<p>this is a more recent article about the NCAA (the supposed regulatory body of college sports.)</p>
<p><a href=“NCAA approaching $1 billion per year amid challenges by players”>http://www.indystar.com/story/news/2014/03/27/ncaa-approaching-billion-per-year-amid-challenges-players/6973767/</a></p>
<p>“Perhaps it would be better to have separate more-or-less-remedial classes for athletes that could be directly monitored for quality, rather than a system that allows shadow classes to hide among all the vast offerings of the university.”</p>
<p>This would be considered an impermissible benefit by the NCAA and result in sanctions. In addition those separate classes would have to be accredited which I am sure SACs would not be willing to do.</p>
<p>There presently are about 1000 semi-pro football teams in the US. Any high school football player can join one instead of going to college.</p>
<p>If a D1 football player transfers schools, he typically has to sit out one year per NCAA rules.</p>
<p>You typically don’t have these issues in college sports (baseball, ice hockey, golf, tennis) that exist along side professional minor leagues. The issues are acute in sports (football, basketball) where the college game is the minor league. </p>
<p>All colleges with sports (including Harvard and Williams) significantly reduce their academic requirements in order to field stronger teams. Big time sports schools deploy scores of tutors and academic advisors to keep athletes eligible. And they do lots of other things so that athletes can “major in eligibility.” PE majors, General Studies majors. Gut classes. Getting athletes diagnosed with learning disabilities in large numbers (Florida State). Which gets the athletes out of certain NCAA requirements and also qualifies them for extra academic support.</p>
<p>A tutor reading to an athlete that has dyslexia and is poorly prepared academically is probably a humane and reasonable thing to do. Reading to a kid who is illiterate crosses the line. But may still be the humane thing to do for the kid.</p>
<p>UNC’s practices on this are bad. But not all that unusual. </p>
<p>
They will only do this if the big-time colleges stop taking them.</p>
<p>Swimkidsdad, do you really think NCAA is doing a good job ensuring that recruited college football players are getting a quality education? Or do you just mean that the NCAA has rules, that if enforced, would accomplish this?</p>
<p>And most of that is just sent back to the schools for their own use. Many smaller schools sports cant survive without that.NCAA keeps little. </p>
<p>At this point the NCAA has nearly 1 billion in a semi-endownment. Semi because it is available for use.</p>
<p>The NCAA rules are designed to make sure that a student athlete gets an identical education as the rest of the student body.</p>
<p>The NCAA does a good job enforcing its own rules. In many cases schools will self-report rules violations to avoid more severe penalties. </p>
<p>
And you think, at schools with big-time football programs, that the athletes in fact get an identical education as the rest of the student body? It seems to me that it’s an open secret that this is simply not the case.</p>
<p>“There presently are about 1000 semi-pro football teams in the US. Any high school football player can join one instead of going to college.”</p>
<p>There were 256 players taken in the 7 rounds of the 2014 NFL draft. All 256 came from colleges.</p>
<p>Every single American player taken in the first round of the 2014 NBA draft came from college. </p>
<p>In the 2014 MLB draft, there were 34 players selected in the first round. 16 from HS, 18 from college.</p>
<p>In the 2014 NHL draft, no U.S. college player taken in the first round. </p>
<p>American hockey and baseball players have a realistic choice to make whether to turn pro or go to college. American football and basketball players realistically must attend college first to turn pro. They really don’t have an option. </p>
<p>No coincidence that (i) those are the two most popular college sports and (ii) those are the most corrupt college sports.</p>
<p>“And you think, at schools with big-time football programs, that the athletes in fact get an identical education as the rest of the student body?”</p>
<p>Law school and Medical school admission committees agree with me.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Law school and med school admission committees do not agree with you, unless your position is merely that there exist athletes who get good educations-- and no one disagrees with that. If, instead, you are claiming that athletes in general get educations as good as the rest of the student body, then law school and med school admission rates shed no light on the matter. Most students, athletes or not, don’t apply to law school or med school.</p>
<p>It’s beyond dispute that at UNC, athletes on average got a worse education in the paper-class era, because the paper classes were set up to allow athletes to cheat on eligibility, and athletes were overrepresented in the paper classes. And I’ll have to agree with UNC boosters that UNC is far from the only offender. Colleges with big time revenue sports programs across the country are admitting some student-athletes who can’t possibly get good educations at their colleges, because they are so academically unqualified that they are incapable of doing the work. A student who is far below a college level in reading and writing can’t possibly succeed in a class that requires college level reading and writing.</p>
<p>Men cannot be drafted by the NFL until they have been out of high school 3 years, or their class has been out that long if they didn’t graduate. They do not have to play for a college, just can’t be drafted. To continue to be eligible for a scholarship, the student has to be a full time student making academic progress. There are players who have gone to open try-outs for the NFL and made the team, and there are undrafted players who are called up and make the team (Kurt Warner) but the vast majority go to school and enter the draft after junior or senior year. It rare that someone could just sit out for 3 years and then hope to be drafted. NFL teams don’t want to look at high school game film, they want to see how these players stack up against the best players of their generation, and those best players are in college, not in the semi-pros, not in high school, not in D3 (although a true star there might stand out). Why take a chance on a high school quarterback who has the best record in NE Arkansas when you can draft the QB from the Univ of Arkansas, with 20 college games of experience?</p>
<p>A student can transfer to another D1 school, and can receive a scholarship (in football and basketball, any scholarship would be a full scholarship) but may not be eligible to play in any games until sitting out for a year. Some players do this, and some schools spend a scholarship on a student sitting out, but it’s not all that common. A player could also play down a division without sitting out, but there aren’t as many full scholarships in D2.</p>
<p>The NFL and NCAA both like this arrangement.</p>
<p>Where are people getting the SAT numbers of 400? The student would not be NCAA eligible. D1 is a sliding scale but a 2.3 gpa requires a 630 SAT. Lower gpa requires higher SAT. The gpa is in core classes, including at least algebra 1, so no credits for A’s in p.e. or ceramics.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Apparently they are, according to [what</a> colleges tell CNN.](<a href=“http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2014/01/us/college-scores/]what”>CNN Analysis: Some college athletes play like adults, read like fifth-graders)</p>
<p>Between 2004 and 2012, 10% of the basketball and football players admitted to UNC had SAT verbal lower than 400 or ACTs English lower than 16.</p>
<p>At Georgia, the <em>average</em> SAT verbal on the men’s basketball team was 412. The <em>average</em>. The football team’s average was a stellar 447.</p>
<p>Texas Tech was even worse:
</p>
<p>Well, if they have 400 in verbal and 400 in math, that is 800.</p>
<p>If they have 400 in verbal and 400 in math, they are functionally illiterate and functionally innumerate at college.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Woah! Tread carefully there boss, since there is more than one college with a 25th of 400.</p>
<p>Someone with a 400 verbal can’t read a college textbook and understand it. That’s functionally illiterate at a college level to me. And BTW, what’s the graduation rate at these colleges with the 25th of 400? </p>
<p>A favorite movie quote from A Fish Called Wanda
</p>
<p>My daughter scored very low on the SAT. She has some learning disabilities and just didn’t understand the test, thought it was ‘the one you were supposed to guess on.’ Her score was something like a 260 in math, and she was in Algebra 2, getting B’s. Did much better on the ACT. She was graduated cum laude, in the top 1/3 of her class. She isn’t innumerate. She scored better on the reading, but not great. On the ACT, she got a 30.</p>
<p>Some kids, including poor athletes, don’t have access to test prep courses, do have learning disabilities, but aren’t stupid. </p>
<p>"And you think, at schools with big-time football programs, that the athletes in fact get an identical education as the rest of the student body?”</p>
<p>“Law school and Medical school admission committees agree with me.”</p>
<p>Both law school and medical school admission committees do not make a distinction between classes that are taken by regular students and classes that are taken by student-athletes. Evidence for this includes the fact that every year many student-athletes are admitted to medical school and law school. The bottom line is the grading for an Organic Chemistry class is the same for both regular students and student-athletes. The same can be said for a student athlete who majors in Mechanical Engineering. The NCAA expects that the student-athlete will complete all degree requirements and that the grading system used will be the same for all students. UNC shadow classes were only taught by two people and the majority of the students in these classes were non-athletes. </p>
<p>Oh, come on. It’s fanciful to pretend that these low-score, low-grades athletic admits are really smart kids who haven’t blossomed. Indeed, one suspects that many of their high school grades are fake as well, because high schools with big time sports programs also need to preserve eligibility of their players.</p>
<p>Here’s the NCAA chart:<a href=“http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/eligibility_center/Quick_Reference_Sheet.pdf”>http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/eligibility_center/Quick_Reference_Sheet.pdf</a></p>
<p>Note that the SAT scores on the chart are the *combined[/] CR and Math scores. So, yes, it is possible for a student to be eligible with a combined CR/Math in the 400s and 500s, if the high school managed to generate a high enough GPA in the core courses.</p>