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Misconceptions in College Sports (article)

AlferdJasper

Well-Known Member
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=easterbrook/091215&sportCat=nfl

Some interesting points by the author:
...a university exists to educate; winning football games is a secondary concern

...the NCAA system uses football and men's basketball players to generate revenue and great games -- then tosses way too many of these players aside uneducated.

...Chances of an NCAA player making the NFL? Each year, roughly 2,500 Division I football players leave college because they have exhausted their athletic eligibility, or are leaving early, or have graduated. Each year, about 200 rookie players make NFL rosters. Thus, more than 90 percent of Division I football players never play a down in the NFL.

Top team and NFL players? Oklahoma, the 2000 national champion, sent two players into the NFL for five or more years (that's a "career" in sports terms), six players for two to four years, and one player for one year. Of the 85 scholarship holders on that team, 11 percent advanced to the NFL.
(also has stats for other national champ teams.)

... big-college football coaches aren't rewarded for player graduations, they are rewarded for wins. Boosters don't care if the players graduate, they only care about victories -- and most football-factory coaches are in effect employees of the boosters, not of the university.

... schools that put academics first, can still do well in football. Last year, Boston College, Cal, Georgia Tech, Navy, North Carolina, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Rice, TCU, Vanderbilt and Wake Forest made bowls. Colgate, Villanova and Wofford made the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs.

...the Heisman. If ever a lineman was going to receive the Heisman Trophy, it was Ndamukong Suh. Since he didn't win, TMQ renews the suggestion I've made before, that the name of the award be changed to the Heisman Trophy for the Running Back or Quarterback Who Receives the Most Publicity.

... the cheerleader of the week (NFL) is a CU student, according to her bio.
Cheerleader of the Week: Lindy Koucky of the Broncos, who according to her team bio is a student at the University of Colorado at Boulder and hopes to become an orthodontist.
 
I'm not sure what Mr. Easterbrook's point is here. I'm actually not sure he knows, either. :huh: He seems to talk out of both sides of his mouth....

Take the Notre Dame example. He says it's a misconception that an "academics first" institution like ND can't be successful. (Though, throughout the article, he plays pretty fast and loose with the definitions of "winning" and "success".)

OK, fine, so ND can be successful. Yet he also implies that it was a bitter, cynical, win-at-all-costs mentally that got Charlie Wies fired.

If ND can be every bit as successful while still maintaining academic integrity.........then why wouldn't you fire a coach who doesn't win???? You can't have it both ways.

In today's college football landscape, the bottom line is it takes a commitment to winning in order to be an elite program. Mac said it best: you achieve what you emphasize. We can argue back and forth about whether it *should* be that way, but that's the reality.

If you're happy with having a definition of success that involves going 7-5 and making a minor bowl game........then more power to you. Enjoy your trip to the Poinsettia Bowl. :huh:
 
What a douchy column. He assumes that a school that puts academics first automatically puts athletics second. The fact is that those schools he listed place equal value on both academics and athletics. There is a commitment at those places to field top flight athletic programs IN ADDITION to top flight academic programs. They're not mutually exclusive. That's what we, here on this site, have been saying for as long as we've been here. That we should be committed to both.

Grrrrrr. What a dumbass. :sad2:
 
What a douchy column. He assumes that a school that puts academics first automatically puts athletics second. The fact is that those schools he listed place equal value on both academics and athletics. There is a commitment at those places to field top flight athletic programs IN ADDITION to top flight academic programs. They're not mutually exclusive. That's what we, here on this site, have been saying for as long as we've been here. That we should be committed to both.

Grrrrrr. What a dumbass. :sad2:

Duke, UNC, Michigan...I think you can flush his opinion, it's pretty much worthless.
 
I did like this point in the article:

...the Heisman. If ever a lineman was going to receive the Heisman Trophy, it was Ndamukong Suh. Since he didn't win, TMQ renews the suggestion I've made before, that the name of the award be changed to the Heisman Trophy for the Running Back or Quarterback Who Receives the Most Publicity.

btw, I never knew that the original Heisman WAS a lineman.
 
The thing that bothers me about NCAA sports, especially football and basketball, is that they set minimum standards for academics. Schools that want to have big time athetic programs only aim to meet that minimum. Sure, every school has a handful of guys they that are true student/athletes, but, for the most part, the top programs are built with a lot of guys that probably would not, otherwise, be on a college campus. I think CU is trying to live by a self imposed higher standard. Most of us fans don't care as much about academic success as we do winning. So, here we are at Colorado, we have an administration that is emphasizing academics and fans that want to emphasize athetics. Personally, I think CU is taking the academic emphasis a bit too far. If the NCAA is not going to hold all schools to a higher standard, then we should lower ours within reason. Like allowing partial qualifiers, that sort of thing.
 
Easterbrook does this all the time, he talks out of both sides of his mouth. A couple weeks ago he railed against arguments to pay athletes, at least in FB and BB, with the argument that the top players (he used Kevin Durant as his example) subsidize the opportunity for a number of other student-athletes to attend college. His point was that while one or two players might be giving more than they get, on the whole the opportunity it creates for others is worth it because this is, after all, about education.

Then, today, he wants to rail against schools that emphasize winning as putting academics below athletics. That's stupid and goes counter to his previous example. First, at a bottom line, a football team that doesn't win won't bring in money that makes having that specific team economically feasible. Second, as we show here at CU, a successful football team is absolutely vital if we want to have a women's track team, a men's tennis team, etc.

He's ok with ****ing over the most talented football and basketball players because they create opportunities for more students to go to school. But, he's not ok with schools doing things, such as lowering academic standards for athletes or holding coaches to a higher standard than other university offficials, because supposedly this is counter-academic. What about all the opportunity these successful sports create?
 
I don´t read Easterbrook often, but he at least seems to be a free thinker and sports journalism in general would be better off with more free thinkers.
 
I don´t read Easterbrook often, but he at least seems to be a free thinker and sports journalism in general would be better off with more free thinkers.

You don't need to read him very often, he says the exact same three to five things every week.

1. Punting sucks
2. Passing on short yardage sucks
3. Wearing heavy coats by a coach sucks
4. Blitzing sucks

(implicit in his arguments: unless it works...)
 
The NCAA cares about graduation. I love the "academic argument" when most kids graduate with degrees that are useless in the job market and cost tens of thousands of dollars. The Phd's who teach the mating habits of the Tasmanian yellow fly as a class are no more righteous than the football coach.

What an athletic scholarship does is give a kid a CHANCE to do something in school (fees paid) its not a guarantee. Its the same chance any other student gets.
 
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