The NCAA - A Cancer in Education

[DGS49]

Consider the phenomenon of Division I college athletics.

Otherwise reputable institutions of higher learning recruit young men with outstanding athletic skills to play for their (let's focus on) football and basketball teams. In most cases, these young men are academically marginal; in fact, for the better schools (e.g., Duke, Michigan, VA Tech) it is fair to say that almost none of them could be admitted based on their academic credentials. In short, they don't belong there. But the colleges not only admit them, they create academic programs that are filled with pointless fluff, so that the athletes can remain students in good standing for their four years of eligibility.

They hire professional coaches (and assistants and other hangers-on) at astronomical salaries, based on the revenues that the teams generate for the school (often entirely mythical); they build athletic castles not only to play the games, but to practice and do other related functions. They pay the students NOTHING, on the totally self-serving basis that they are receiving a valuable education in exchange for their playing for the school. But this is bullshit of the lowest form; most of the athletes do not graduate, and those that do generally graduate with a degree that is worthless in the real world.

And in fact most of the athletes are not there for an education anyway. They are living a preposterous dream that they will ultimately be able to support themselves as professionals in their sport, and are ONLY in college because that is the route that is required in our bizarre sports culture. And as we adults know, only a tiny fraction of them will ever support themselves in the NFL/NBA, and those that do will likely have careers of less than 5 years, before they have to face the Real World as pathetic "has-beens" at age 25.

Because the "Div I" colleges give away so many athletic scholarships to young men who play football, and this was perceived as genderically unfair, Congress passed what is colloquially referred to as "Title IX," which requires that colleges make an equal number of athletic scholarships available to women. And this has two bizarre results: scholarships for "secondary" mens' sports like wrestling and soccer are eliminated, and scholarships are made available to young women for bizarre sports like fencing and field hockey.

So the institutions of higher learning are totally compromised. They prostitute themselves to players and coaches, they water down their academic standards, and they inflate tuition for everyone to support a mountain of costs (mainly athletic scholarships) associated with interscholastic sports. As I hinted above, only a small percentave of Div I schools have athletic programs that generate more revenue than they suck up (aka, "make a profit").

If I were emperor I would introduce two simple changes: (1) outlaw athletic scholarships (2) prohibit payments to athletic coaches. Then I would pay my minions to formulate regulations that prevented cheating, because Americans love to cheat.

But "OH MY GOD!" you say, "WHAT ABOUT ALL THE POOR, MINORITIES KIDS WHO WILL LOSE THIS OPPORTUNITY TO GO TO COLLEGE?!!!"

It is with the utmost compassion that I respond, "Fuck 'em."

And I say this with good reason. Consider all of the tens of thousands of minority kids around the country who are focusing their efforts on becoming the best football or basketball players they can be (or both), and lets encourage them to spend THAT SAME TIME AND EFFORT in preparing themselves for college. Wouldn't that be a better bargain for society as a whole? Because in fact, all of those millions of hours playing sports are basically WASTED. By the time they are 30 (not even halfway through life) they will have put down the ball for life, with nothing to show for their efforts but gamey knees and a pt belly.

With the elimination of Division I college basketball and football, what would happen? Well, notice that Major League Baseball has sponsored minor league teams spread all over the country - dozens of them, for more than a hundred years. And those minor-league teams are PERFORMING EXACTLY THE SAME FUNCTION for MLB as the NCAA colleges are now doing for the NFL and the NBA. Why should the NFL and the NBA get this free service from the colleges?

I dare say that with the elimination of Div I programs, professional "minor league" football and basketball leagues would sprout up all over North America, and those leagues and players would feed into the NBA and NFL in pretty much the same way that it works in baseball right now, BUT THE PLAYERS WOULD BE GETTING PAID FOR THEIR EFFORTS. AND THEY WOULD HAVE HEALTH INSURANCE, AND HAVE ALL THE BENEFITS OF BEING EMPLOYEES, rather than being slaves to their Alma Fucking Mater's, as they are now.

In most countries, there is no interscholastic sports program. The students to go school to learn and get degrees, and if they want to play sports, there are "club sports" that they can participate in, in their spare time.

It makes sense to me. NCAA Division I sports make no sense at all.

 

[Unkotare]

This is really not the proper venue for you to be working through your inferiority complex, Poindexter. You won't find any help here; you're just embarrassing yourself.

 

[DGS49]

Nice, substantive response.

 

[Unkotare]

More than your bitter, irrelevant rant merits.

 

[Steven_R]

We should really stop pretending the NCAA is anything more than the minor leagues for professional sports. Stop the scholarships, let the NFL, NBA. MLB, NHL come into some kind of agreement with the schools to fund and pay the "student-athletes" and call it a day. If it develops into some kind of a farm system with an affiliation with a local college, fine. If it turns into something else, fine. It's not about anything more than money now, so why pretend otherwise?

 

[DGS49]

The schools should be involved in education. There is a place for amateur sports in our society, but the link with schools (at all levels, not just college) is perverse and destructive. It not only compromises the schools and diverts their attention from the theoretical mission, but it does not optimize the development of our top athletes. In sports where Americans compete on equal footing with other countries (soccer, tennis), we suck.

Paying college athletes is even more ridiculous. If they are good enough to play professionally, then create "minor" leagues where they can play professionally, and leave the schools out of it.

 

[Unkotare]

We should really stop pretending the NCAA is anything more than the minor leagues for professional sports.

That is utter and complete nonsense. The vast, vast, vast majority of student athletes who compete in the NCAA - even at the Div. 1 level, do NOT go on to play professional sports. In fact, the majority of college sports do not HAVE a professional level to go on to.

 

[Unkotare]

The schools should be involved in education. .

Sport has been a very important part of education since the time of the ancient Greeks. Stop projecting your personal issues.

 

[Steven_R]

We should really stop pretending the NCAA is anything more than the minor leagues for professional sports.

That is utter and complete nonsense. The vast, vast, vast majority of student athletes who compete in the NCAA - even at the Div. 1 level, do NOT go on to play professional sports. In fact, the majority of college sports do not HAVE a professional level to go on to.

The vast, vast, vast majority of minor league players don't go on to the pros either.

We're not talking about the fencing and volleyball and rifle teams. We're discussing the football and basketball and hockey and (to a lesser extent) baseball programs that have become little more than school supported minor league programs for those sports. At least with industry there is some reciprocity with the schools in the form of scholarships and internships and partnership ventures that benefit both the school and the student. As it stands now, the school and student do all the work and the professional sports just shows up at the end to recruit.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

Umm....the NEA...death to Education.
Teachers Unions...death, rape and murder of education

The NCAA is a small, single pixel blip on the radar compared to the damage and embarrassing failure of our education system.
Man are you pissing in the wrong yard.

 

[Unkotare]

We should really stop pretending the NCAA is anything more than the minor leagues for professional sports.

That is utter and complete nonsense. The vast, vast, vast majority of student athletes who compete in the NCAA - even at the Div. 1 level, do NOT go on to play professional sports. In fact, the majority of college sports do not HAVE a professional level to go on to.

The vast, vast, vast majority of minor league players don't go on to the pros either.

Those are professional athletes, every one of them. Student athletes are not.

 

[Unkotare]

We're not talking about the fencing and volleyball and rifle teams. We're discussing the football and basketball and hockey and (to a lesser extent) baseball programs .

That's not what the OP said.

 

[DGS49]

Consider a few things from your own experience. How many HS kids do you know who waste thousands of hours on the athletic fields hoping to get a college scholarship? Of course most of them don't get one, and the ones that do often find themselves ill-prepared for real college work because they have wasted so much of their time playing games and doing conditioning that EDUCATION has taken a back seat.

So they go to college and study Phys Ed, or Communications, or Ethnic Studies, or some other bullshit major. And statistically speaking, they probably won't graduate - certainly not in four years.

If they devoted half the time in high school to studying that they did to sports, they would have been prepared for college and could actually study something worthwhile.

As I have said before, playing sports can be very fulfilling, satisfying, and EDUCATIONAL. But the link between sports and schools is perverse, and affects a lot of things that people never even think about.

Why do you think high school kids are starting classes so early in the morning (and not getting sufficient sleep)? Because the planners have to take into account that half of them will be fucking around after school with cheerleading practice, or swimming for two hours, or practicing with the basketball team.

These activities, while fun, are SECONDARY, and should be far in the background, not the focus of half the kids' lives.

No athletic scholarships. No paid coaches (high school or college). It's as simple as that, to bring sanity to the whole thing. If you really want to participate, join a traveling team like they do in hockey and soccer. But don't expect the high school to accommodate your hobby.

 

[Unkotare]

Consider a few things from your own experience. How many HS kids do you know who waste thousands of hours on the athletic fields hoping to get a college scholarship? .

NONE. No one I know who devoted themselves to excelling at something ever "wasted" a minute doing so. Everyone who spent time pushing themselves on the athletic fields developed more character, remained healthier, learned important social and individual lessons, and developed relationships that often last a lifetime. Few high school students harbor any serious hopes or expectations of being offered an athletic scholarship, and none of them put forth any less effort as a result. Maybe you never learned about dedication, self-respect, and pride. It seems your education was quite limited in that respect.

 

[Unkotare]

the ones that do often find themselves ill-prepared for real college work because they have wasted so much of their time playing games and doing conditioning that EDUCATION has taken a back seat.

So they go to college and study Phys Ed, or Communications, or Ethnic Studies, or some other bullshit major. And statistically speaking, they probably won't graduate - certainly not in four years..

Wrong. Most student athletes do as well or better than their non-athletic peers, in both high school and college. The great majority of student athletes in college take real courses, get real degrees, and go on to have real careers, often advanced by relationships formed via participation in sports as well as other endeavors.

A High School Athlete's GPA Vs. Average High School Student's GPA | Everyday Life - Global Post

Does Athletic Success Come at the Expense of Academic Success? : Education Next

http://www.iahsaa.org/resource_cent...ship_Safety/Benefit_of_Activities_Handout.pdf

DIII graduation rates reflect student-athlete success - NCAA.org

NCAA grad rates hit all-time high - NCAA.com

 

[Unkotare]

Why do you think high school kids are starting classes so early in the morning (and not getting sufficient sleep)? .

Many reasons. Some students participate in sports, others in the Chess Club, the Debate Team, the school orchestra, the Spanish Club, community service programs, and still others have to go work part-time jobs to help support their own families. Many reasons.

There are also considerations that involve transportation of students, parents' working hours, school administration, etc.

 

[Pop23]

the ones that do often find themselves ill-prepared for real college work because they have wasted so much of their time playing games and doing conditioning that EDUCATION has taken a back seat.

So they go to college and study Phys Ed, or Communications, or Ethnic Studies, or some other bullshit major. And statistically speaking, they probably won't graduate - certainly not in four years..

Wrong. Most student athletes do as well or better than their non-athletic peers, in both high school and college. The great majority of student athletes in college take real courses, get real degrees, and go on to have real careers, often advanced by relationships formed via participation in sports as well as other endeavors.

A High School Athlete's GPA Vs. Average High School Student's GPA | Everyday Life - Global Post

Does Athletic Success Come at the Expense of Academic Success? : Education Next

http://www.iahsaa.org/resource_cent...ship_Safety/Benefit_of_Activities_Handout.pdf

DIII graduation rates reflect student-athlete success - NCAA.org

NCAA grad rates hit all-time high - NCAA.com

They are all just a bunch of dumb jocks, like this one:

Alabama?s Barrett Jones tops Capital One Academic All-America® Division I Football Team - CoSIDA

 

[Not2BSubjugated]

Consider a few things from your own experience. How many HS kids do you know who waste thousands of hours on the athletic fields hoping to get a college scholarship? Of course most of them don't get one, and the ones that do often find themselves ill-prepared for real college work because they have wasted so much of their time playing games and doing conditioning that EDUCATION has taken a back seat.

So they go to college and study Phys Ed, or Communications, or Ethnic Studies, or some other bullshit major. And statistically speaking, they probably won't graduate - certainly not in four years.

If they devoted half the time in high school to studying that they did to sports, they would have been prepared for college and could actually study something worthwhile.

As I have said before, playing sports can be very fulfilling, satisfying, and EDUCATIONAL. But the link between sports and schools is perverse, and affects a lot of things that people never even think about.

Why do you think high school kids are starting classes so early in the morning (and not getting sufficient sleep)? Because the planners have to take into account that half of them will be fucking around after school with cheerleading practice, or swimming for two hours, or practicing with the basketball team.

These activities, while fun, are SECONDARY, and should be far in the background, not the focus of half the kids' lives.

No athletic scholarships. No paid coaches (high school or college). It's as simple as that, to bring sanity to the whole thing. If you really want to participate, join a traveling team like they do in hockey and soccer. But don't expect the high school to accommodate your hobby.

I gotta agree with Unkotare on this one. I've never seen kids waste hours on the field trying to excel at a sport. On top of that, you assume that the hours they spend doing this somehow infringe on time that would otherwise be spent studying or pursuing academic goals. What the fuck are you smoking? I'm stoned right now and this shit doesn't even come close to making sense, so I'm guessing you're on something a lot stronger than pot. Boys and Girls Clubs don't build gyms next to inner city schools and encourage kids to play ball after school because there's rampant studying going on outside of school hours.

During the downtime between basketball and baseball season for high schools, Barnes and Noble and Amazon don't suddenly see massive spikes in sales in their teen and young adult literature departments.

If you actually think that removing EXTRA-CURRICULAR (and get this. . . they're called that because they don't actually affect school hours. Apparently high schools manage to jam their sports team practices and games in outside of class time, for the most part. I remember playing HS football a little over a decade ago there were times when, playing against teams a couple hours away, I might miss half my last period for the day, but we're talking once or twice per season) sports from high school is somehow going to help boost our academic performance as a nation, again, you're smoking something a lot stronger than I am.

I also never knew kids in high school who weren't getting enough sleep at night because their sports and homework were just too much. Considering the average school day is about 6 hours long and practice for even sports that require a lot of prep time (football and hockey, for instance. . . lot of gear to put on) starts at most 30 minutes after school's out and lasts for maybe 3 hours, if you got a hard-ass coach, in a 14-16 hour day (allowing for that precious 8 to 10) you're still left with 4-7 hours depending on all the particulars. Per day. Not a lot of kids with more daily home work with that.

So essentially all that sports practice cuts into is a kid's free time, not their school time and not their sleep time supposing their parents stay on it and keep their kids managing that free time-sleep time relationship properly.

On top of that, most high schools and often times even team coaches independently have both academic and attendance requirements to be eligible to play sports. Personally, I knew about 6 or 7 kids that I played football with in HS that were complete fuckin delinquents who, outside of the football and basketball season, you were lucky (or unlucky) to see in class 4 periods out of an 8 period day, and even luckier to catch them sober in any of those classes. During the football and basketball seasons, though? Damn near perfect attendance. Game days, those fuckers didn't miss a class. The school I went to, David Douglas in Portland Oregon, was even a real mild school at the time with mostly suburban kids attending and a traditionally mediocre sports program, so you can't tell me that delinquents who were dedicated to sports like this were unique to my experience.

Next up, schools don't start class early in the morning to account for after school sports, and even if they did, so what? Most schools start between 8 and 9 AM somewhere. You know what else tends to start between 8 and 9 AM somewhere? Daytime jobs. I.E. the vast majority of careers out there expect roughly the same schedule. That's why schools start early: to get kids into the habit of starting early in the real world. If sports were the original reason for schools to start at the same time as the working world, then fuckin GO SPORTS!

HS's should absolutely accommodate sports hobbies, particularly team sports hobbies. On the upside, they promote teamwork, dedication and perseverance while adding more structure and discipline to the lives of children and teenagers, i.e. people who absolutely benefit from both of those things. They also keep a lot of kids on school grounds doing something productive for a few extra hours in stead of doing stupid shit, cuz I hate to break it to you, but if you take away football those kids aren't gonna take their helmets off and go read.

 

[Unkotare]

The OP is obviously trying to use a specious argument to work through some issues from his childhood.

 

[Not2BSubjugated]

Consider the phenomenon of Division I college athletics.

Otherwise reputable institutions of higher learning recruit young men with outstanding athletic skills to play for their (let's focus on) football and basketball teams. In most cases, these young men are academically marginal; in fact, for the better schools (e.g., Duke, Michigan, VA Tech) it is fair to say that almost none of them could be admitted based on their academic credentials. In short, they don't belong there. But the colleges not only admit them, they create academic programs that are filled with pointless fluff, so that the athletes can remain students in good standing for their four years of eligibility.

They hire professional coaches (and assistants and other hangers-on) at astronomical salaries, based on the revenues that the teams generate for the school (often entirely mythical); they build athletic castles not only to play the games, but to practice and do other related functions. They pay the students NOTHING, on the totally self-serving basis that they are receiving a valuable education in exchange for their playing for the school. But this is bullshit of the lowest form; most of the athletes do not graduate, and those that do generally graduate with a degree that is worthless in the real world.

And in fact most of the athletes are not there for an education anyway. They are living a preposterous dream that they will ultimately be able to support themselves as professionals in their sport, and are ONLY in college because that is the route that is required in our bizarre sports culture. And as we adults know, only a tiny fraction of them will ever support themselves in the NFL/NBA, and those that do will likely have careers of less than 5 years, before they have to face the Real World as pathetic "has-beens" at age 25.

Because the "Div I" colleges give away so many athletic scholarships to young men who play football, and this was perceived as genderically unfair, Congress passed what is colloquially referred to as "Title IX," which requires that colleges make an equal number of athletic scholarships available to women. And this has two bizarre results: scholarships for "secondary" mens' sports like wrestling and soccer are eliminated, and scholarships are made available to young women for bizarre sports like fencing and field hockey.

So the institutions of higher learning are totally compromised. They prostitute themselves to players and coaches, they water down their academic standards, and they inflate tuition for everyone to support a mountain of costs (mainly athletic scholarships) associated with interscholastic sports. As I hinted above, only a small percentave of Div I schools have athletic programs that generate more revenue than they suck up (aka, "make a profit").

If I were emperor I would introduce two simple changes: (1) outlaw athletic scholarships (2) prohibit payments to athletic coaches. Then I would pay my minions to formulate regulations that prevented cheating, because Americans love to cheat.

But "OH MY GOD!" you say, "WHAT ABOUT ALL THE POOR, MINORITIES KIDS WHO WILL LOSE THIS OPPORTUNITY TO GO TO COLLEGE?!!!"

It is with the utmost compassion that I respond, "Fuck 'em."

And I say this with good reason. Consider all of the tens of thousands of minority kids around the country who are focusing their efforts on becoming the best football or basketball players they can be (or both), and lets encourage them to spend THAT SAME TIME AND EFFORT in preparing themselves for college. Wouldn't that be a better bargain for society as a whole? Because in fact, all of those millions of hours playing sports are basically WASTED. By the time they are 30 (not even halfway through life) they will have put down the ball for life, with nothing to show for their efforts but gamey knees and a pt belly.

With the elimination of Division I college basketball and football, what would happen? Well, notice that Major League Baseball has sponsored minor league teams spread all over the country - dozens of them, for more than a hundred years. And those minor-league teams are PERFORMING EXACTLY THE SAME FUNCTION for MLB as the NCAA colleges are now doing for the NFL and the NBA. Why should the NFL and the NBA get this free service from the colleges?

I dare say that with the elimination of Div I programs, professional "minor league" football and basketball leagues would sprout up all over North America, and those leagues and players would feed into the NBA and NFL in pretty much the same way that it works in baseball right now, BUT THE PLAYERS WOULD BE GETTING PAID FOR THEIR EFFORTS. AND THEY WOULD HAVE HEALTH INSURANCE, AND HAVE ALL THE BENEFITS OF BEING EMPLOYEES, rather than being slaves to their Alma Fucking Mater's, as they are now.

In most countries, there is no interscholastic sports program. The students to go school to learn and get degrees, and if they want to play sports, there are "club sports" that they can participate in, in their spare time.

It makes sense to me. NCAA Division I sports make no sense at all.

So much. . . so much.

First off, students on athletic scholarships have a higher GSR than overall student bodies pretty consistently. This most college athletes don't graduate shit. . . no idea where you're getting it.

I'm also looking at a list of Div 1 colleges and their athletics programs revenue vs expenses. Sorry, but the majority of the schools listed not only have higher revenues than expenses, but most of those have revenues that beat their expenses by enough to more than offset the portion of their revenue that comes in from subsidies from the college's coffers. College Athletics Revenues and Expenses - ESPN Keep at it, tho.

And the kids who get scholarships are being paid just fine, by my math. Especially the ones on free rides to the expensive ass schools you mentioned in your post. I'd take a scholarship worth an amount comfortably in the 6 digit area to play football for 4 seasons. It ain't NFL pay, but college ain't the NFL. On top of all that, the kids that don't have scholarships or even have partial scholarships, are playing because they want to play for whatever reason, maybe they think they're going pro, maybe they just enjoy the sport. The point is, it's their choice, and they go in knowing full well they ain't pulling a paycheck out of it. I really don't see any problem with compensation.

Next, even if your assumption was correct that "most" student athletes don't go to college for an education. . . if most of them leave with a degree (and most of them do), how much did the motive matter? Those that are only there for sports, then go pro and only last for 5 years get to face the real world a few million dollars richer when they're 25 year old has beens, as well as more opportunity to make easy money via public appearances and odd sponsorships. What would these people, who if they went to college only for sports, are obviously not academically inclined. . . .what would they face the world as @ 25 if they didn't go to college at all? I don't see how this is an argument at all.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, your proposal that we eliminate high school sports and in stead encourage minorities to spend more time preparing academically for colleges that, given today's socio-economic conditions as they relate to minorities, they often won't be able to afford without some scholarship route. If you make all scholarships academic, how many of those scholarships do you suppose will be handed out to kids from the prestigious Jefferson High? HAte to break it to you, but the schools with the most economic need for scholarship help are the schools in areas where the schools are notoriously shitty, and the least likely to get academic scholarships. All you create is a situation where the government's gonna wanna step in again to make things more racially "fair", just like they did with title IX as it relates to sexism.

On top of that, which is the lesser half of my argument against this course of action. . . encouraging kids to study more isn't going to make them spend the time freed up by eliminating sports actually studying. Again, I reference the Boys and Girls Club. . . I've never seen them open a library to keep kids off the streets at night. You know why that is? Kids don't really like to study. You give them more free time, they'll spend it playing videogames, watching TV, playing on Facebook and Twitter, getting drunk and stoned, fucking, driving around doing nothing. . . essentially everything -but- studying. Out of all the kids I've known in my life, I can probably count on my fingers the number that ever did anything educational for fun or by choice.

Club sports are better? If the only problem remaining is that kids in school hold sports more important than education, do you think that whether or not the school sponsors the sport works into that kid's psychology? "Well, football's kinda cool, but the fact that my school supports it makes me -REALLY- wanna play!" Doubt it.

For someone whose entire argument is for the purpose of furthering education, you make an awful lot of unresearched assertions and do very little critical thinking in your argument.