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Old Thu Oct 17, 2002, 10:16pm
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http://www.usatoday.com/sports/colle...radrates_x.htm
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Old Thu Oct 17, 2002, 10:40pm
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Among the newspaper's findings:

Arizona's average 24% graduation rate in men's basketball is 23 points lower than that of its overall
male student body, a gap that began widening with the four classes comprising the Wildcats'
breakthrough 1988 Final Four team. The rate for black players in those classes was particularly low
(11%), and it has averaged just 12% since then.
Connecticut's average basketball rate of 39% falls 25 points beneath the male student body's.
UCLA's basketball rate, also 39%, is 34 points lower than males overall on its campus.
UNLV did not graduate a player who arrived in the eight years from 1988-95, the most recent
surveyed.
No black player who entered Syracuse in the nine years from 1987-95 graduated from the school.
Neither Louisville nor Arkansas graduated a black player who arrived in the seven-year period from
1989-95.

Also raising concerns are a couple of programs that fall just short of the 16-most-successful cutoff.
Cincinnati's 12% grad-rate average over the past 12 years is even lower than Oklahoma's, and the Bob
Huggins-coached Bearcats haven't graduated a single black player who arrived in a 10-year period from
1986-95. Memphis hasn't graduated a player, period, who arrived in the seven years from 1989-95.


Disgraceful, disgusting and disappointing.
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Old Fri Oct 18, 2002, 03:10am
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Lightbulb No one is going to help this.

As long as kids think they are going to the NBA, this will never change. At some point the kids have to take responsiblity for their own education. These major programs are getting the most talented kids that are leaving for the NBA early. That is why the Mid-Majors have been upsetting the Big Boys for the past few years. Mid-Major teams are some of the only programs that has a team full of Seniors.

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Old Fri Oct 18, 2002, 07:41am
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I would be interested to see the graduation rates for college baseball programs. Since baseball has a well-developed minor league system one would expect that most kids with true aspirations of being major league players might gravitate toward the minor league system, and away from college. If the NBDL is successful (and, judging from the attendance I've seen on televised games, that's iffy at best), maybe that will open another avenue for kids who just attend college to play basketball.
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Old Fri Oct 18, 2002, 08:06am
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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.
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Old Fri Oct 18, 2002, 08:25am
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While I agree that the numbers are very disturbing and that these kids would be better served with a college degree, let me ask all of you a question. If, after the first two years of you college experience, you thought you could be successful in the field you wanted to persue, "experts" agreed with you and someone was willing to pay you millions of dollars to leave college who can honestly say they would turn down the chance?

I know I wouldn't. Why should I, college will always be there. With the millions I'm gonna make, I can pay for my own education. Besides, I may be successful and will be set for life. Sounds like a no-brainer. Especially when we are talking about a sport, which means you risk injury that eliminates your playing ability and any chance at a professional career.

Just my thoughts, feel free to disagree.
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Old Fri Oct 18, 2002, 08:35am
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The LA Times ran an article on the Bball graduation rates of all of the teams in the NCAA tournament last year. If memory serves, Stanford was the only school with a 100% rate, there were a small handful at 80%+, and a series of apalling numbers -- including, I believe, a few schools with a 0.

Perhaps ironically, Stanford proceeded to lose its first ever players early to the NBA -- Jacobsen and Borchardt. Jacobsen may have erred, but it's hard to question Borchardt's decision: he's been injury prone in college, and has a window -- if he had another big injury this year staying in college, he'll never sign the guaranteed NBA contract; on the other hand, if he gets injured in the NBA, he can easily pay to finish off his college degree.

Ultimately, as the article noted, however, the driving force behind the numbers is not the guys going pro -- these schools aren't losing half their program to the NBA -- not even at Duke. (I might add that Coach K seems to take graduation seriously -- I believe it was when Laetner had not graduated he would not let the championship banner hang until he finished, so that the whole team had graduated.)
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Old Fri Oct 18, 2002, 08:37am
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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.
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Old Fri Oct 18, 2002, 09:39am
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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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Old Fri Oct 18, 2002, 09:42am
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Lots of good thoughts on all sides here. I think, tho, that it might be a little unfair to come down too hard on the colleges. A lot of these athletes (in particular, basketball and football players) come to college only b/c they're going to play that sport. They don't come to school with any academic aspirations or, for that matter, preparation. Many of these kids had miserable grades in high school, miserable standardized test scores and would never think about going to college if it weren't for their athletic ability (and many 4-year colleges wouldn't think about accepting them if they applied).

It seems unreasonable to me to then expect these kids to somehow transform themselves into students and commit themselves to the discipline of study, other than for the sake of maintaining their elegibility. Once their elegibility is done, or once it becomes clear that they'll make the next level, it is unreasonable to expect that they will stay for the love of their education.

Last thought:

Quote:
Originally posted by Brian Watson
these kids are adults
I don't mean to be a smart-@$$ (how many times have you heard me say that? ) but you can't have it both ways. Are they kids? Or are they adults? I would ask you to think back to when you were 18 or 19. Did you have any friggin' clue about life? I know you thought you did. But did you really? I didn't. All I knew was that I was supposed to graduate from college. The reason I knew that was that my parents had drilled it into my head from the time I was 7 years old.

But many of these kids (not all, obviously) have not had that message drilled into their heads. The message they've been getting since they were 10 or 12 is that they're pro material. So when either (a) the dream is within reach, or (b) the dream is clearly NOT going to come to fruition, how can anyone expect them to see the value in staying and graduating?

Chuck
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Old Fri Oct 18, 2002, 09:43am
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Lightbulb

Quote:
Originally posted by Brian Watson

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?

Does this help?

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/colle...ates-table.htm
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Old Fri Oct 18, 2002, 09:52am
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Quote:
Originally posted by LarryS
While I agree that the numbers are very disturbing and that these kids would be better served with a college degree, let me ask all of you a question. If, after the first two years of you college experience, you thought you could be successful in the field you wanted to persue, "experts" agreed with you and someone was willing to pay you millions of dollars to leave college who can honestly say they would turn down the chance?

I know I wouldn't. Why should I, college will always be there. With the millions I'm gonna make, I can pay for my own education. Besides, I may be successful and will be set for life. Sounds like a no-brainer. Especially when we are talking about a sport, which means you risk injury that eliminates your playing ability and any chance at a professional career.

Just my thoughts, feel free to disagree.
I agree that if the chance is there you have to go after it because the window of opportunity is small and closing. This article, IMO, is not about the Vince Carters of the world, it is about the other guys on the team who go for four years, don't make the league (or any other paying basketball gig) and still don't graduate.

Whie the players, just like all of us, are responsible to get themselves to class and ultimately are responsible for their education, I think it is the lack of institutional control (reflected in the abysmal graduation rates) that is alarming. Are these coaches simply concerned with winning, or are the concerned with making a difference and helping a kid to a better life with higher earning potential?
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Old Fri Oct 18, 2002, 10:05am
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Brian Watson
Quote:

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.
Brian, there are a couple of problems with this. Firstly,
varsity basketball is not a major - in theory the athletes
come from a cross-section of all majors. But assuming it
was, I think it's safe to say if the Varsity Basketball
Dept had graduation rates consistently lower than the
school average then the dept chair would be replaced, or
at least told to figure out what's the problem. Unless of
course the Varsity Basketball Dept's mission is not to
educate.

As for the people you mention, they are not the problem.
For every Vince Carter there are thousands of players
who never draw a pro or even semi-pro paycheck. It's those
"kids" who really need the degree.
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Old Fri Oct 18, 2002, 10:12am
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It is all about winning.

Quote:
Originally posted by stripes
Are these coaches simply concerned with winning?
They sure are. Do you want to feed your family or worry about some kid who thinks he is going pro regardless of what you tell him?

I believe that the college has some responsibility, but the players have a bigger responsibility. Their parent have a bigger responsibility. Their peers have a bigger responsibility. Instead of telling the kid how great of a player he is, tell the kid that if he does not get an education, he is in big trouble. Every kid thinks he is going to hit the lottery by making the NBA. If someone around him does not keep his feet on the ground, he might not value anything else.

You can make them go to class, but that does not mean they will learn anything if they are not there to do that in their own value system.

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Old Fri Oct 18, 2002, 01:22pm
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A few things to keep in mind when looking a "graduation rates" that the NCAA publishes.

1. If a player transfers to another school and graduates there, they still count against you as not graduating. They onlt count for a team if they graduated from that school, yet they count against a team if they don't graduate from that specific school. They often are transferring to D2/D3/JC schools that don't get the noteriety and probably have higher rates of graduation from players.

2. They have a limited time to graduate (5 years I think). I took 5.5 but I still graduated. Several of the players complete their degrees after their playing eligibilty expires. Yet, these players count against you as not graduating.

Just because a team has 0% doesn't mean that noone graduated, it only means they didn't graduate within tight NCAA limits.

[Edited by Camron Rust on Oct 18th, 2002 at 01:24 PM]
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