<p>kayf - I am a former Div. 1 scholarship athlete and competed at a high level. I agree with everything you say. </p>
<p>It was my means to go to school. </p>
<p>I was fortunate in that my high school grades and scores were in the top 25% of the entering class. I was a real student. </p>
<p>Even so, my first job was athletics and unfortunately I never really was able to focus on academics - as a scholarship athlete, the first priority is on academics. It closes off social development too. Training twice a day takes intense dedication and one could never get too far into the university and away from the athletic department’s demands. I am fortunate to be able to go to the school I went to for “free” - but I have significant regrets at not being able to devote the right kind of dedication to studies. </p>
<p>But these are all minor complaints for me. I went to class and did reasonably well, and went on to do well at top ranked grad school. I can only imagine what happens to the raft of athletes admitted with less than a 1000 on their SAT’s (old SAT’s) and get there by the skin of their teeth 2.2 high school GPA’s. They can’t do college level work at even modestly competitive schools (peruse the Internet for materials on the Rutgers 1000 -a very interesting group that explained what an academic farce so many D1 programs are), and are really in a state of servitude to the athletic department. </p>
<p>I am not sure complaining makes any sense, though. There isn’t a Div. 1 university president that would want to dismantle the system. And some couldn’t even if they wanted to. Can you imagine what kind of financial support the University of Kentucky would receive from the state legislature if the president of the school said we want to de-emphasize basketball and football? Well, heck, it wouldn’t happen because he would be fired the next day. But no one in his or her right mind would do it. Even an intellectual progressive like Donna Shahala has to be a shill for the University of Miami football team - a team that admits the most marginal of students (if you can call them that) - as the price of keeping her job.</p>