the summer Olympics?</p>
<p>It’s too bad. Swimming is amazing.</p>
<p>My good friends, its called $$$.</p>
<p>Great athlets make great teams which generates GREAT profit.</p>
<p>Swimmers are not the only “smart athletes”! What about the lesser known sports, such as the one I know about, Crew. In general the student body has lower GPAs than the average Crew GPA.
Crew is a very expensive sport, however.</p>
<p>I didn’t say it was indulgent, I said other people I know have called it that.</p>
<p>Why is everyone here so testy and hair-splitty?</p>
<p>One of the differences between swimming and most high-school football programs (even those that offer off-season training) is that it is literally 50 weeks of the year, six or seven days of the week, often two practices a day. Most other sports do not hold practice on Thanksgiving or New Year’s.</p>
<p>It borders on the insane, which is probably why certain people like it.</p>
<p>I don’t think I ever personally addressed you as calling swimming indulgent, though I did refer to things you wrote. If I were asking why you felt something, I would specifically say “Dizzymom” (see the subject title for this very post). I was referring to the people you mentioned who thought it was indulgent. That’s why I cut and pasted this quote “Most of the two-parent families I know think it’s nuts, even indulgent, and wouldn’t waste their time on it.” to headline the body of the post.</p>
<p>Sorry if you think people are “testy” and “hairsplitty.” I didn’t mean to seem that way to you personally.</p>
<p>Peals, if you’re going to quote my post, then you’re referring to me personally, especially since you went on to doubt the intensity of the commitment as opposed to other sports. But it’s nice of you to say it isn’t personal 
You are better brought up than most of the adults on the board, and I say that not knowing whether you are a student or a parent…</p>
<p>“You are better brought up than most of the adults on the board”</p>
<p>Really? Have you had bad experiences with fellow adults on this board?</p>
<p>“But it’s nice of you to say it isn’t personal”</p>
<p>It was actually necessary to say that, because I gave a mistaken idea/impression and I shouldn’t have.</p>
<p>" especially since you went on to doubt the intensity of the commitment as opposed to other sports"</p>
<p>I’ll be more clear and detailed next time when specifying whom I referring to.</p>
<p>“I say that not knowing whether you are a student or a parent…”</p>
<p>Student.</p>