It's Starting Again
As predictable as a Bob Knight sweater. If it's tournament time, someone is writing about college basketball players being used. This time it's Yahoo sports. Yes, the tragedy of kids getting a full ride and being shown the door when their eligibility is done. Or, in the cases of Mayo, Beasley, Love etc., choosing to leave early.
I tend to get a little worked up about this, one because it's a cliche and two, because I've known too many college kids not on scholarship working very very hard away from the classroom, who still have mounds of debt when they graduate.
Again: It's not the school's fault if a student chooses not to do the work. I wish when I was in college I had tutors helping me, study tables forcing discipline on me and a free ride so I could leave school debt-free. I also wish I had the forum to display my skills the way these guys do.
Schools have an obligation to a kid they give a jock scholarship to. That is to help him the best they can, with tutors, advisors etc. After that, if the kid wants to graduate, if he wants to put in that time, it's his decision. It is not a school's fault if a player doesn't graduate. That's on the player.
Personal responsibility matters. Except now, when we tend to blame others for everything unfortunate that happens to us.
posted by Paul Daugherty at 9:27 AM
15 Comments:
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Monclova Steve said...
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Paul Daugherty said...
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Monclova Steve said...
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Post a Comment*Paul,
College scholarship athletes are given an opportunity of a lifetime. They need to seize that opportunity and get all they can from it while giving their all to their university or college. I think the NCAA needs to relax the rules on athletes working part-time jobs in their off season. They should be allowed to earn spending money just like the other college students.
this is a very complex issue. but, you cannot say it's all on the player if they don't graduate. how can they graduate if they don't have the credentials to be in college in the first place? or, if they're turned into chattel that are used to fatten the school's coffers? these are 18 year old kids - not adults.
Some of what you say is true - but there's not a simple or easy solution to any of it.
Actually, there is a solution, but no one will buy it. Make student athletes into student athletes. (Like that's ever gonna happen).
But, right now, everyone plays the game and everyone tries to have it their way. And that aint ever gonna work.
So true. Great post, Paul.
And you hear it all the time. I say: Don't blame the baseketball program or the coaches - blame the admissions committee. It's their job to make sure they only admit students who have a great chance of graduating.
I've never put much energy into the debate but I did have a nephew who chose not to accept a soccer scholarship after the practice hours and travel required were explained to him. He's a kid who gets okay grads but struggles for them. He took a part time job as well as loans etc.
I do find it a shame when schools can't find a way to help poorer parents travel to see Senior Night and also spend time investigating how the parents afforded the trip.
Doc...you are either extremely naive or just being contoversial to draw some readership.
If these athletes entered the university through the front door like any other student (meaning satisfying the academic admission requirements of the school), I would agree with you.
These athletes get four-year free rides by satisfying reduced NCAA academic requirements, not the school's requirements. If these kids had to meet the academic admission requirements of the school to gain entry, college basketball and football programs would virtually disappear.
Only the Ivy League would survive because they offer no athletic scholarships, just academic ones. Ivy League atheletes walk through the front door when they arrive....and out the back door when they graduate with the rest of their class.
Athletes are brought in to play, not to become college educated. The athletic departments do virtually anything to keep these kids eligible...and I do mean anything. Not to educate them but to keep them eligible.
When the kid leaves due to graduation (seldom), lack of eligibility or drops out in hopes of being drafted, the school shrugs and brings in the next group of cattle.
To me the school presidents are nothing more than a bunch of athletic pimps. The schools make millions off these kids while not sharing a dime with them. They have accepted the idea that their basketball and football programs are simply free farm systems for the pros but figure they can pull in some big-time dough from them while the kids are there.
"Schools have an obligation to a kid they give a jock scholarship to."
Let me relate my story.
Back in the day, I ranked academically 31st out of 1000+ kids in my high school and wanted to major in journalism, planning on going to Ohio U.
In late July after my senior year in HS I got a baseball scholarship to EMU (pretty good baseball school back then).
I met with the coach, who asked me what I wanted to study and told me that he would arrange all of my classes for me. Being an 18-year old kid, I said OK.
Here is what he arranged:
Theory of Baseball (3 credit hrs. taught by himself)
Techniques of Officiating (3 credit hrs. taught by himself)
Theory of Basketball (3 credit hrs. taught by the basketball coach)
Freshman English (3 credit hrs. that I had ALREADY received college credit for based on my Advanced Placement in HS)
Geology (3 credit hrs.)
Obviously, I questioned the coach about this -- telling him that my qualifications were better than this. His response was that I could help tutor the other players so they could stay eligible. As an 18-year old, of course I did what my coach told me.
In short, I wasted my entire freshman year. But I worked hard helping others to remain eligible to play baseball.
Paul, your (and many others') points are well taken. But, in the real world of college athletics, that's not what actually happens. Athletes are used for their talents on the field, not to get a well-rounded education.
There are some who do, and God bless them. But there is another side to this that most people don't see.
Great stuff, Steve. But again, I don't blame the school or the coach. It's your life, your education. What did your parents think about it?
Good comments all around.
Tend to come down on 5:51's side.
Colleges will admit almost anyone with athletic talent & many of the stars could care less about a degree.
Going in, you either want a degree or you want a pro contract. I suspect most of big school studs are only there for the contract.
But the lesser-lights do get a really good deal - seems to me.
Paul,
I'm not blaming anyone, just pointing out what the real world is all too often in college athletics.
If I had to do it over again with the added benefit of age and maturity, I would have handled things differently. But back then, like many 18-year olds today, I was too intimidated to say no to the head coach. After all, he gave me the scholarship and he could also take it away.
Just thought that this perspective would be useful to the discussion.
Since the majority of these NCAA athletes (men and women) will never make a nickle playing pro ball, a degree is at least a better starting point for many them who otherwise may not have attended college. The wise ones get it and take advantage of the opportunity, looking beyond just a potential shot at the Pros. Good for them and good for us, since the level of play is entertaining to all of us.
"4 Year Free Ride" gets tossed around a lot, and not one person has put up the numbers to document it. I take "4 year free ride" to mean tuition, books, supplies, room and board.
With colleges recruiting annually, one would expect the football team to have a minimum of about 80 "4 year free rides." Basketball should have about 24 - 30 of them.
How many does UC actually have in those 2 sports?
Paul,
The reason the athletes should receive some kind of stipend centers around the idea that lots of other people, (including boosters and the university) are profiting from their talents. I know you are not naive enough to believe that the majority of these athletes are in school to study, and therefore deserve some kind of benefit for providing a service (entertainment). It seems remarkably unfair that administrators profit from a teenagers athletic ability while limiting which classes athletes are allowed to take and how many credit hours they are allotted. Major college athletics is a big business, it's time to treat it as one.
Doc,
Why the perjorative "jock scholarship" ? Are you a victim of some lingering resentment towards talented student-athletes getting "perks" while you labored anonymously ?
Big- time NCAA football and basketball are businesses first, revenue streams for the universities. Each individual given an athletic scholarship has opportunity: how the individual maximizes that opportunity can run the gamut from say, Kenyon Martin or David West to Dermarr Johnson, Derek Strong, Byron Larkin, Terry Nelson, Ralph Lee, and Erik Martin, all the way to Churchill Odia or Dontonio Wingfield.
The real problem is the outrageous increase in tuition at all colleges and universities, many of which are run as "for-profit non-profits", subsidized by taxpayers of the state and proficient at spending money on wonderful buildings and creature comforts.
There's an unspoken expectation among faculty to "go soft" on student athletes (especially football and mens basketball players) because if you flunk one, you hear all about it from the athletic department. You have to keep all sorts of documentation, and you just end up having to accept late work and change the grade in the end so the student doesn't flunk. Or you can stick to your guns and risk losing your job. Happens all the time.
Would that non-athletes got that kind of leniency.
O quit babying these kids wait till they has to go out and work a reel job. College aint hard.
- Steve in Kenwood
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