http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/wire?section=ncf&id=6932700 This article is a few years old but pretty good. I think some players are able to buck the system and able to receive a valuable education. However, my opinion is that it's becoming more and more difficult given the priority to keep players on the field and fully dedicated to meeting the demands of the sport.
Dude, you said that General Studies and IS degrees have "minimal value" and that recipients "aren't prepared for real world jobs." Well, that is simply uninformed speculation but I was trying to be nice. I know what you are saying, but you got off on IS degrees in general and I wanted to suggest that you just might be wrong. Just as many as ever! The difference is that federal law now prohibits the university from commenting on students grades and academic status. It's a federal offense to do so. You must have noticed that 10 or 12 football players quit or transfer every year. A high percentage of those are academic casualties. But that news can only come from the students, who are rarely inclined to do so. It's not easy and it has never been. But these guys are motivated and some end up in grad school and medical school. Yes, many of them take physical education or fine arts and other curriculums that require less class and study time than engineering, but so do an awful lot of regular students. Yes, some find professors that let them slide a bit, but so do regular students. If you have evidence that LSU grads have 4th-grade reading levels, then I'd like to hear it. But what I know is that LSU football has the second-highest graduation rate in the SEC, behind Vanderbilt. And the main reason is that Nick Saban insisted upon and got the University to establish an Academic Center for Student Athletes. It's the main reason that athletes at LSU do so well in school. Parents love it and it is a huge recruitment incentive. LSU athletes graduate at a higher rate than regular LSU students and have a graduation rate above the national average. They get access to special computer labs and to tutors. They have a staff of 40 professionals that train athletes how to study, take tests, and be accountable for their own success. They have study halls and monitor athletes progress and let the coaches know when they are dropping classes. LSU got a minor NCAA infraction a few years ago when some of those ACSA monitors allowed some un-paid tutoring and other small rules violations. Since then the LSU Compliance Office has rigorously seen to it that LSU student athletes don't get around any academic requirements that ordinary LSU students cannot. Does this really sound like gibberish to you?
The simple fact of the matter is that most of these football players are doing things in school that they never imagined they could/would a few years ago. They might not be engineering majors however most of them are taking courses that fit their background, intelligence, interests, etc which is exactly what most of the general student population does. Hell, some of these kids likely couldn't read aloud in a classroom a few years ago for fear of ridicule, them graduating from college is amazing. Don't hold athletes to a higher standard than the rest of the students, especially when most of them are accomplishing an awful lot while also majoring in football, basketball, etc. All of these athletes actually have two majors when you think about it.
A little note...LSU held graduation and here are the football players who graduated from Dandy Don....Former football players who graduated include Jarrett Fobbs (General Business), James Hairston (Finance), A’Trey-U Jones (Agricultural Business), Kadron Boone, (Sports Administration), Stephen Rivers (Sports Administration), Jordan Jefferson (Interdisciplinary Studies), Craig Loston (Interdisciplinary Studies) and Michael Petty (Interdisciplinary Studies). Also LSU had a good APR in the latest release the football team was at 946 and BTW Okie State where Mike Gundy is so good to his team was below 930 and faces loss of scholarships.
These guys major in football. That's what their scholarship is for. Sports Administration is probably the perfect major for them. You can get a degree in Social Studies, Music, Art, Philosophy, even Drama for goodness sake. Why not Sports? Sports is big business. You don't have to be able to play pro sports to be a success in sports. Les Miles makes 3 mil. a year and all the other assistants and administrators do pretty well too. Gotta be able to read, write and do a little arithmetic though. I was going to say speak coherently too, but Les Miles killed that thought.
