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[BFW]

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/2008-11-18-majors-cover_N.htm

...the NCAA's toughening of academic requirements for athletes has helped create an environment in which they are more likely to graduate than other students — but also more likely to be clustered in programs without the academic demands most students face.

Some athletes say they have pursued — or have been steered to — degree programs that helped keep them eligible for sports but didn't prepare them for post-sports careers.

"A major in eligibility, with a minor in beating the system," says C. Keith Harrison, an associate professor at the University of Central Florida, where he is associate director of the Institute of Diversity and Ethics in Sports.

Thoughts?

[AllenCloutier]

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/2008-11-18-majors-cover_N.htm

Thoughts?

And we are shocked?  Why?  The system gives these kids full rides to major in football and basketball...why wouldn't they want to secure their investment.

meanwhile people in ACTUAL majors who might one day make a difference in other peoples lives have to do REAL work

College education works duh....

[BGuttman]

We used to joke that there were athletes who majored in things like "underwater basketweaving" (a mythical course at U of Miami (FL)).  Fact is, many college athletes; primarily minorities, and especially African-Americans; often do not get an education.  They do not really force the "important" players to deal in academics.

You will see many former football and basketball players who achieved education and careers from playing.  These were the "second tier" players who would not be good enough for the professional leagues and hence could use their time in college to really learn something.  In fact, many poorer players were able to finance a full ride college education and become very productive members of society.  Hey, a Michigan center named Ford actually became President of the United States!

Players who are top-tier are coddled from academia and placed on a diet of training.  If they make it to the "big time" all is well; they will have fantastic salaries for the rest of their playing careers; generally some 10 years or so.  Then they will be dumped on the street to fend for themselves.  The more astute of them will be able to attain a position in Team Management or maybe a job in a broadcast operation.  Most will not.

We almost need to find a way to counsel these athletes to find a way to deal with the real world when the sports part ends.

[Penguins of Doom]

Check this guy out:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/stewart_mandel/11/06/rolle/index.html

[evan51]

Thoughts?

My friend from WSU (see TX football cult) got his degree in "Recreation."

Then again, if one wants to play pro-football, college football probably is his degree program. There are many students, not football players, who need to enter the easiest degree program to survive. There is no shame in this, IMVHO. We are simply not all cut out to be right-brain oriented, linear thinking bean counters. Too, many have reading and other learning disabilities that require "easier" (by right-brain thinking) classes. Until we, as a society, recognize that a dancer has as good a "brain" as an organic chemist I suppose this intellectual prejudice will continue. Perhaps they're wondering why Johnny Accountant can't even dance the Beer Barrel polka? Too bad they can't write their own articles for USA Today.

As far as athletes complaining about easy classes they could cluster easy classes around fall quarter and schedule more difficult classes for the spring or winter quarters. Or, work their butts off in a post-graduate program.

[BassBoneFL]

There's nothing new under the sun.... I started my undergrad on a football scholarship, most of the players in the early 80's were taking some rather "light" class loads and we were given lists of "recommended" classes and professors by the athletic department. (not to mention our "tutors")

Unfortunately, most of the players opted for the easy road fully convinced that they were the next pro phenomenon. The reality was that very few ever got a shot, even fewer made the pros and a fraction of those had a career beyond a few seasons.

However, some players realized the opportunity they had been given, took real classes and pursued a legitimate major. It is a difficult road with the commitments of time and energy that are demanded of scholarship athletes, but for some it is the only way to get an education beyond high school.

Even if only 20% of athletes actually graduate with "real degrees", it's worth it to have college athletics. It provides opportunity to those that might not otherwise get it and it produces a significant amount of money that funds other areas of the university system.

[BFW]

A book I read a while back had an interesting suggestion.  Don't require athletes to be students, and don't give any special considerations to students who are athletes.  Give athletes scholarships, but they have to get admitted like anyone else, and they have to study like anyone else.  No eligibility issues, and no watered-down educations.  If they flunk out, they can still play.

[djdekok]

We used to joke that there were athletes who majored in things like "underwater basketweaving" (a mythical course at U of Miami (FL)).  Fact is, many college athletes; primarily minorities, and especially African-Americans; often do not get an education.  They do not really force the "important" players to deal in academics.

You will see many former football and basketball players who achieved education and careers from playing.  These were the "second tier" players who would not be good enough for the professional leagues and hence could use their time in college to really learn something.  In fact, many poorer players were able to finance a full ride college education and become very productive members of society.  Hey, a Michigan center named Ford actually became President of the United States!

Players who are top-tier are coddled from academia and placed on a diet of training.  If they make it to the "big time" all is well; they will have fantastic salaries for the rest of their playing careers; generally some 10 years or so.  Then they will be dumped on the street to fend for themselves.  The more astute of them will be able to attain a position in Team Management or maybe a job in a broadcast operation.  Most will not.

We almost need to find a way to counsel these athletes to find a way to deal with the real world when the sports part ends.

I just had a really strange and awful idea.  I replaced the phrase "student athlete" with "student musician", and found myself shuddering.  Maybe I'm wrong, but how many of us came into Music (especially Music Education) with big dreams but no real plan or plan B if things didn't work out? 

I'm coming to the realization (albeit slowly) that my public school teaching career is nearing an end.  I've had some successes, but the older I get the less tolerant I get of the nonsense in the public school world from everyone involved--adminstrators who I have great difficulty respecting, colleagues who are young enough to be MY kids (try being the senior male teacher at an elementary school sometime, you'd think you were a leper), students who seem increasingly self-centered, narcissistic, and devious, parents who barely show up on the radar, much less care about the education their children are getting--you get the picture.

It's turned me into a crab and a curmudgeon and a grouch and yet I still go back to it year after year. I still have kids to put thru college, bills to pay, obligations to meet.  I am really nervous about this.  How many of your friends who were music teachers were still teaching 5 years after graduation?  10 years? 

Most of my classmates are doing other things (special ed teacher, Ph.D in Computer Science, engineer, lawyer, etc.) and pursuing Music as a very marginal part of their lives.  I frankly don't know what I can do that will match or exceed my current income level.  I feel like I'm spinning my wheels and it's very frustrating.

[Elkhart 88H]

I just had a really strange and awful idea.  I replaced the phrase "student athlete" with "student musician", and found myself shuddering.  Maybe I'm wrong, but how many of us came into Music (especially Music Education) with big dreams but no real plan or plan B if things didn't work out? 

I'm coming to the realization (albeit slowly) that my public school teaching career is nearing an end.  I've had some successes, but the older I get the less tolerant I get of the nonsense in the public school world from everyone involved--adminstrators who I have great difficulty respecting, colleagues who are young enough to be MY kids (try being the senior male teacher at an elementary school sometime, you'd think you were a leper), students who seem increasingly self-centered, narcissistic, and devious, parents who barely show up on the radar, much less care about the education their children are getting--you get the picture.

It's turned me into a crab and a curmudgeon and a grouch and yet I still go back to it year after year. I still have kids to put thru college, bills to pay, obligations to meet.  I am really nervous about this.  How many of your friends who were music teachers were still teaching 5 years after graduation?  10 years? 

Most of my classmates are doing other things (special ed teacher, Ph.D in Computer Science, engineer, lawyer, etc.) and pursuing Music as a very marginal part of their lives.  I frankly don't know what I can do that will match or exceed my current income level.  I feel like I'm spinning my wheels and it's very frustrating.

If it's any comfort, Daniel, I went the other direction -- B.S. and M.S. in engineering and music as a hobby -- and deeply regret the decision.  My income is decent, but I find very little joy in my work, and my prospects for advancement are almost nil.

Back on topic ... the "major in eligibility" issue in the Division I schools is very real.  The University of Michigan steers many of its athletic employees student athletes toward a major in "General Studies."  I have no idea what that degree qualifies its recipients to do after graduation.  I have a son who plays football for a Division III program, and it's a completely different world from most of the Division I programs.  He and most of his teammates are doing real course work in real majors and earning degrees that mean something.

[BFW]

I replaced the phrase "student athlete" with "student musician", and found myself shuddering.  Maybe I'm wrong, but how many of us came into Music (especially Music Education) with big dreams but no real plan or plan B if things didn't work out?

My concern is not so much that the athletes go to college with pipe dreams and don't get an adequate education for something else.  My concern is that the school adjusts its admission standards, academic standards, or curriculum to accommodate them, at the expense of other people who have legitimate interest in learning.  Athletes should be admitted to schools on the same standards as anyone else, and should be educated with the same standards as anyone else.

Perhaps athletes who really don't have any interest in anything other than sports should be able to major in sports, where team practice is a required part of the curriculum and in which they get a grade.  That might be a closer equivalent to the music situation.

I'm not familiar with undergraduate music performance education at a university.  Are music students discouraged from taking math and science courses because they would be too much work and cut into practice time?  Are scholarship players discouraged or even prohibited from majoring in anything other than music performance or music education?  (Actually, I asked about scholarships a while back and was told that some scholarships do require a music major.)

[djdekok]

My concern is not so much that the athletes go to college with pipe dreams and don't get an adequate education for something else.  My concern is that the school adjusts its admission standards, academic standards, or curriculum to accommodate them, at the expense of other people who have legitimate interest in learning.  Athletes should be admitted to schools on the same standards as anyone else, and should be educated with the same standards as anyone else.

Perhaps athletes who really don't have any interest in anything other than sports should be able to major in sports, where team practice is a required part of the curriculum and in which they get a grade.  That might be a closer equivalent to the music situation.

I'm not familiar with undergraduate music performance education at a university.  Are music students discouraged from taking math and science courses because they would be too much work and cut into practice time?  Are scholarship players discouraged or even prohibited from majoring in anything other than music performance or music education?  (Actually, I asked about scholarships a while back and was told that some scholarships do require a music major.)

Well, we were required to get our 40 credit hours in a "core curriculum" of traditional fields of study (8 of which could be music classes--usually upper level music history or theory).  I worked it so i didn't have to take foreign language or math during my four years at U-M.  It certainly wasn't official policy, but there was a list that circulated of "pipe" classes (rocks for jocks, Polish literature, astronomy, etc.) that you could be reasonably certain to get an A with minimal effort.  So to answer your question, yeah, we were.

[ABinkard]

I just had a really strange and awful idea.  I replaced the phrase "student athlete" with "student musician", and found myself shuddering.  Maybe I'm wrong, but how many of us came into Music (especially Music Education) with big dreams but no real plan or plan B if things didn't work out? 

I'm coming to the realization (albeit slowly) that my public school teaching career is nearing an end.  I've had some successes, but the older I get the less tolerant I get of the nonsense in the public school world from everyone involved--adminstrators who I have great difficulty respecting, colleagues who are young enough to be MY kids (try being the senior male teacher at an elementary school sometime, you'd think you were a leper), students who seem increasingly self-centered, narcissistic, and devious, parents who barely show up on the radar, much less care about the education their children are getting--you get the picture.

It's turned me into a crab and a curmudgeon and a grouch and yet I still go back to it year after year. I still have kids to put thru college, bills to pay, obligations to meet.  I am really nervous about this.  How many of your friends who were music teachers were still teaching 5 years after graduation?  10 years? 

Most of my classmates are doing other things (special ed teacher, Ph.D in Computer Science, engineer, lawyer, etc.) and pursuing Music as a very marginal part of their lives.  I frankly don't know what I can do that will match or exceed my current income level.  I feel like I'm spinning my wheels and it's very frustrating.

Frightening, but absolutely, unequivocally, 100% true. I just completed my student teaching last spring with the intention of either going to grad school for performance or getting a job at the K-12 level. After seeing what was going on in the school, grad school was the only option. Both of my cooperating teachers were fantastic, knowledgeable guys who had very long careers. Both were also on the verge of being burned out by all the CRAP that was inundating them from all sides... admin, students, and parents. My sole teaching goal is college. I will never teach public school.

Back on topic though, usually the football and men's basketball teams are the only ones that have the "recreation" majors or players who wouldn't have a prayer of going to college in the first place were it not for sports. Like that NCAA commercial goes, "there are over xxxx thousand student athletes. The vast majority of us will go pro in something other than sports."

It's true. Guess which teams are also the cash cow for the vast majority of schools? The football and men's basketball teams. That is exactly why I don't think all student athletes should be judged based on the poor academic standards that are adhered to (or not) by the members of the football and basketball teams. There are so many other sports out there. It's kind of a necessary evil. In many cases, the best athletes are not the smartest people in the world. The problem, though, is not at the college level but at whatever level failed these guys. Often that level is first grade or before. By the time they hit college, they've known what they're going to do for quite some time. If they want to effectively major in sports, then let them major in sports. It's their life, their decision. Then they go out and punish themselves for 3-5 years and put themselves under enormous amounts of stress for our entertainment. If they don't get good enough after college to go pro in their sports, then that's life. Sounds a lot like music if you ask me.

[mwpfoot]

Back on topic though, usually the football and men's basketball teams are the only ones that have the "recreation" majors or players who wouldn't have a prayer of going to college in the first place were it not for sports. Like that NCAA commercial goes, "there are over xxxx thousand student athletes. The vast majority of us will go pro in something other than sports."

It's true. Guess which teams are also the cash cow for the vast majority of schools? The football and men's basketball teams. That is exactly why I don't think all student athletes should be judged based on the poor academic standards that are adhered to (or not) by the members of the football and basketball teams. There are so many other sports out there. It's kind of a necessary evil. In many cases, the best athletes are not the smartest people in the world. The problem, though, is not at the college level but at whatever level failed these guys. Often that level is first grade or before. By the time they hit college, they've known what they're going to do for quite some time. If they want to effectively major in sports, then let them major in sports. It's their life, their decision. Then they go out and punish themselves for 3-5 years and put themselves under enormous amounts of stress for our entertainment. If they don't get good enough after college to go pro in their sports, then that's life. Sounds a lot like music if you ask me.

I was going to point out parts of this, thanks. We're really talking about standards being lowered for the two programs that actually generate revenue. Most of the rest of college athletics is squeaky clean, and funded by those programs. So necessary evil?

 

[janettem]

They've done that at both USC and UCLA as long as I can remember.

I remember how they would steer the football players who were failing their classes into classes at the local community colleges,so they could remain eligible for the season.

My History 1(Western Civilization A)class at West LA College in 1981 had 3 UCLA football players enrolled(including my future "brother-in-law"). All of them passed,albeit barely. Ditto for my History 2(Western Civilization B)class the following semester.

They also always steer the players into "soft" majors like sociology,history and-at USC-public administration.

Here at UNM,the football and basketball players are steered into either business or something called "University Studies",aka undecided. Other than women's basketball,you can't find any UNM athletes majoring in biology,engineering or chemistry.

And the graduation rates are disgusting!

Wait a minute...history is not a "soft" major!

(Ask anyone who's a history major and either applying to grad programs or already in a master's or PhD program like myself!)

[evan51]

I just had a really strange and awful idea.  I replaced the phrase "student athlete" with "student musician", and found myself shuddering.  Maybe I'm wrong, but how many of us came into Music (especially Music Education) with big dreams but no real plan or plan B if things didn't work out?

Thanks for your honest and self-disclosing remarks. They really hit home. Looking at what we all got as opposed to what unknown football players are getting is an interesting exercise. I don't know how things worked in other families, but I wasn't given much useful counseling/advice by any of the adults in my life regarding my college career. I paid for it myself, so I suppose no one felt they had a right to dictate terms. Still, looking back I wish someone had risked pushing me a bit in different directions. Really---what did an 18-year-old kid know about the world then (or now) that qualified him to make lifetime choices?

[janettem]

Thanks for your honest and self-disclosing remarks. They really hit home. Looking at what we all got as opposed to what unknown football players are getting is an interesting exercise. I don't know how things worked in other families, but I wasn't given much useful counseling/advice by any of the adults in my life regarding my college career. I paid for it myself, so I suppose no one felt they had a right to dictate terms. Still, looking back I wish someone had risked pushing me a bit in different directions. Really---what did an 18-year-old kid know about the world then (or now) that qualified him to make lifetime choices?

I got pushed into majoring in communications and then to pre-med and then pre-law by the folks,since I had no athletic talent whatsoever-weightlifting and bodybuilding didn't count,especially for girls. 

Hated it...switched to history after one year. The rest is-pardon the pun-history. Now it's on to grad school.

Probably should have minored in music,but I probably would have hated that too.

Still wish I'd been more athletic-it would have paid my way to UCLA or Stanford for four years!

[JohnL]

Then you hear a story like Myron Rolle. Florida State football player and Rhodes Scholar.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/20/sports/ncaafootball/20rolle.html?_r=1&em
http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/22/myron-rolle-wins-rhodes-scholarship/

[BFW]

For sure, there are student athletes worthy of both words.  There are also those who go against the advice they've been given and succeed handsomely.  It depends on the person and on the advice.

The issue here isn't so much what individual students do, but rather what schools do to maintain the competitiveness of various sports programs, whether it shortchanges athletes, and (more importantly, in my view) whether it diminishes the academic environment in certain ways or in specific fields of study.

Rolle's chemistry professor said he recalled having only two other football players in his class in his 14 years at the university, and one was a walk-on.  Were football players steered away from chemistry?  Why is it that a professor is so aware of the extra-curricular activities of his students that he can make a statement about how many were football players?  I doubt the professor had to make any adjustments to his curriculum and grading to accommodate three football players over 14 years, but how about those professors who taught classes with large numbers of football players, perhaps many of which were not genuinely interested in the subject matter?  Was there in addition any pressure from the coaching staff to make adjustments?

If Florida State football team players were more likely than the general student body to win academic accolades, THAT would be impressive.  Rhodes scholarships, which require success in sports, but which also require outstanding academic records, would be one measure, but there are plenty of others.

[Exzaclee]

anybody realize the demands on an athlete's time in a division 1 program?

give athletes 7-10 years to complete their studies.  with full scholarship.  when they run out of eligibility give them a few more years to complete their degree program.  4 years sure wasn't enough for me (i was a music major) and i'll be going back after 10 years away to finish my degree in the fall.  i don't see how it could be enough for a kid who is expected to live sleep and breathe football. 

it's only fair seeing the obscene amounts of money a school like Oklahoma makes from it's athletes.  Go sooners.  Win some more championships, make me proud.  Then help your athletes get a degree.

And unlike basketball, you have to go to college.  They don't have football trade schools.


Z

[BassBoneFL]

Then you hear a story like Myron Rolle. Florida State football player and Rhodes Scholar.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/20/sports/ncaafootball/20rolle.html?_r=1&em
http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/22/myron-rolle-wins-rhodes-scholarship/

Pat Haden... USC/NFL QB and Rhodes Scholar.