<p>"Despite the time-honored tradition of athletes seeking easy classes, this one was puzzling. It wasn’t basket weaving, the history of rock and roll or even ballroom dancing — the choice of USC Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Matt Leinart a few months earlier.</p>
<p>Surprisingly to some, it was a hard-core academic class: Intermediate Spanish 3.</p>
<p>The unexpected turnout of 20 USC athletes for the Trade Tech class — a dozen of them football players — would lead eventually to hard feelings and academic squabbles at both schools."</p>
<p>People here (USC) take summer courses at community colleges fairly frequently, but primarily because of financials rather than grades. One guy I know took differential equations at a community college over the summer rather reluctantly, because it was cheaper and because it lightened his tough engineering schedule during the year. </p>
<p>He would have rather taken it at USC because, here, you cannot raise your GPA by taking summer community college classes (though you can lower it). So in that sense it’s not so bad having the football players take (possibly easier) summer courses - the problem is with them receiving passing grades (and course credit) when they don’t deserve it.</p>