The Down Range Forum
Member Section => Down Range Cafe => Topic started by: TAB on March 20, 2010, 08:40:03 PM
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http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/story/10057037
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zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
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The NCAA is the farm league for the NBA. Most of the kids going to school are going for the basketball and not the education. If there is an opportunity to jump to the "majors" most kids would do it. And as long as we're talking about it, what do you get an "education" for? Most would say to earn a better living. I don't begrudge anyone the opportunity to better themselves as long as it is in a legal area. Last time I checked, basketball was a viable tool to earn money. What you do with it is your own concern. If there is a high school student drafted to a minor league baseball team it isn't an issue. If he chooses to go to school he can, but it isn't a requirement. The same should apply for those who have chosen basketball. They are adults and capable of making their own decisions. As far as I'm concerned the NCAA can stuff the graduation rates of colleges. Frankly, it's none of their business.
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Then the NBA should have a minor/farm league for developing it's talent and let the universities focus on education. Oh, wait, there is a boat load of money to be made off of college sports, isn't there? Never mind.
On a related note - 78% of NFL players are bankrupt or in financial distress within two years of "retirement", and 60% of the NBA player are broke after five years. Good thing they have that college education to fall back on. Oh wait, ...
These kids are just grist for the mill. :(
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One exception is Xavier University....they have a nun there that won't let those kids get lazy. I heard on the news this week that the b-ball team will all graduate and it's been that way for some time.
I stopped watching basketball some time ago for all reasons already stated.
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Yeah, interesting study on the way to this:
Of course, the NFL and NBA have been overrun with criminal behavior for years. Journalist and author Jeff Benedict has written provocative books about the violence in both leagues. In Pros and Cons: The Criminals Who Play in the N.F.L., which came out in the late 1990s, he and his coauthor Don Yaeger claimed that 21 percent of NFL players had been charged with a serious crime. The NFL has instituted programs to help keep players on the straight and narrow, and league officials laud their effectiveness (who counts Cincinnati, anyway?). A revised personal conduct policy is being unveiled at the annual league meeting this week that is said to be much tougher. But then, there is something profoundly self-defeating about a sports league that needs to set up crime prevention programs for its players. It's one of those situations where the promised cure only reminds observers how bad the illness really is.
A few years after Pros and Cons, Benedict wrote Out of Bounds: Inside the NBA's Culture of Rape, Violence, and Crime, in which he claimed that an incredible 40 percent of NBA players had been involved in a serious crime. This was just a few years ago, around the time of the Kobe Bryant rape case.
Benedict's books make clear that the problem of crime in the two leagues has become increasingly difficult to sweep under the rug. And the impact of the criminal element has been felt inside the lines as well as outside. It has changed the very aesthetics of the games themselves.
From here: http://spectator.org/archives/2007/03/30/felon-ball (http://spectator.org/archives/2007/03/30/felon-ball)
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The NCAA is the farm league for the NBA. Most of the kids going to school are going for the basketball and not the education. If there is an opportunity to jump to the "majors" most kids would do it. And as long as we're talking about it, what do you get an "education" for? Most would say to earn a better living. I don't begrudge anyone the opportunity to better themselves as long as it is in a legal area. Last time I checked, basketball was a viable tool to earn money. What you do with it is your own concern. If there is a high school student drafted to a minor league baseball team it isn't an issue. If he chooses to go to school he can, but it isn't a requirement. The same should apply for those who have chosen basketball. They are adults and capable of making their own decisions. As far as I'm concerned the NCAA can stuff the graduation rates of colleges. Frankly, it's none of their business.
Bros, about the most depressing moment I ever had as a teacher involved a "student" athlete at the University of Texas. He was a baseball player and I don't even remember his name. What I do remember is that he was hopeless. If there were a grade lower than F, it would have been named in his honor. Who ever was his high school principle should have been hanged at high noon for malfeseance for graduating this guy, while not teaching him to read and write the English language. Anyway, the kid's grade was still in play at the end of he semester as I mark all Fs as a 55 since I don't want to doom someone on a single bad test. Our hero had gotten a couple of (generous) C-'s and so was stil close to a D. I get this call from a tutor in the Athletic Directors office (I didn't know we had such a thing, and why wasn't every other student offered private tutors?). Anyway, he proceeds to ask me about my final exam so he can prep our guy for it. I let him finish, and then informed him that the Final (as noted in the syllabus) was a take home essay that had been handed out 4 days ago and was due by 5 pm that day. I heard the most defeated sigh I've heard from another human. The tutor said, "I've been working with this guy all day and he can't remember anything I told him before lunch time". I said, "He's still got 3 hours and I'll take it hand written". To which the respose was "Why make his hand tired"? I asked what position he played. The response was second base. I asked "Is he good at it? Because maybe he should stick to that".
The point to this story BROS is this. Our universities should have students first and athletes second. Here's the easy solution employed by the Ivy League and a whole lot of liberal arts colleges. Eliminate athletic scholarships and replace them with academic ones. Do well in schoool and we'll fund you. Do well chasing a ball around, well that's nice, but its not what we're in the business of teaching people to do. If STUDENTS want to play sports great. I'm all in favor of funding a robust athletic program for all the obvious reasons about building character, teamwork, discipline etc. BUT, I don't want seat in my classroom filled by someone who has no business being there so they can mark time till they hit the NBA. I'd rather have it filled by a smart kid who wants to be an engineer or a doctor or what have you. Let the media pay for gifted young athletes, God knows there's money it, and I watch. I have no anti-sport bias. But lets not kid ourselves here. Athletic "scholarships" are in no one's interest but a school trying to make money by selling tee shirts and TV rights. Think I'm kidding? Go to any major state university. Dig on the web a bit and you'll pull up salaries. Compare what the football coach gets paid to what a nobel laureate teaching physics gets. Its about the green, not the school's mission, not the deserving kids who get left behind, and not even the athletes, as they are being set up to fail except for the lucky few who do make successful pro career. Rant over.
FQ13
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you know its funny, I was watching the finals for the NCAA div 2 wrestling. out of the 20 guys in the finals, about a 1/3 were in grad school, about another 1/3 were under classmen. the rest had decent majors like engineering, chem, english... none of those half ass majors that you often see in other sports. Almost all of the seniors were also educational all americans.
Makes you wonder, why one of the hardest( if not the hardest NCAA sport), most physically demanding, time consuming sport can produce good student athletes, why can't other sports?
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you know its funny, I was watching the finals for the NCAA div 2 wrestling. out of the 20 guys in the finals, about a 1/3 were in grad school, about another 1/3 were under classmen. the rest had decent majors like engineering, chem, english... none of those half ass majors that you often see in other sports. Almost all of the seniors were also educational all americans.
Makes you wonder, why one of the hardest( if not the hardest NCAA sport), most physically demanding, time consuming sport can produce good student athletes, why can't other sports?
+1 - D1 NCAA's Iowa Hawkeye Wrestling continues to dominate! GO HAWKS!
Don't care for Basketball personally but .02
There is some level in the BB tourney that you can say that they aren't there for basketball. Take UNI beating #1 Kansas. They had no real hopes of getting into the tourney and figured that they would be going home after the 1st game and especailly after the 2nd game. Now they are in the 16 and don't know what to do.
GO UNI Panthers!
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FQ,
I understand what you are saying and don't really disagree with much of it. I was just pointing out some hypocrisy.
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I guess I have a totally different mindset. You guys act like schools pour a lot of money into athletics and NOTHING else. That is not true. These universities use athletics to get more money so they can build better libraries, labs, and classrooms and hire better educators. A majority of the money used in athletic departments is specifically designated to do so by the rich Booster who donated the money. A student athlete is responsible for his own education just like you or I am responsible for our own HEALTHCARE!!!! (sorry still heavy on my mind there)... If he turns out to be an idiot with an ability to shoot a ball, it isnt the fault of teh school, the NCAA, his parents, his teacher, his environment, or even Santa Clause...it falls on him as an individual...
You get out of school what you put in....period.
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Bros, about the most depressing moment I ever had as a teacher involved a "student" athlete at the University of Texas. He was a baseball player and I don't even remember his name. What I do remember is that he was hopeless. If there were a grade lower than F, it would have been named in his honor. Who ever was his high school principle should have been hanged at high noon for malfeseance for graduating this guy, while not teaching him to read and write the English language. Anyway, the kid's grade was still in play at the end of he semester as I mark all Fs as a 55 since I don't want to doom someone on a single bad test. Our hero had gotten a couple of (generous) C-'s and so was stil close to a D. I get this call from a tutor in the Athletic Directors office (I didn't know we had such a thing, and why wasn't every other student offered private tutors?). Anyway, he proceeds to ask me about my final exam so he can prep our guy for it. I let him finish, and then informed him that the Final (as noted in the syllabus) was a take home essay that had been handed out 4 days ago and was due by 5 pm that day. I heard the most defeated sigh I've heard from another human. The tutor said, "I've been working with this guy all day and he can't remember anything I told him before lunch time". I said, "He's still got 3 hours and I'll take it hand written". To which the respose was "Why make his hand tired"? I asked what position he played. The response was second base. I asked "Is he good at it? Because maybe he should stick to that".
The point to this story BROS is this. Our universities should have students first and athletes second. Here's the easy solution employed by the Ivy League and a whole lot of liberal arts colleges. Eliminate athletic scholarships and replace them with academic ones. Do well in schoool and we'll fund you. Do well chasing a ball around, well that's nice, but its not what we're in the business of teaching people to do. If STUDENTS want to play sports great. I'm all in favor of funding a robust athletic program for all the obvious reasons about building character, teamwork, discipline etc. BUT, I don't want seat in my classroom filled by someone who has no business being there so they can mark time till they hit the NBA. I'd rather have it filled by a smart kid who wants to be an engineer or a doctor or what have you. Let the media pay for gifted young athletes, God knows there's money it, and I watch. I have no anti-sport bias. But lets not kid ourselves here. Athletic "scholarships" are in no one's interest but a school trying to make money by selling tee shirts and TV rights. Think I'm kidding? Go to any major state university. Dig on the web a bit and you'll pull up salaries. Compare what the football coach gets paid to what a nobel laureate teaching physics gets. Its about the green, not the school's mission, not the deserving kids who get left behind, and not even the athletes, as they are being set up to fail except for the lucky few who do make successful pro career. Rant over.
FQ13
So why was he still on the team? I know that when I was in college, you were required to keep a 3.0 GPA in order to play. Has this changed?