<p>As an FSU alumnus this is extremely embarrassing, yet the truth needs to be told. The things that occur so that the best athletes can be university students. Obviously some go too far, but they hurt the institution in the process.</p>
<p>I hope the next Florida State University president can restore the public trust in the oldest school in Florida. </p>
<p>
[quote]
The same institution that last year boasted of football player Myron Rolle's Rhodes Scholarship admitted athletes who couldn't read beyond the second-grade level and needed intensive help to complete academic assignments. When even that wasn't enough, FSU employee-sanctioned cheating followed. The university's academic integrity, not its football team's won-loss record, should be at the front of the board of trustees' agenda.</p>
<p>The National Collegiate Athletic Association fought to shield documents connected to its investigation only to be required by the courts to make them public under Florida's open records law. The result illustrates once again the importance of transparency. A 347-page transcript of an October 2008 NCAA Committee on Infractions meeting lays bare an academic culture subsumed by the athletic department's top priority: keeping its players eligible.
<p>The gifted athletes are not really that. They are just older. </p>
<p>Read “Outliers”. The first section treats junior hockey in Canada but applies to football and basketball in the U.S.</p>
<p>The athletes in question are good because they failed multiple grades and are older and more mature than their competition. There is a huge gradient of atheletic ability/achievement between 16 and 20. The failed students are really better than the competition in high school and hence get more coaching and playing time to become even better. </p>
<p>The situation can only be remedied by stricter academic standards in high school. Not likely to happen.</p>
<p>How many major college athletes failed a grade (or more!) or were born in a month when they were effectively a year older than their classmates?</p>
<p>Texas Western (UTEP) vs Kentucky in 1966 changed college athletics forever.</p>
<p>Larry Bird was 23 when he lead Indiana State to the finals of the NCAA.</p>
<p>Speaking of sports, I remember when a certain someone on here said his/her Seminoles would beat my Bulls because of their superior skill and talent… That didn’t go over too well did it? </p>
<p>Another question goes far beyond FSU, as I suspect this is very common at universities with top level sports programs. First of all, the “second grade” information apparently comes from at least one of the people removed by the university. How credible is that information, really, as the student would also need to pass the SAT/ACT, high schools classes and maybe other standardized tests?</p>
<p>It’s much easier to learn how to listen and understand a language by listening than it is to read it. Listening can be picked up naturally by interacting with people, reading takes more individual effort.</p>
<p>There’s no such thing as “passing” the SAT or ACT, just taking it.
You do have a point though. Most states have standardized tests for high schoolers that need to be passed to graduate. It’s easy beans for most hs students but would be very difficult for someone with a second grade reading level.</p>
<p>isnt there a minimum SAT requirement enforced by the NCAA. I would think a , say 700+ should signify an average literacy level. Are these people cheating on the SAT’s too?</p>
<p>Well, that’s not quite true for student-athletes. The NCAA sets minimum SAT/ACT test scores a student must achieve to be academically eligible to participate in NCAA sports. At Division I schools, the NCAA uses a sliding scale, so the higher your HS GPA, the lower the threshold you must meet on ACT or SAT scores, and vice versa. But basically any athlete seeking eligibility will have a minimum “passing” test score s/he must achieve to be academically eligible, depending on HS GPA. Thousands of aspiring student/athletes “fail” the SAT and ACT every year; thousands more flirt with eligibility, taking extra HS classes to tweak GPA or getting intensive tutoring on standardized tests to get up to NCAA minimums. Some athletes, and some schools, cheat. Others don’t.</p>
<p>Some conferences set academic eligibility standards higher than the NCAA minimums, and some schools set their own standards even higher. Big-time sports programs are NOT all alike in this regard. Not by a longshot.</p>
<p>^ Just to give you an idea how the NCAA sliding scale works, here are the minimum SAT scores for various HS GPAs (in 16 required core academic courses):</p>
<p>That is basically correct. Its a travesty. And to put insult to injury, they are on full ride athletic scholarships. Which we as taxpayers fund (if public) and parents fund (if private and our kids go there.) Some schools hold true to academic requirements and some don’t. Some leagues are known for academic integrity (Ivy, Patriot League are two that come to mind) and some don’t. </p>
<p>What is more, the NCAA did a study, released recently which showed only 25% of NCAA Div 1 schools make money at football and basketball. In women’s sports only one school made money. The rest its all a losing financial drain. So the question becomes, “WHY SPEND ALL THAT MONEY FOR SUCH POOR QUALITY OF STUDENTS?”</p>
<p>Many athletes quit before graduating or go pro. Lower tier schools risk losing star athletes to higher ranking or more prominent athletic schools. </p>
<p>But booster clubs demand it and the television moguls demand it. So we do it. It is what it is.</p>
<p>That being said, some schools are shining examples of integrity and have very high graduation rates for their scholar athletes. I applaud them.</p>
<p>Not necessarily so. The most successful football and basketball programs generate enormous revenues, paying for themselves and then some—funding coaching staff salaries, player scholarships, facilities costs, and operating expenses, and usually generating a surplus which is used to support other, non-revenue sports and athletic programs. There was a new report out on this just recently that said only 25% of Division I athletic programs were fully self-sufficient, but that’s including all the non-revenue sports. Big-time college football programs almost always make money. So that dull-witted defensive tackle you see playing on Saturday isn’t being supported by your tax dollars or your kid’s tuition. He’s being supported by the people who bought tickets and the advertisers who paid for your eyeballs on the screen, a hefty fraction of which is paid by the TV network to the football conference and divvied out to the conference member schools on a pro rata basis.</p>