Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: funkedup on March 01, 2002, 06:06:15 PM
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At least the big-time corrupt version we have now. These kids should be in minor leagues, not working as revenue generating slaves, diluting academic standards, and generally perverting the purpose of universities. We have enough education problems in this country as it is...
http://espn.go.com/ncb/s/2002/0228/1342915.html
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because the college sports are just another form of "big business" now.
BUT
You can also view it as these kids ARE getting a degree. They are majoring in Basketball or Football or whatever.
My kid played D1A football. He's also graduating with a degree in International Business.. .but I'll tell you now he spent more time studying and practicing football than he did studying Business.
.... and he knows an awful lot about every aspect of football now.
He's not going on to the NFL or the CFL or anywhere in football (he figured out he was going to be a lame old man at 35) but in my view, he has a dual major. Football and Business.
Now is that a good thing or a bad thing?
These kids that don't graduate and go on to the NBA are the few incredible success stories that keep the rest dreaming and lining up for a chance. Instant multi-millionaires.
Those that don't graduate and don't make it to the NBA are no doubt in the vast majority. They have their "basketball" degree but it really isn't worth anything.
There's other college graduates that have the sheepskin in some other discipline that find themselves in the same situation, no?
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Originally posted by funkedup
At least the big-time corrupt version we have now. These kids should be in minor leagues, not working as revenue generating slaves, diluting academic standards, and generally perverting the purpose of universities. We have enough education problems in this country as it is...
http://espn.go.com/ncb/s/2002/0228/1342915.html
Purpose of Universities...
Hmmm... and here I thought that the principle reason for existence was to sell books at exorbitant prices.
Oh... this just in... Universities are businesses.
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never considered it really, but the arguments so far are convincing enough - why not.
it puts a lot of otherwise talentless people thru school, but other than that.... it does seem commercialized.
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Damn Mr. Fish, We were just at Stanford last month for my kid's recruiting visit. A full ride saves us 38k a year in tuitions and incidentals, which is more than I can afford to spend otherwise, BTW. (actually we're leaning to Washington State or the University of Hawaii)
Thank you so much Mister Fish for revealing your true personna on this matter by stating my child is otherwise talentless. She is much less talented than the children of the parents who can pony up the 38 LARGE every year it costs for a Stanford education without a scholarship, I am sure. After all, education should be limited to those that can afford it, right? Don't confuse dollars with desire for an education, Mister Fish, and don't look so hard to close my child's window of opportunity to attend an institution like Stanford by advocating Education for the Wealthy. After all, class divisions are what has made America great, right?
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A. she has a shot at stanford and you are 'leaning' to u of hawaii or washington state? no doubt the brains run on her mothers side.
B. the scholarship program for atheletics does put many otherwise "not-smart-enough" people through school.
how you can equate that statement to "every person who gets a scholarship is untalented, therefore mrfish must mean my daughter is untalented, therefore i will be an ass" is elusive to me but not unexpected.
if you think your daughter is untalented then that's your little problem. if she could get through without preferential treatment due to sports then i wasn't referring to you. if she couldn't, then i was right. money isn't the issue. smart enough people can get grants.
either way you are a tweak.
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So do art scholarships, music scholarships, hell even academic scholarships are an exploitation of talent. The problem in funked's emotional response to who knows what the hell is going on in Arkansas is that probably 95% of college atheletes participate in revenue draining sports, and used that in order to pay for an education they could not otherwise afford.
As screwed up as major sports are in the NCAA, I still think they're a much bigger benifit than liability. I would like to see more minor league options in sports other than baseball for those that don't want to have to deal the college (NBA is starting a minor league soon isn't it?), but it should be in addition to collegiate athletics, not instead of. Baseball players have a legitimate option other than college if they're that good, and as a result you don't see the same problems that football and basketball have. If they don't want to go to school they have an alternative to develop their skills.
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Originally posted by mrfish
A. she has a shot at stanford and you are 'leaning' to u of hawaii or washington state? no doubt the brains run on her mothers side.
B. the scholarship program for atheletics does put many otherwise "not-smart-enough" people through school.
how you can equate that statement to "every person who gets a scholarship is untalented, therefore mrfish must mean my daughter is untalented, therefore i will be an ass" is elusive to me but not unexpected.
if you think your daughter is untalented then that's your little problem. if she could get through without preferential treatment due to sports then i wasn't referring to you. if she couldn't, then i was right. money isn't the issue. smart enough people can get grants.
either way you are a tweak.
Unfortunately she never had a "real" shot either academically or athletically at Stanford. They take the very best, and although she's sharp and a good athelete she's not THAT good.
Washington State because there's family close by and they have a new facility, U of Hawaii because I'm moving to Hawaii next year. In all liklihood she'll end up going to a State College closer to home. Sac State has a great program and they're about a tenth of what Stanford gets for tuition.
Sorry I posted while intoxicated, Mr. Fish. Crown Royal has a habit of knocking me on my butt occasionally, and it took awhile this morning to even remember posting on this subject.
About grants, though- They aren't readily available because I make too much money, although I could never afford the 38K a year Stanford gets.
As for less talented people getting through college because of athletics, well, so what? That's a small price to pay if our options are to close the door on athletic programs entirely. Too many student-atheletes have benefited from their college experience, and I'm not talking about football or basketball players preparing for a pro career. Personally I hate to see one more door slammed shut on people who really do need the scholarship help in order to go to college.
Sorry again over the tone of my previous post. Actually I usually agree with your positions on issues and enjoy your posts because you think out your positions. Also you live in Ess Eff, the prettiest city in the world, IMHO. No I'm going back to bed to sleep off this hangover. BTW, what's a tweak??
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i'm really not especially passionate either way on this one elfenwolf. i admit i could be pushed of either side of this fence with a convincing enough argument. i don't have enough significant experience here to offer a very useful opinion. (but that won't stop me :))
- my friend jeff was brilliant but poor. he happened to be able to run about 500 miles per hour and this got him into school for free. he ended up as a doctor. he was smart enough to make it either way and he was black so he could have exploited that angle, but i'll admit the sports scholarship made his life easier.
- i have also seen the ol' boys coach club at work. it burns me that so many people have to study to get thru whereas in certain institutions key players get a very different grading scale. it's unspoken but we all know it's true...
"certain institutions" is key - there are schools where you had better be a good student regardless of your atheletic ability. integrity is a huge part of a successful sports prog. imo.
what bugs me personally about some schools is how dominant the sports program is in relation to everything else.
i know what you mean about making too much - it is a curse that students have to spend 2 years -not- being claimed on their parents income tax and being poor to qualify for grants.
my wife finished her post-grad work recently and is getting a language degree to add to her others - her debts are prolific. my grad work wont be done for a looooooong while. i will be paying off loans til i am 105 but was lucky enough to have part o' my ride funded my americorps program and going to a cheap school helps, other than that its been nothing but me. i volunteered to work for a very low wage for 2 years in a dirty crowded miserable legal aid office in exchange for a menial college grant.
there's other tricks too - some states will help you out if you tell them you intend to teach later - have her talk to a professional student there are many options for the creative. also in science programs the government loves to get you early and may help. you usually have to go work on their boring programs later though -
state universities are fine, it's really what you make of it in the end. i work with people from uc berkeley and stanford all the time since the physics and astronomy programs share a lot of professors and i tell you i don't feel any less capable than them - just not as in debt! ;)
a tweak?...errr nevermind withdrawn anyway - i got 'whacked on the head' by a bottle of jaegermeister last night which produces at least as irritating a drunk as crown royal :) don't worry about apologizing, i am usually asking for it anyway. lol.
ps- you should visit 'thhhan franthithco' to dithpell some of those thtereotypes someday. most of the nancy-marys live in the castro district, i image eau claire has a similar neighborhood - just not as vocal. san francisco has been a haven for all types of nuts for ages not just homos. the chinese, russian, jewish or banker populations are probably higher than the homo population (excluding crossover areas) by far but those are as fun to sterotype with.
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Here's my experience from teaching (crappy little annoying TA that I am) at a Big Ten school:
A. There's the image and argument for student-athletes that we are offering them a degree and a university education in part because of their athletic interests and capabilities.
Most of us don't have a problem with that, if it were true.
But:
how many are actually graduating?
Of those who get a degree, how many are getting an education?
Think about what funked said concerning "diluting academic standards." Have you ever thought what the life of a Big College Sports Athlete is like?
They're not like other students. They're forced to train a ridiculous amount of time. That training prohibits them from taking many classes. That training also cuts into the study time. Even if they were bright students, they'd have to do something miraculous to keep up with their coursework.
From the Athletic Department's point of view, the student athlete should train as much as possible. Every hour spent studying or in class is an hour taken away from training, and thus damaging to the student-athlete's professional edge. But student-athletes need certain grades for their scholarships.
So, here are some of the things I have personally seen that the Athletic Departments do to "help" the student-athlete, robbing him or her of an education:
1. The Athletic Department's "academic advisors" (*cough* *cough*), send email surveys to instructors posing as general advisors, ostensibly asking for more information about the courses the instructors teach. Yet every single question tries to get at "how hard is the course, really".
2. The Athletic Department reaches an "understanding" with certain professors in big survey courses. The professors get nice season tickets. For some reason, student-athletes are then steered to that professor's course.
3. Using similar "carrot and stick" tactics, the AD will effect grade changes outright.
I could go on. This university isn't under any investigation for NCAA violations, and probably won't be. This is business as usual for the athletic department -- screwing students out of the one thing they give in compensation for four or five years of slavery.
B. The argument that Big College Sports funds the smaller, less profitable athletic teams is beside the point. They could give all their profits to the homeless and I'd still yell that they're exploiting student-athletes.
C. The argument that Big College Sports gives students an education in sports is right on. THat's what they learn. And if that's the case, why attach a University's name to it? Minor leagues would do the same thing and pay the athletes.
D. The anticipation of a professional contract is likewise silly. The overwhelming number of student-athletes, even just the ones in the Big Sports, don't go on to professional play. Again, if preprofessional training is what we're giving them, make it the minor leagues. Just because most Big College Sports student-athletes don't know they're getting screwed up the butt doesn't mean it's not happening.
E. Big College Sports help the universities in more ways than just ticket sales, merchandising and TV contracts. In many parts of the country, the local sports team is the university. Boosters undoubtedly support the general funds of universities; likewise, a state university with a popular sports team will get a better treatment at the hands of state legislators. But in the current system, with very few exceptions, universities sacrifice their academic integrity for a good sports team. Worse, most of the local sports fans cheer them on. That's shameful.
So yeah, I love sports, and I teach in a department where (outside of a few professors on the take) we try to uphold some sort of academic standards. I don't persecute student athletes, but many of them are physically (not mentally) incapable of coming to class prepared. If we're going to give athletic scholarships to students, we need to let them be students first, and athletes second.
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What Dinger said... I was employed by a Big 10 school for 5 years. The stuff that goes on on a normal basis is disgusting.
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Its like all things.. if it can be abused, it will.
I know people that can barely read and have the knowledge of an 8th grader but still manage somehow to get full scholarhips AND entrance into "prestigious" U's because they can run damn fast or play basketball like no other.
And these guys are stonewalled for maybe a year or 2 in their U. education by "councelors" by taking "easy" courses like Student Success, Cooking (yes, imagine that), any and all non-math related INTRO courses (Intro to Astronomy! gaaah!)... and during this time they do get above average GPA's to fulfill their scholarship requirements..all the time while they win the college championship. Once they win or 2 years pass, the ath. dept. usually stops supporting them in their courses.. and then these guys get HIT with having to take classes they just dont have the preparation for.. fail...lose their scholarship. And they are back to square 1. But hey, they won the championship.
Elfen, make sure your kid knows of this,if she gets the scholarship, please make sure they dont steer her towards "easy", non-career related courses.
In my opinion, education should be one of the 2 things any government should FULLY subsidize. 2nd one being hospitals.
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At most major universities in preparation to earn a living you may focus on any number of specific areas, from engineering to medicine to business to literature to drama to yes, sports. If you can show great ability in any prior to applying to colleges, you will probably have an easier time getting in or you may even get scholarships. If you know for sure that it is the field you want to study, you will probably do the bare minimum outside of your core curriculum (or practices, in the case of athletics). This means taking the easiest electives possible to fill secondary requirements. The fact you do not challenge yourself outside of your major does no harm to anyone other than yourself, and so long as you meet the university's standards doing so you may do as you please. Should you even fail your core classes being removed entirely, no one but yourself is directly affected.
Why should athletics be different from the others?
It's been a long time since I've seen comparative graduation rates, but at the time if I remember right athletes were about the same if not higher than non-athletes. The difference being there was nowhere to place the blame for non-athletes.
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Ah.. nothing better than watching people try to wittle away at a pedastal.
Are some college student/athletes being exploited? Yeah... maybe. But then, what better thing did they have to do than to travel around the country and play a game for 2 years at someone else's expense... maybe getting on television in the meantime and having a shot at a really big $$$ career.
I think colleges have a long way to go before they start exploiting these youngsters as well as the rest of the world does.
Bah... why bother.
AKDejaVu
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Football paid for my first two years of college. I did study and even managed to graduate. And Lo and Behold got a good job after graduating. Take what ESPN posts with a grain of salt. They need sensationalism like everyone else in the Media to sell the product. College sports is fine.......when the rules are followed and the kids aren't cornered by greedy agents and Alumni.
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"how many are actually graduating? "
Don't let a few bad examples fool you. There is no doubt that there are abuses in basketball and football programs, but there are quite a few more sports with scholarships than those.
This is according to the NCAA website:
"A graduation rate (percent) is based on a comparison of the number (N) of students who entered a college or university and the number of those who graduated within six years. "
All student grad rate: 56%
Student athlete rate: 58%
Because of the six year rule above, this data is for students who entered in 94/95.
:)
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The whole college system is worthless. I have just wasted two years and $30,000 dollars finishing a BSEE I started way back in 1987.
In the end, I have killed quite a few trees, lost a lot of sleep, gone into debt, and generally feel like crap so I could get a piece of paper that certifies that I know what I already knew before I went back to school. I learned more in 3 years of working as an industrial controls engineer than these people have learned in a decade of going to school and teaching others. I know what I need to know for the real world. I don't need some "teacher" telling me what I need to know and making me lose sleep practicing math problems that I know for a fact I will never have to solve in real life.
The kids are only here to get the piece of paper as well. Even the majority of "A" students graduate without really knowing anything. They memorize stuff, get their "A", and dump it to make room for the next course without ever getting a real understanding of the material they were supposed to learn. I have seen Electrical Engineering seniors that still can't tell you what the voltage or current is at a given point in a simple circuit because they can't even tell what it is or what it does by looking at it. At best, college proves you can put up with 4 or more years of working hard for low to no pay doing whatever some idiot tells you to do... maybe that is good preparation for the real world ;)
The average guys that couldn't cut college but join the Navy, get comprehensive electronics schooling, and apply it for 4 years in a challenging evironment get a much better education, and the Navy pays them to do it :) Funny how they are looked down upon by the degreed engineers whose only advantage is knowing how to use a fancier calculator (if even that).
Of course I am an exception. I have both sets of knowledge and experience and never let my college instructors forget it whenever they start teaching crap that just isn't true.
If kids can get an opportunity they otherwise wouldn't just by being able to run fast or handle a ball well, more power to them. The schools are all about profits and sports (especially football) bring in tons of cash, which ultimately helps out the entire school. Who cares if someone else is exploiting the system for personal gain as long as the kids are getting what they came for.
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Gotta disagree folks. I'm not saying student-athletes aren't a good idea in theory, I'm saying it doesn't always work that way in practice, and in many places, the pressures are on anything but academic work.
Graduation numbers mean nothing when the NCAA requires student-athletes to have certain graduation rates. Trust me, there's someone in the school whose job it is to ensure a certain graduation level, by any means necessary. And the hardest way to do that is to make the student work. The easiest way is to find a means of changing grades.
Fatty, sure, plenty of people go to Universities for vocational training; it happens in part because there are way too many jobs in the world that require a college degree, even if, in fact, that college degree doesn't make the person any more qualified technically to do the job.
But if students are going to universities for vocational training in sports, where the university is making tons of money off of them. why the hell not have minor leagues instead? That's what they're there for.
And in any case, the cases are a little different. Some students actively seek easy courses that don't challenge them. Others follow their interests. Many of the student-athletes here don't have that choice -- they're steered away from challenging courses and into a phony major so they can have time to practice. You call this a university education?
You can cite all the "good students" you like, and talk about the "minor sports" that don't garner the headlines and may have less pressure on the students, but having seen and dealt with both students and athletic departments, I maintain the students are getting screwed. A scholarship isn't enough; they are professionals first and students second, and should be paid that way.
Heck, if you want to have "student athletes", do it this way: pay the students for their years of eligibility, AND give them the option of a full scholarship after they've left the field. The current system does nothing but screw the students and corrupt academic standards.
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Hard to corrupt something that is already corrupt.
Schools are a pump not a filter (old quote from the Navy, but certainly applies to Universities).
People pay money for 4 to 6 years, kid gets piece of paper. End of story.
That some teachers actually try to do a good job and some students actually learn something along the way is the exception to the rule.
You pretty much have to really piss somebody off poltically to get kicked out of school without a degree... unless you stop paying. Then you are gone in an instant.
Do the majority of students who take more "challenging" courses actually learn any more than athletes? I would argue they both get a piece of paper with slightly different wording. Of course one played his/her heart out in a sport while jumping through larger academic hoops whereas the other partied while squeezing through smaller academic hoops.
Same difference. When they show up for their first job, they will quickly realize that what they were exposed to in school just isn't going to be all that useful towards what they will be doing the rest of their life. That's true of both business and engineering degrees. I don't know about liberal arts stuff, do those count for anything in any way other than teaching positions? :D
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But if students are going to universities for vocational training in sports, where the university is making tons of money off of them. why the hell not have minor leagues instead? That's what they're there for.
I lost this thread, but Dinger, surely you are not suggesting universities sever all ties to corporations? After all, they should have on the job training if they're going to make money for the university.
Or is it only a problem when the universities are making the money from athletics?
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Streak you must have gone to a crappy university. :)