Quote:
Originally Posted by infamousdiz
What do you call a doctor last in his graduating class?
Gifted athletes are not subject such high academic standards, they are there for sports and that's really it. Sports is a money maker allowing for other academic scholarships. Most people do not realize how much work goes into a D1 top notch program players. These student athletes put in 100 hours a week devoted to their craft, leaving little real time for class work unrelated to school. Who cares what grades they get or if they received a degree in basket weaving they are 1st round draft picks, the best of the best.
Most do not make it to the professional world and I would hope they would invest more time in their studies but when you have your sights and show the ability to move to the next level Ds get degrees.
I admire professional athletes on the simplest level in that it is capitalisms at its best. They can preform a job at a level that is not attainable for a average person(that's an understatement). An average person like myself can get an MBA but will NEVER be a professional athlete. I can work hard and become a doctor but can not hone my skills to compete on the highest sports stage. the free market dictates their worth and the best command the highest of wages. you can have your 4.0 GPA and be a CEO and run the country into the ground and receive a golden parachute. people worry about character in the NFL but in the business world and DC are where the real scumbags are. They have the worst moral compass I wish the NFL could Judge them.
So tom bent the rules, shocker, who cares small potatoes
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Red:
Doctor. When the competition is that stiff and GPAs play such a crucial role in culling applicants, even the folks at the bottom of the class are bright and skilled people.
It's not much different with the guy who finishes last in his law school class. I don't know how true it is, but I've heard that among law school graduates:
- The top grads become great law professors.
- The middle grads become judges.
- The bottom grads (if there is such a thing) become the best practicing lawyers.
That sort of makes sense, even if it's not entirely accurate. It makes sense because the average person is probably better able to build lines of argument/approaches that resonate with jurors, even if jurists and other intellectuals may not buy them.
Blue:
There's no doubt in my mind that college athletes have to commit a lot of time and effort to their game. The thing is that the institution is still a college/university. Athletes aren't the only students who extracurricular activities. Moreover, some athletes seem capable of finishing school with A averages, so I don't think it's asking to much to require all of them to finish with at least a B-.
Why should they receive so much glory for doing only one thing -- playing a game -- for an institution that exists to pass on and develop academic skills? Either one is a student and one performs as such just as the rest of the students do while also preforming extracurricularly, or one doesn't and thus suffers the same fate as other students: expulsion. That's what happened to underperforming athletes at my high school (a private, college prep school) and I see no reason why that approach should change in college.
The current approach clearly doesn't work, but perhaps something else will:
That said, I'm not so naive that I think all student athletes arrive on campus ready to perform well academically. If you were to ask me, I don't think aspirants to professional sports should become degree seeking students at a college. Better, IMO, is that colleges create special programs, something akin to trade school programs at the high school level, for folks who there seeking solely to become pro athletes. (Heck, I frankly wouldn't care if colleges just got over the pretext of their players being students at all and instead merely paid them to play, treating it much like the minor leagues in baseball.)
Perhaps something called "Practical Kinesiology," whereby the only somewhat academic requirements are that the students learn about the things that matter in theirs and other sporting pursuits. The programs need not culminate in a baccalaureate degree, but rather with some sort of certification that the student has mastered, intellectually, a set of relevant techniques that will make them better sports players.
Certainly, individuals aspiring to careers in the performing arts have such programs available to them. (
http://catalog.juilliard.edu/preview...&returnto=2358) The substance of most professional undergraduate programs is also similar in that regard: they prepare one for a career in the field in question. For example, for an accountant, a BS in accounting and passing the CPA exam is more than sufficient for a very rewarding career and very little math capability is required.
It makes sense that folks pursuing careers in sports have a similar track. At least were such an option to exist, it would be at least meaningful for a student athlete to complete the curriculum and do so with a solid grade point average.
Do I think pro sports players need to master calculus, history or literature? Of course not. On the other hand, having a practical understanding of the physics (
i.e., not having to manipulate the equations, but certainly understanding the concepts) that affect their sports -- leverage, friction, force, etc. -- could very well be quite useful. Similarly, having a good understanding of interpersonal dynamics -- sociology and psychology -- would very likely benefit all players as they try to gel as a team, and various players assume the role of team leaders.
It makes sense to me that a professional sports playing aspirant, like actors, doctors and accountants, need a specialized set of skills. Now sure as I am willing to accept in principle a college level program that isn't necessarily academically challenging -- at least in the traditional sense of what that entails -- I nonetheless wonder why it is that a special "carve out" should be needed for sports players. It seems to me that military officers also need a special set of skills, particularly those that become SEALs, Rangers,
et al, yet every officer is also as academically capable as any other typical college graduate. There's definitely a part of me that doesn't see why a different, lower, set of academic expectations should be deemed acceptable for sports players in college.
Indeed, in the long run, I think sports leagues do a disservice to many players by overlooking their below average academic performance. The fact is that sports is a short career and once one cannot play, and having finished college with a D or F, one is little different than a person having but a high school diploma, and probably not one that reflects rigorous academic performance. The result is that a lot of pro sportsmen, once the money runs out, have a tough way to go. What else, after all, are they qualified to do? I know I couldn't hire most of them into my firm for any position other than mail clerk or receptionist.
And let's face facts, when these guys finish college, they aren't, in terms of life experience and understanding, any more knowledgeable than are most of their peers. The fact is that in general, 20-somethings don't have the first idea of what's in their best interests. Some of them are lucky and come from home situations where they have solid role models, so they may have a leg up in that regard, but I don't think that's the reality for most kids seeking pro sports contracts.
I have two 20-something kids and one who will be soon enough. I'm not even remotely worried about whether they'll be successful, but I know already just from what I've observed in them and their friends, along with my own experience having been a 20-something, that they have a lot to learn that never is taught in school/university. The difference is that I and my kids come from a background that provided sound guidance re: ethics, critical thinking and decision making. I relied on my parents and their friends and associates, along with professional mentors, to make it through young adulthood pretty well unscathed and well prepared for the rest of my life. Can we really say that of these kids that join professional sports leagues, and particularly the NFL?
All the best.