<p>"ATLANTA, Ga. (AP) Football and men's basketball players are averaging hundreds of points less on their college entrance exams than their classmates, according to a newspaper's study of 54 public universities.</p>
<p>The Atlanta Journal-Constitution review found the biggest gap between football players and students occurred at the University of Florida, where players scored 346 points lower than the school's overall student body.</p>
<p>Football players averaged 220 points lower on the SAT than their classmates and men's basketball players average seven points less than football players, the paper reported.</p>
<p>The paper reviewed 54 public universities, including the members of the six Bowl Championship Series conferences the Big East, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-10, SEC and ACC and other schools whose teams finished the 2007-08 season ranked among the football or men's basketball top 25...." Public</a> university athletes score far below classmates on SATs - USATODAY.com</p>
<p>What about the students who have part-time jobs and spend their afternoons working? Play musical instruments and spend hours practicing, rehearsing, and performing? Members of the field hockey team, volleyball team, swim team? I know plenty of them who also do very well in school and scored extremely high on the SAT.</p>
<p>There is obviously going to be exceptions... Generally the average person is not going to balance all of that stuff and be successful in so many areas. We're talking about averages, not individual persons.
Oh, and what is the purpose of the original post? Stereotypes may be presumptuous and arrogant, but there are reasons they became stereotypes.</p>
<p>Florida State's Myron Rolle is definitely an exception. He graduated in like 2.5 years with a Bachelors, continued working on a masters while he is still there. And he was named a Rhodes Scholar this year.</p>
<p>I don't know, I can't say I know very much about sports teams, divisions, and whatnot. I do, however, know people who have been accepted to both ivies and Julliard (if you're a musician, this is as good as it gets). As a former varsity athlete and a musician, I think it takes just as much, if not more, dedication, effort, and time to achieve such a level of musicianship as it does to become a D1 recruit. So I just find it very difficult to understand why some of you believe it's nearly impossible to perform well both academically AND athletically.</p>
<p>yea from someone who does three sports team, job, time comsuming EC's, yet i manage to maintain a 3.8? It is possible, probly harder than focusing all on academia</p>
<p>It's important to remember that colleges are big business. A top Div.1 athletic program brings in money. In as much as the parents of high academic students feel that the athlete is getting an easier ride of it, the truth is that they are there to serve a purpose to the school. If they're great, they contribute to a winning team. A winning team fills the stands and brings in the money----tickets, licensed merchandise, public relations for the school, and even increased alumni donations. I'm talking about the elite teams in football and basketball. For some athletes, this is the best way to achieve their goal--to get drafted and go pro after playing for a year or two. For the the scholar athletes, they are there to enjoy the experience of competing at a high level but athletics was a means for them to get a full ride to a great school and a way to earn a degree without having to shell out a ton of money. For the leftover, they'll either quit because they can't academically complete the graduation requirements or they realize that their goal of going pro in their sport is unreachable.</p>
<p>It's the nature of the beast. Really people need to stop whining. Bball and football players rake in HUGE, HUGE amounts of cash especially at top programs.</p>
<p>I'd be angry if they didn't bring in a ton of funding for all the academic programs and precipitate the purchasing of athletic merchandise, like apparel, mugs, hats, and the like. Athletics at large colleges generate sales tax revenue and money for the school, and they give talented athletes who may not have a chance at college normally the opportunity to go on to higher education where it would not have been possible normally.</p>
<p>I think it's myth that colleges actually benefit, economically, from basketball and football teams. Of course, there are exceptions like Davidson's recent basketball success or Gonzaga becoming a household college due solely to their good basketball team or the Flutie effect for BC in the mid 80's. But I believe most football teams actually cost more money than they generate. I don't feel like looking up stats, but maybe someone else could.</p>
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they give talented athletes who may not have a chance at college normally the opportunity to go on to higher education where it would not have been possible normally.
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<p>Here's a crazy idea. If it "would not have been possible normally", like for example not being possible due to a horrible SAT score thereby indicating not reaching the intellectual standard, then maybe they don't deserve or won't benefit attending college. </p>
<p>I think we should stop pretending these athletes are actually students as well. In addition, it's unfair to academically minded students to have their spot being taken (tho this only applies to the Ivies). Colleges should simply fund, put their name on, minor league teams.</p>
<p>"When the NCAA released its annual report on graduation rates for college athletes in October, President Myles Brand proclaimed that "in the athletic culture, the idea of academic performance is taking hold." He couldn't have been thinking of the universities profiting so handsomely from the current lineup of bowl games.</p>
<p>As usually is the case in college football, most of the teams that are doing best on the field aren't exactly shining in the classroom.</p>
<p>This is evident in the very statistics that Brand hailed.</p>
<p>Take Monday's national championship game between schools with storied football programs, Ohio State and Louisiana State.</p>
<p>At Ohio State, only 53% of the football players who entered college on scholarships from 1997 through 2000 graduated within six years. LSU graduated only 51%.</p>
<p>They are not the worst among the 10 universities represented in this year's top bowls. The universities of Georgia, Hawaii and Oklahoma graduated just over four in 10 players.</p>
<p>Why is this a surprise? Even on CC, people ask whether their lower-than-average scores (for that school) will be offset by their being an athlete, and the answer is generally yes.</p>