<p>And as long as it is “OK” for them to do this, they will think it’s OK.</p>
<p>I think holding students to low expectations gives them the message that they can’t do it. Some may not be ready to do the work, and for some, college isn’t going to be the best route for them.</p>
<p>I’m a believer that everyone can do something though, and that they should have access to an education option at some point. Sports are great, but nobody can play forever, and some won’t make it to the professional level. I would rather see them in remedial reading than a sham class.</p>
<p>It is fair to question schools like SJSU trying to compete in major college football. That’s a decision for the students and the school to make together. </p>
<p>Agreed. I think that everyone who goes through the whole college experience should come out with something at the end. In addition to sports, they should at least have to learn something that they didn’t have before they entered. I don’t want to slam these kids on the football program because I get the impression they get slagged off often enough by people, but denying them the opportunity to even try to rise to this challenge seems insulting. </p>
<p>How much of these bad grades are due to unsurmountable lack of ability, vs. how much of it is because the students are being told that academics are not important and that someone somewhere will come up with a scam to bail them out so why bother trying to learn anything from classes?</p>
<p>I think if you treated college athletes with respect and asked them to step up, and provided the support if they ask for it, they could do it for the most part. I know two students – one of whom played varsity track (shot-put) and the other who played varsity football – who managed to graduate cum laude from demanding computer science and accounting programs respectively at my undergrad. They were on the road for much of the semester and spent mornings and evenings practicing but they managed to do it. Not everyone can do that specific tasks, but the idea that athletes can’t study, can’t learn, and have no option than to graduate while illiterate is absurd to me.</p>
<p>If they’re illiterate upon entry to college, they may not be able to complete college. If they’re illiterate, they shouldn’t have been able to complete high school. </p>
<p>It is not easy to learn to read if you haven’t mastered the skill, despite schooling, by the end of high school.</p>
<p>“They’re also cheating the taxpayers of North Carolina.” </p>
<p>Footballers and hoopsters typically have full ride scholarships. The athletic department actually has to write a check to the university for the costs of its athletic scholarships. So the costs of these players are usually paid for by athletics donors, ticket buyers and TV revenues. Those payors presumably got what they paid for from these UNC athletes.</p>
<p>Even if taxpayer money is involved, many of those taxpayers are OK with the deal they got. </p>
<p>In the end there were only 2 people who were responsible for this event occurring, those that actually taught the class. The shadow version of this class had not been approved by UNC accreditation agency or by the department deans (the non-shadow version was approved). Registration for this class was not controlled by the athletic department and was not limited to athletes which explains why non-athletes were able to take this class and the NCAA did not impose penalties. SACs, UNCs accreditation agency, did however impose penalties. </p>
<p>“…but something else to take advantage of totally fake classes–when you don’t pay your dues for them by playing sports.” </p>
<p>Under NCAA rules this would not occur do to the impermissible benefits rule:</p>
<p>“A student-athlete shall not receive any extra benefit. Receipt by a student-athlete of an award, benefit or expense allowance not authorized by NCAA legislation renders the student-athlete ineligible for athletics competition in the sport for which the improper award, benefit or expense was received. If the student-athlete receives an extra benefit not authorized by NCAA legislation, the individual is ineligible in all sports.”</p>
<p>“ An extra benefit is any special arrangement by an institutional employee or a representative of the institution’s athletics interests to provide a student-athlete or the student-athlete’s relative or friend a benefit not expressly authorized by NCAA legislation. Receipt of a benefit by student-athletes or their relatives or friends is not a violation of NCAA legislation if it is demonstrated that the same benefit is generally available to the institution’s students.”</p>
<p>This is a very broad rule and is routinely enforced by the NCAA. The penalties for violation of this rule can be severe. </p>
<p>What message are we sending a kid with a “wink wink” you get an A for nothing class? I would rather see the students produce some work, no matter what grade level they start out at."</p>
<p>The NCAA has minimum GPA requirements for athletes to be eligible to play. These students needed the high grades in order to preserve their ability to play. What’s the point of having athletes enrolled in school with a full scholarship if they can’t play?</p>
<p>All schools have classes that ‘everyone’ knows are easy or an easy A, don’t require reading. Usually they are not all in one department and can’t all be linked to a degree. I took a number of these classes that were interesting and I learned something, but they were electives to my degree. My school had an ‘experimental studies’ department where classes were graded pass/fail, and the number one could take toward a degree was limited, but they were very interesting classes and I learned a lot, in fact some of the most interesting classes I took in school, but they were ‘one off’ classes, not a degree. I don’t remember athletes being in these classes, and most were at night so they probably couldn’t have taken them. A sorority sister was majoring in speech and took sign language. Several of us decided to take it too and it was really a fun class. No reading.</p>
<p>The departments at universities try to get away with all kinds of things. I worked on a case years ago where the department hired an asst prof, promoting him to full prof and department chair. He was a marxist. He was cool (in the minds of the hiring committee). Administration said no, not cool and he was unqualified (he was, hadn’t published enough to be a full prof, this was a double step promotion (asst to full), no experience to be a dept head). The problem at UNC was the administration had bad oversight. If the frat boys knew of the easy A’s, the administration should have investigated.</p>
<p>The majority of student athletes are true student athletes, got into college based on merit, go to class, do the work. Stanford didn’t give degrees to Andrew Luck and John Elway and Tiger Woods for taking ‘paper’ classes. Harvard basketball players are going to classes. Even at UNC there were only a handful of athletes taking these classes every year out of the thousands of student athletes at UNC.</p>
<p>Cal football had almost 50,000 people per game in attendance last year, plus all the people that watched on tv.</p>
<p>I bet many more alums can tell you about the football team than the observatory. In fact, I bet most alums would rather keep the football team than the observatory too.</p>
<p>I’m not saying that’s the “right” choice for an academic institution… but college sports are very popular.</p>
<p>Sure, but while they are doing valuable work for the university the very minimum that the university can do is help them develop this rather basic life skill. I understand that it will be a struggle for everyone involved when this happens, but I firmly believe that if the educators who were involved in this con had put the same amount of effort into helping athletes who were struggling in classes then they might have gotten somewhere. They instead tried to cheat their way out of doing their jobs.</p>
<p>While true, this is more true in the non-revenue sports than the revenue sports (football and basketball). Athletic departments are typically money losers, but many of them would lose even more money if they did not have football and basketball profits to partially subsidize the other sports. Of course, the financial pressure to win (winning gives more ticket sales, post-season revenue, and possibly more alumni donations) induces schools to compromise academic standards in the revenue sports more than in the non-revenue sports.</p>
<p>I’m sure most of these big colleges have true scholar-athletes on the football and basketball teams. I’d be curious to know how many of them get much playing time.</p>
<p>I’m very cynical about this whole thing. I saw a TV report about the issue, and they interviewed a number of football players who had come through such systems–several of them couldn’t really even describe what their major was, and they admitted they didn’t learn anything. It’s a pure fantasy to think that the NCAA really does anything about this–they only act when something really egregious goes public. That’s why UNC is getting all this flak. Are the people doing the same things at other colleges worried about it? I doubt it.</p>
<p>It is very interesting to think how many colleges do this, and say “everybody is doing it” so it is okay.</p>
<p>I teach at a school that added D1 sports a while back, and there are very few classes that would be called “shadow”. There are certainly no shadow majors. The university requires math and science up to a specific level, and no one can graduate without calculus and two of the three major sciences.</p>
<p>It’s really sad that they are doing this to the kids. When it comes down to it, the adults are messing around with the kids’ lives. Reminds me of stories of kids in England groomed to play pro soccer, and then they are cut at 17 or 18 and have nothing - no job options, no high school diploma. And the pro clubs that train them don’t care.</p>
<p>Tiger Woods didn’t graduate from Stanford. He withdrew to begin his professional career. A good example of a UNC player dedicated to his education is Vince Carter, who famously returned to Chapel Hill to participate in his UNC commencement ceremony the day before a pivotal NBA playoff game, much to the consternation of a few nitwit sports reporters.</p>
<p>My cynical mind tells me that some of the bench-warmers are there to improve the average GPA. There are certainly some people who are both fine athletes and strong students.</p>
<p>If you look up graduation rates from the top football teams, you’ll find the private schools you’d expect to have the best rates do - Notre Dame, Stanford, BC, Northwestern. Schools with the worst rates are the big public schools which also have general populations rates much lower than those private schools.</p>
<p>Basketball has a much worse graduation rate than football, in part because the NBA will let students join the draft anytime after high school. Kentucky had a whole starting team of freshman last year because everyone else was ‘one and done.’ That is an NCAA/NBA issue, not necessarily a school issue. Wouldn’t you want to go make millions rather than sit in a chemistry class? LeBron didn’t even bother with the ‘one’ - he went pro right out of high school. Can’t do that in football.</p>
<p>Hunt - I don’t think teams are padding the teams with bench warmers with high gpa’s. While the school is rated on the averages of the team (gpa, grad rates, academic progress) each individual player has to be eligible on his own record to play. It wouldn’t help to have a 4.0 player on the bench to bring up the average, because if the star doesn’t have a 2.0, he can’t play.</p>
<p>“…they interviewed a number of football players who had come through such systems–several of them couldn’t really even describe what their major was, and they admitted they didn’t learn anything.”</p>
<p>SACs, UNC accreditation agency requires that all academic departments asses how much students learn in their coursework.</p>
<p>“It’s a pure fantasy to think that the NCAA really does anything about this—“</p>
<p>This is not true. From the NCAA D1 manual:</p>
<p>“Purpose of the Academic Performance Program- The central purpose of the academic performance program is to ensure that the Division I membership is dedicated to providing student-athletes with exemplary educational and intercollegiate-athletics experiences in an environment that recognizes and supports the primacy of the academic mission of its member institutions, while enhancing the ability of male and female student-athletes to earn a four-year degree."</p>
<p>“Nature of reward and Penalty structure.-The Division I membership is committed to providing higher education for a diverse body of male and female student-athletes within the context of an institution’s academic and admissions standards for all students through a system that rewards those institutions and teams that demonstrate commitment toward the academic progress, retention and graduation of student-athletes and penalizes those that do not.”</p>