Posted on 12/29/2008 6:20:08 AM PST by Ron Jeremy
ootball and men’s basketball players on the nation’s big-time college teams averaged hundreds of points lower on their SATs than their classmates, and some of the gaps are so large they call into question the lengths to which schools will go to win.
The biggest gap between football players and students as a whole occurred at the University of Florida, where players scored 346 points lower than the school’s overall student body. That’s larger than the difference in scores between typical students at the University of Georgia and Harvard University
Nationwide, football players average 220 points lower on the SAT than their classmates — and men’s basketball players average seven points less than football players.
(Excerpt) Read more at ajc.com ...
produces graduates who go out into the real world, design and develop the next generation of technology that makes civilised life in a productive industrial society possible. The footballers, OTOH, contribute to "bread and circuses" for the proletariat.
Bugger the football program; the Physics Department actually does something good.
But you already knew that. Right?
Maybe this is a problem, and maybe it isn’t. Every non-athlete student is not majoring in mathematics and physics. So what if half the football team majors in criminology or communications?
But a school can have 85 football players on scholarship, and I guess 15 or so basketball players. Most schools with major programs have 15,000 - 50,000 students on campus. The 100 or so athletes on scholarship in the income producing sports do not taint the academic integrity of the entire institution. Lower SAT scores and the easier curricula and majors are to be expected from those who’ve spent more time on athletics than any other pursuit in their young lives.
And, there are still plenty of student-athletes who do meet or exceed the average SATs, and who do succeed in more difficult majors.
I agree. Its gotten to the point where the NCAA is afraid of going after schools for recruiting violations. Its only a matter of time before they take on the wrong school and end up in Federal Court where a judge declares the NCAA a for profit institution subject to anti trust, and UCC.
I say spin off the Athletic departments and just make it a minor league team for the Pros’s. Pay the player etc.
John
* Team sports should be privatized and/or turned over to the county parks and recreation departments. The NEA will not favor this since team sport “rah rah” generates support for the government Marxist indoctrination camps in the voting booths. A government school monopoly on team sports also means that students must attend just to advance their talents.
* When you see a high school team please remember that this team is a taxpayer support farm team for the big leagues. It is time that the big leagues ran their own farm teams and got the taxpayer out of the business.
* On the college level, the teams should be run as a minor league team. Yes, it would have the name of the school but it should have **nothing** whatsoever to do with education . And...The players should be paid MONEY ( based on the free market) that they can spend anyway they want.
Its only a matter of time before they take on the wrong school and end up in Federal Court where a judge declares the NCAA a for profit institution subject to anti trust, and UCC.
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BINGO!
Oh, I don’t have a problem with it, and I don’t think it taints the institution. If you are from, say, University of Michigan (a good school) and you go for a job interview, it doesn’t taint you unless you were a football player.
I just hate the hypocrisy of it all, with the networks telling you what their major is, etc. This is simply the minor leagues for football and basketball, and I am fairly well convinced that the main beneficiary of this is not the “student athletes” but rather the colleges who are one of the few businesses that don’t have to pay their employees.
I agree 100%.
People like to say the players should be payed. But to begin with, only the major programs makes a profit. And second, the players are getting four years of education that others are paying roughly $15,000 - $30,000 or more per year for (tuition, books, room, board, etc.) depending on the school (and that doesn't even consider expensive schools like Duke, etc.)
And, do we just pay the football and male basketball players in programs that make a profit? Think you'll get away with paying those and not paying all the female and male athletes in non-income producing sports? How much would be a female softballer or male golfer be paid?
That is why the NCAA is afraid of Southern Cal and the Reggie Bush stuff. Southern Cal will end the NCAA if they have too. They have the money and the motivation to get the best lawyers available to do it.
Q: Four FSU Seminoles are riding down the road. Who’s driving?
A: The police.
There was a while there a few years ago when it seemed like the Criminoles and Miami had a rivalry going as to who could generate the most thug-ridden football squad, with the longest combined rap sheet.
Only for the tiny percentage that actually have the talent to go pro. And that's a small percentage even on the big name programs. This entire "problem" is overblown because so few college athletes will ever make it as a pro. And whatever their major, most will be better off with whatever degree the earned, or even if they attended college for a few years and failed to earn a degree.
There is also a percentage of regular students who fail to graduate, not just athletes.
Maybe college should be about learning and not about minor sports that can’t generate the revenue to pay for themselves.
Perhaps just make them intramural and don’t give schollies out for them.
Don’t forget Auburn.
Well, most minor league baseball players never make it to the big leagues, also.
But again, I don’t care really, I don’t think its a big problem, its just the lying and false facade about it that annoys me. I think they should just be upfront and say “yeah, the guys a moron, but we let him in because he can play football, and he doesn’t have to go to class”
Run the less profitable team sports ( women’s sports) as businesses as well. Completely separate them from academics.
If the women and fencing team can’t make a profit then the business closes.
All other athletic programs would be intramural and supported with student fees.
As for tuition: If the player is given money he can **choose** to spend it on tuition. He shouldn’t be forced, because of a corrupt monopoly, to accept the “in kind” payment of a tuition and books when he doesn’t want them.
Since you think tuition is such a great deal, then why not let the player sell his “tuition” and academic acceptance spot to a student willing to buy it?
Look at the bright side - college athletics prolongs the day most of these guys end up in prison and a few end up as multimillionaires who have the ability to pay child support to their baby mommas all across the country.
The school would get away with it because the team would be a separate **business* that had nothing whatsoever to do with the school.
If the female teams couldn't make a profit, they wouldn't have a business.
I'd go along with eliminating sports that can't pay for themselves. That will never happen, but the cost of those several hundred scholarships are being made up for in the every rising tuition charges for all paying students.
Another general comment: everyone who's been to college knows there is a hierarchy of most difficult to easiest curricula for all students. Thousands of non-athlete students are majoring in the easier fields of study, also. There's no reason to constantly harp on the fact that the athletes are not all Phi Bet Kappa key holders majoring in math and physics.
Student loan business is what has pumped up tutition costs. Similar to what free money and low underwriting standards did to housing.
No way college should cost what it does. Its not worth it.
John
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