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Old Fri Oct 18, 2002, 09:39am
Brian Watson Brian Watson is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2000
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Quote:
Originally posted by Dan_ref
Quote:
Originally posted by Brian Watson
I think the responsibility of coaches is way over blown. Should they try to make sure their kids are going to class, yes, if they want them eligible.

But at the same time, these kids are adults. They have the ultimate responsibility to make the grade and graduate.

How many senior players have been drafted in the last few years? Even Duke has had only 1 senior actually play through the last few years.

I think Rut hit it on the money, these kids have been told since they were 10 they were good. They have been coddled in AAU ball and told they were good, then they think they can play NBA ball.

With all of the trainwreck players the last few years you think the kids would wake up, but it seems to make them more determined to prove they can do it.
Yep, the college players are adults. Nope, it's not the
coach's job (generally) to make sure they graduate. Yep,
D1 players have been coddled, protected, inflated and lied
to their entire lives. But colleges everywhere have a
similar message they market:

1. Graduation rates
2. Percent of graduates who get a job
3. Percent of graduates who go on to grad school.

It's sad that these "value indicators" are pretty much
ignored these days when it comes to the "revenue producing"
athletes. But what's even sadder is the kids on the bottom
of the deck - kids coming out of HS who can play but do not
have the grades and/or maturity to even get into a juco, or
who barely get into juco and then 2 years later leave no
better off when their eligibility expires.

Catherine, you make a great point concerning the NBDL. I
am hoping that it does catch on, it will at least offer a
choice for the kids who want to give the pro game a shot
instead of or prior to attending college.
The NCAA segments out the athletes and bemoan their graduation rates.

But there may be other majors or schools that have equally tough times. I think is is misleading to look at 5 - 10 individuals out of 1000's that are in a class. What if the freshman class of pharmacy students graduated 3 of the 10 that started, maybe this is normal?

Vince Carter, MJ, Bo Jackson, Shaq, and others have thier degrees, but they count as a zero for NCAA stats.
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