Oh yeah, this will do a lot to dispel the “dumb jock” stereotype.
Rec Yard All-Stars ~
I don’t know about you, but I always look to college basketball coaches for unbiased guidance concerning the importance of academic achievement in collegiate athletics and modern society. Why not just inaugurate a juvenile penal league and avoid the temporary “college detour” altogether?
National standardized academic testing exposes the corruption and lack of achievement standards in inner-city schools. If they can spell their name, and not murder a teacher in the meantime, they’ll graduate with a 3.5 GPA.
College athletics should be disbanded and replaced with a sponsored club model organization. It is a farce to believe that many of these athletes are actually college level students. The grade point averages reported by teams often appear like the team is made up of real students, but the real students are the third team walk-ons and student managers. It is those back benchers that boost the gpa and the graduation rates. It does not mean the athletes are stupid because they are victims of a terrible public school system that teaches them little to nothing, and leaves them totally unprepared to do any kind of academic work above an elementary school level. The colleges corrupt themselves by pretending they are able to address the athletes inadequacies when they really just provide the athletes a means to cheat the system.
If we could go to a club model then colleges could still sponsor teams, but athletes could work at a job, go to a vo-tech, or go to college. Why is it so important that we link amateur athletics to colleges? The club model would end the farce. We know, however, the answer to the question is money and who will control it. Colleges, the power five in particular, are not going to give it up no matter how ridiculous the pretense that these are student athletes becomes.