<p>Once again a player puts the lie to the stereotypes. Maybe they are really individuals just like the rest of the students body. </p>
<p>Here's the 2006 Academic All-American Football Team:</p>
<p>Real majors, too.</p>
<p>Holy crud! There is a kid who grew up down the street from me on that list. He was a friend of my younger brother when we were little. Crazy stuff, Mechanical engineering at Johns Hopkins...grats to him!</p>
<p>Paul Posluszny, the Penn State linebacker and future NFL player mentioned in StickerShock's link, is very impressive with a 3.5 GPA for finance. Now, imagine if he were doing that at the University of Pennsylvania! He'd still make more money than any of his other Wharton buddies by playing football over working on Wall Street.</p>
<p>Got to love Puz! He is a really nice guy two. One time I walked into one of the business buildings and sat down in the lobby. He came in and sat down next to me and we just talked about random things. He was so down to Earth and normal even though he is essentally a god at my school. If he wanted two he could do anything that he wanted and no one would say a thing but he doesn't.</p>
<p>there are some good kids out there, and they should get lots of recognition. To apply yourself to a division 1 sports and take on a real course load is very impressive.</p>
<p>of course then there are the other kids like the guy who was gonna go to Notre Dame, but they told him he wasn't strong enough in the classroom. So he went to USC. Then he was talking crap after ND beat USC (so cal). Numbers? 2.8 / 820. If you want to read more about him, google around with those numbers, you'll find the player.</p>
<p>It was Jarrett? Wow.</p>
<p>Not all wide receivers are boneheads. A lot depends on the college.</p>
<p>Here's a line from All-American ND wide receiver Jeff Samardzija's bio: ..."enrolled in the Mendoza College of Business, majoring in marketing ... earned 3.051 grade-point average in <code>05 fall semester and 3.028 in</code>06 spring semester." He managed these grades while playing Div1 football AND baseball AND being recruited by the Cubs. He played this summer in the minors and will now juggle professional careers in both sports. </p>
<p>Or check out wide receiver Maurice Stovall, who graduated last year and now plays for the Bucaneers. When asked why he chose Notre Dame over other schools, he had this to say: "I chose Notre Dame because I felt like it had the best combination of academics and athletics. God forbid, if I were to get injured. I would still want to graduate with a meaningful degree." And he did.</p>
<p>i saw the interview with the SC reciever, he could barely string a sentence together.</p>
<p>They are...</p>
<p>Pitts State...</p>
<p>Which is not in the Burgh, but in Pittsburg, KS</p>
<p>Go Gorillas!!!!</p>
<p>Unfortunately, we also get a steady diet of these sorts of news stories that tend to confirm the stereotype:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.fanblogs.com/texas/005421.php%5B/url%5D">http://www.fanblogs.com/texas/005421.php</a></p>
<p>So the schools have maintained academic standards and flunked out some players--I see that as a good thing. I'd worry more if noody flunked out over time. People flunk out of most schools every year and some were in the top range of the admitted students. College is a big adjustment and when big-time football is part of it you have to learn to focus and budget your time, or else.</p>
<p>Some of the athletes on the academic all-American list go to D3 schools. Clearly, they could have received athletic scholarships at other schools, but they chose their colleges for academics. That is nice to see! Congratulations to all of these young men.</p>
<p>Future star with a great attitude. </p>
<p>As my bother in law said on Christmas as we were making fun of a particularly inarticulate pro player, "He can sure say TEN MILLION DOLLARS!" Who's laughing now? :)</p>
<p>The MIT mecheng major with a 4.0 gpa is surely impressive.</p>
<p>I am surprised that Leonard, the Rutgers FB was not named to the academic all-american team because he won the Draddy Award this year, the Academic Heisman trophy. BTW, Payton Manning was a past winner of the Draddy as was Chad Pennington and Ohio State's Craig Krenzel.</p>
<p>What was MIT's record this year? Just kidding. I don't think you can compare the commitment in D-1 to D-3 but then the academics probably don't compare well either.</p>