The NCAA - A Cancer in Education

[Steven_R]

This nonsense about "if we don't have sports how will Demarquis get out of the 'hood and go to college" has got to go. They can get scholarships, students loans, the GI Bill, or work and save up like the rest of us. Universities bend over backwards to give qualified minority students who couldn't otherwise go to college a free ride for diversity's sake.

 

[Not2BSubjugated]

This nonsense about "if we don't have sports how will Demarquis get out of the 'hood and go to college" has got to go. They can get scholarships, students loans, the GI Bill, or work and save up like the rest of us. Universities bend over backwards to give qualified minority students who couldn't otherwise go to college a free ride for diversity's sake.

I'll give you this one, but I gotta say that forcing racial "fairness" in colleges is a completely different argument.

I'm just saying there's nothing wrong with sports programs, and I make the inner-city argument really only to sway those liberal enough to care. That more sports scholarships than academic scholarships go to kids in the inner-city is immaterial to me personally, but not to many of those who would make the anti-sports argument, which in my experience tend to be more liberal.

 

[oldfart]

Yes, college athletes, especially at top academic schools are a bunch of losers. That's why so many graduate with academic honors and show up in graduate school. About a quarter of the university faculty I have run into played one sport or another in college. I guess when they couldn't make it in the pros they just settled for the PhD.

Get a life loser. Doesn't sound like you have ever spent much time on college campuses. And about Duke; it pains me to say it as a UNC alumni, but both Duke and UNC over the past 50 years have a better than 97% graduation rate in the basketball program. I had three of them in classes I taught and the athletic department made sure they kept up their coursework. And I didn't teach basketweaving.

 

[Crackerjaxon]

Alumni usually hire the kids who don't make the pros. High schools hire them to coach. I usually refer to the NCAA basketball tournament as the battle among the future insurance salesmen of America.

Oh, and athletic programs do bring money into schools. There's no doubt of that. Those football and basketball programs pay for other amateur sports of which the OP is so derisive.

The system is a long way from perfect and I do believe the professional leagues should pony up some cash to the athletes -- all of them.

Carrying the OP's logic to its obvious ends, corporations should fund engineering, arts and sciences, and business schools. Why should taxpayers be burdened with educating their technicians and executives?

Our schools should develop well-rounded citizens with critical thinking skills and help them develop their talents, including athletic talents.

 

[DGS49]

Let’s see…where to start.

The NCAA is happy to trot out self-congratulatory statistics “proving” that Division I athletes graduate at rates that are – let’s say – surprisingly good.

But knowing that the NCAA is not exactly an objective source, let’s dig a little deeper into the numbers.

First of all, to compare athletes with “everyone else,” and say that the athletes graduate in slightly higher proportion is meaningless on its face. You are comparing one group most of whom PAY NOTHING, and another group that must suffer the financial burden of paying tuition etc at a Division 1 school. OF COURSE the people who don’t have to pay anything are going to graduate at a higher rate than those who have to pay! Are you kidding? And one might note that the metric they use is whether they graduate in SIX YEARS. That says a lot about the quality of time spent in school while playing their sport. And one might also mention that the NCAA statistics count also those who transfer to other schools to graduate. How’s that 79% looking now?

Next, let’s consider who is included in that “79%.” When you think of Div I student-athletes, you immediately think of football, basketball, and baseball players, but remember Title IX. That perverse law essentially requires that for every jock playing football or basketball, the school has to reserve an athletic scholarship for a woman. These women are statistically included in the 79%, and as we can infer, will be less inclined to devote ALL of the attention at school to their sport. And there are many other sports where male and female athletes must contend with the fact that there is no chance that they will ever support themselves playing professionally, and thus will devote more of their attention to school work.

Now let’s look at who else sneaks into that statistic. By including all Division I athletes, you are also grabbing those athletes who are not on scholarship (e.g., “RUDY”). The ones who (OH MY GOD) are actual STUDENTS at those schools. Again, you this sub-group to graduate at significantly higher rates than scholarship jocks.

When you cut through all the bullshit – and although the NCAA would NEVER publish this particular statistic – less than half of the SCHOLARSHIP football, basketball, and baseball players manage to graduate in six years, even though everything is provided for free. And it’s much lower than that in many specific cases, for example, men's basketball teams at the Universities of Connecticut and Maryland at College Park (both 31 percent), Georgia Tech (36 percent), Kansas State (40 percent), and Kentucky (44 percent); and the football team at the University of Oklahoma (44 percent) (enrolled in 2003). Twenty-nine teams at 27 institutions—including such sports as women's tennis, men's golf, and women's skiing—had graduation-success rates of zero.

This whole discussion reminds me of the current (and perpetual) debate in Pennsylvania about whether the State should be monopolizing the sales of wine and liquor through “State Stores,” or conversely whether the whole thing could be privatized with the State only regulating and collecting taxes. The pro-State Store camp, keeps telling us that if we were to privatize liquor sales in Pennsylvania, the state would be filled with drunks, highway death tolls would skyrocket, high school kids would form drinking leagues and so forth. And to believe this line of bullshit we must totally ignore the 30-some other states (some on our immediate borders) which long ago privatized wine and liquor sales, where the rates of alcoholism, traffic deaths, and other alcohol related problems are no worse than in Pennsylvania right now.

As for the NCAA, to believe that the status quo is sane, you have to ignore THE REST OF THE CIVILIZED WORLD, where they do not have this quasi-educational circus of intercollegiate sports competition, and they do just fine. Their student bodies are not tainted with thousands of marginally-qualified jocks who require remedial education, watered down majors, student tutors, and so on. And I dare say, none of them are envious of our pageantry. And their college degrees actually mean something.

The idiots in the audience will counter with, “But if our schools are so BAD, why do so many foreigners pay a king’s ransom to come to the U.S. and Study?” I assure you, it’s not to watch the football team. Ask the thousands of Indians and Chinese in our graduate schools and medical schools whether they were inclined to come here because of NCAA sports. Not bloody likely.

Parenthetically I will add, I have spent a lot of time on US college campuses. Enough time to collect BA, JD, and MBA degrees (in that order). But none of it was in conventional "day" school. All at night, while working full time. And despite having to pay thousands in "student activities" fees, I never had any inclination to buy any of the discounted sports event tickets to which I was perennially entitled. My loss, I guess.

 

[Moonglow]

What should happen is that fat,out of shape nerds should have to educate themselves on physical fitness.

 

[Unkotare]

First of all, to compare athletes with “everyone else,” and say that the athletes graduate in slightly higher proportion is meaningless on its face. You are comparing one group most of whom PAY NOTHING, .

Wrong, absolutely wrong. The vast, vast, vast majority of NCAA athletes are NOT on scholarships. They bear the same financial burden as everyone else, and in addition to doing just as well or better academically, they devote up to 6-8hrs A DAY training for the sport they love and to represent their school and its entire community of students, faculty, and staff. A little something known as pride and hard work.

 

[Unkotare]

Next, let’s consider who is included in that “79%.” When you think of Div I student-athletes, you immediately think of football, basketball, and baseball players, .

No, YOU do. People who know what the hell they are talking about realize there are a great many other sports in the NCAA as well, idiot.

 

[Unkotare]

but remember Title IX. That perverse law essentially requires that for every jock playing football or basketball, the school has to reserve an athletic scholarship for a woman. These women are statistically included in the 79%, and as we can infer, will be less inclined to devote ALL of the attention at school to their sport. And there are many other sports where male and female athletes must contend with the fact that there is no chance that they will ever support themselves playing professionally, and thus will devote more of their attention to school work..

You misogynistic SOB. What makes you think female athletes work any less hard at their chosen sport than men to? What an outrageously offensive thing to say. Almost as offensive is the implication that male athletes don't devote themselves to their studies - when it has been proven to you that student athletes (of both genders) do so at least as well as other students. It has also been pointed out to you that the vast majority of NCAA student athletes do NOT harbor fantasies of pro careers, and that for most sports there isn't one anyway.

You're being an irrational ass because you've obviously got an agenda, Poindexter.

 

[Moonglow]

Athletes in college have to work twice as hard an an average student. Not only in the class but on the practice field also, many are double majors.

 

[Unkotare]

Ask the thousands of Indians and Chinese in our graduate schools and medical schools whether they were inclined to come here because of NCAA sports. Not bloody likely...

International students don't just come here for graduate school, you ignorant shit. The majority of international students come here as undergrads or earlier. And I have asked them. They participate in and/or attend sporting events at their schools as part of taking in the entirety of the American educational experience and enjoy the school spirit, the camaraderie, competition, etc. as much as American-born students do. In fact, in just the past six months alone I have had dozens of international Jr and senior high school students from around the world tell me that among the reasons they wanted to come here was just that tradition of school sports in America that they couldn't experience at home. So stick that in your pipe and smoke it, jerkoff.

 

[Not2BSubjugated]

Let’s see…where to start.

The NCAA is happy to trot out self-congratulatory statistics “proving” that Division I athletes graduate at rates that are – let’s say – surprisingly good.

But knowing that the NCAA is not exactly an objective source, let’s dig a little deeper into the numbers.

First of all, to compare athletes with “everyone else,” and say that the athletes graduate in slightly higher proportion is meaningless on its face. You are comparing one group most of whom PAY NOTHING, and another group that must suffer the financial burden of paying tuition etc at a Division 1 school. OF COURSE the people who don’t have to pay anything are going to graduate at a higher rate than those who have to pay! Are you kidding? And one might note that the metric they use is whether they graduate in SIX YEARS. That says a lot about the quality of time spent in school while playing their sport. And one might also mention that the NCAA statistics count also those who transfer to other schools to graduate. How’s that 79% looking now?

Next, let’s consider who is included in that “79%.” When you think of Div I student-athletes, you immediately think of football, basketball, and baseball players, but remember Title IX. That perverse law essentially requires that for every jock playing football or basketball, the school has to reserve an athletic scholarship for a woman. These women are statistically included in the 79%, and as we can infer, will be less inclined to devote ALL of the attention at school to their sport. And there are many other sports where male and female athletes must contend with the fact that there is no chance that they will ever support themselves playing professionally, and thus will devote more of their attention to school work.

Now let’s look at who else sneaks into that statistic. By including all Division I athletes, you are also grabbing those athletes who are not on scholarship (e.g., “RUDY&#8221. The ones who (OH MY GOD) are actual STUDENTS at those schools. Again, you this sub-group to graduate at significantly higher rates than scholarship jocks.

When you cut through all the bullshit – and although the NCAA would NEVER publish this particular statistic – less than half of the SCHOLARSHIP football, basketball, and baseball players manage to graduate in six years, even though everything is provided for free. And it’s much lower than that in many specific cases, for example, men's basketball teams at the Universities of Connecticut and Maryland at College Park (both 31 percent), Georgia Tech (36 percent), Kansas State (40 percent), and Kentucky (44 percent); and the football team at the University of Oklahoma (44 percent) (enrolled in 2003). Twenty-nine teams at 27 institutions—including such sports as women's tennis, men's golf, and women's skiing—had graduation-success rates of zero.

This whole discussion reminds me of the current (and perpetual) debate in Pennsylvania about whether the State should be monopolizing the sales of wine and liquor through “State Stores,” or conversely whether the whole thing could be privatized with the State only regulating and collecting taxes. The pro-State Store camp, keeps telling us that if we were to privatize liquor sales in Pennsylvania, the state would be filled with drunks, highway death tolls would skyrocket, high school kids would form drinking leagues and so forth. And to believe this line of bullshit we must totally ignore the 30-some other states (some on our immediate borders) which long ago privatized wine and liquor sales, where the rates of alcoholism, traffic deaths, and other alcohol related problems are no worse than in Pennsylvania right now.

As for the NCAA, to believe that the status quo is sane, you have to ignore THE REST OF THE CIVILIZED WORLD, where they do not have this quasi-educational circus of intercollegiate sports competition, and they do just fine. Their student bodies are not tainted with thousands of marginally-qualified jocks who require remedial education, watered down majors, student tutors, and so on. And I dare say, none of them are envious of our pageantry. And their college degrees actually mean something.

The idiots in the audience will counter with, “But if our schools are so BAD, why do so many foreigners pay a king’s ransom to come to the U.S. and Study?” I assure you, it’s not to watch the football team. Ask the thousands of Indians and Chinese in our graduate schools and medical schools whether they were inclined to come here because of NCAA sports. Not bloody likely.

Parenthetically I will add, I have spent a lot of time on US college campuses. Enough time to collect BA, JD, and MBA degrees (in that order). But none of it was in conventional "day" school. All at night, while working full time. And despite having to pay thousands in "student activities" fees, I never had any inclination to buy any of the discounted sports event tickets to which I was perennially entitled. My loss, I guess.

I'm sorry, I'm seriously laughing my balls off right now. When you said dig a little deeper into the numbers and questioned my information source, I figured you were going to site your own source on the numbers and then offer me some statistics to show that the argument that college athletes are graduating at high rates is compromised by other aspects that those arguing against you aren't considering.

In stead, you don't offer -any- of your own numbers. You're calling bullshit on a stat source based on an unresearched hunch. I fuckin love it.

Not that that's any different from any of your other arguments, mind you. It seems that the second leg of your argument, where you "dig deeper" into the numbers (LMFAO!), all you're really doing is applying more of the same unresearched assumptions to those numbers and building a monument of bullshit atop your premise base of bullshit.

The only time you brought up actual numbers was regarding full ride players at universities that are highly prestigious in the respective sports you mentioned. While we're using assumptions to "dig deeper" into the numbers, here's a safer one for you. You know what a lot of those cats good enough to get full rides to Georgia Tech and Kentucky for basketball, or Oklahoma for football, have in common? They're the collegiate athletes who can safely harbor dreams of playing professionally. While you're cutting through the bullshit, why don't you dig me up a statistic that tells how many of those non-graduating full ride basketball and football players at those schools you mentioned go pro? Then tell me why they're still supposed to be motivated to complete college when they've got a 7 digit career already in the bag.

You're actually less intellectual than most of the people you're calling dumb jocks. Do you experience any shame from that? I hope so. Undeserved arrogance should be painful.

 

[DGS49]

Nobody compiles the statistics on Div I full-scholarship football and basketball players (and excluding all the other athletes who bring the numbers up) because all of the available statistics are compiled by people who are supportive of NCAA sports. If they disclosed the facts about how many of these athletes graduate and the subjects in which they major, it would be a major scandal, and the NCAA would be excoriated for exploiting the players and not paying them. By including women athletes, non-revenue sport athletes, and non-scholarship athletes, they are able to publish numbers that appear very favorable.

And why do you think the "six year" cut-off was used? A serious student-athlete (think Division III) can, with just a little bit of extra effort, graduate in four (4) years. They are not majoring in Electrical Engineering after all. Six years is nonsense, and intended to make the best of a disgraceful statistic.

And as for foreign students going to football games, what (the fuck) does that prove? You say you know some foreigners who came to U.S. schools because of the sports? Baloney. They may participate and even enjoy some aspects of it - the same would be true if they were going to professional sports games, but they didn't come to the U.S. for this nonsense. They participate because they want to "belong," which is perfectly normal and expected.

 

[Steven_R]

I can see it now. "I could have gone to Oxford, but who needs that kind of a diploma when I could have tailgating at Podunk U!"

 

[Unkotare]

And why do you think the "six year" cut-off was used?

That's funny, in other threads lots of non-athletes were insisting that nobody graduates in four years anymore.

 

[Unkotare]

And as for foreign students going to football games, what (the fuck) does that prove? .

It proves that you were wrong, AGAIN. You were talking about things you know nothing about, AGAIN.

 

[Unkotare]

You say you know some foreigners who came to U.S. schools because of the sports? Baloney. .

I know thousands of international students. I know what I am talking about. You don't. Just two days ago another student from a country often held up as an example of educational superiority to American schools declared, unbidden, that after school sports was one of the reasons why he wanted to come all this way to study in the US.


You are talking out your ass and have been proven wrong time and time again.

 

[Abishai100]

Blue Chips



Consider this:


====

Billy McCaffrey, a stand-out 6th man player for the Duke Blue Devils men's college basketball team (1991 season) transferred to Vanderbilt University for his senior year where he stood out as the leader of their team (1992 season).

Kobe Bryant, star of the Los Angeles Lakers, turned down offers to play at Duke University so he could go straight into the NBA from high school.

McCaffrey never stood out in the NBA, and although Kobe did not create as big a splash in the NBA as his sometime co-Laker Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe did win multiple championships and attain various honors as a professional basketball player.

If the NCAA is really like the minor leagues for modern age athletes thinking liberally and constantly about contracts and endorsements, then how do we negotiate campfire story contours such as this model McCaffrey-Bryant contrast within the social context of 'profiteerism phonics?'

====






Billy McCaffrey

 

[Delta4Embassy]

NCAA: Making slavery acceptable since 1906

What do you call performing ethnic minorities entertaining whites who also make lots of money off their performances but who can't be paid for their performances?

Seem to recall this very practice being a thing in ancient Rome with slaves fighting other slaves for the enjoyment of their owners.

 

[Dot Com]

Nice, substantive response.

that one is a pile and a leg-humper. Don't mind him.

As to the OP, yes, sadly MURICA's colleges are dependent upon sports *cough* "programs" which coddle the players so that the school can charge for admission and get dat revenue. They should do away w/ the farce of most of the players actually being considered students THEN it wouldn't be so cringe worthy.