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.

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.

Peace

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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.

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:

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

Does this help?

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/colle...ates-table.htm

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?

[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.

It is all about 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.

Peace

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]

Actually, the NCAA gives them six years to graduate, for the purposes of this study. Any longer than that, and you might be Tommy Boy!

Re: It is all about winning.
 

:( If it were just so easy. People just want their gladiators…

The wife, through her sister, is a good friend of the mother of Robert Smith, X of Ohio State and the Vikings. While sitting out his sophomore year because had class conflicts with some practices he was branded a traitor to the school by both the public and the coaching staff. A member of which told him that he has to drop the classes.

Came his senior year and he again had conflicts with classes and some practices. The coach told him that he had to play football and that he had to drop classes. If he did so he would not have been able to graduate in 4 years. So, he took the coaches advice to the extreme and dropped OSU and turned pro. Again the public vilified him. (The Vikings were happy to send him to school in the off season.) The last I heard he was applying to medical school.

Robert Smith
 

Robert Smith: Smooth as glass and full of class.

A Lion, Packer and Bear fan

Re: Re: It is all about winning.
 

Some of the most successful people in this country are former atheletes. Robert Smith one way or another made a choice to be an athelete. If he had such a problem with the structure of his time at Ohio State, then he should have stayed out of it like he did before. I for one would have applauded him for it. If the system was against his academic goals, then he had a choice to make. He has made a choice to get out when he did, good for him.

Look, I come from an educated family. I grew up in a family that never allowed me to think of just sports. If I did not do my school work, I would not play, regardless of what a coach thought. As an African-American (which many of these atheletes are), I think these families are not putting education first and only looking at the brass ring. You have to have balance. From an Officiating stand point, I saw a kid that was a wonderful leader on the field. I told that kid "I love the way you handle yourself on this field, but if I do not hear from you as a good student, none of this athletic achievement is going to matter." I went on to say to this kid, "this sports day will one day end, you need something else to do after that." We have not set the bar high enough. There was a time when kids of color used athletics to just get an education. Now they go to college to make millions in the pros. Not everyone is going to be 7 feet tall. And even one of those kids that came from HS did not get drafted.

Peace

I do think the parents have a huge impact on this from the outset. It Texas, we have a state UIL policy called "no pass - no play" If you don't pass all of your classes, you don't play.

In my house, my son was and is a straight A student. When he went out for basketball, OUR family (my wife and I) had a simple policy for him.... No A, no play. Since he'd demonstrated the ability to perform academically at that level, we refused to allow a slip in academics to play sports.

Was I scared to death that I'd be forced to tell him he couldn't play for half the baskeball season --- you bet! Would I have done it --- absolutely! He knew it, the coach knew it and because of that I didn't have to do it!

Mick-
How can you be a fan of the Lions, Packers and Bears!!!!

AK ref Ref
(Bear fan only)

Yeah, I know... it's weird.
Raised 70 miles outa Detroit. (But now - 12 hours from Detroit, 4 hours from Green Bay, 8 hours from Chicago, 7 hours from Minneapolis)
Black-and-Blue division. NFC.
Probably, the Lions have such a recent history that I started looking for somebody to love. ;)
<hr>
My heroes were: Lane, LeBeau, Lary and Lowe, and Adderly and Wood.

Question about Questions from a Coach
 

The rules about counting graduation rates apply the same to all students. The comparison of rates between players and the rest of the student body, or other schools, is a fair comparison. The difference is that in most cases the non-graduates went to college to play ball while (most of) the rest of the student body went to get an education. The players that graduate from these programs are exceptions who take the whole process of becoming adult seriously. (And no, I don't agree they are adults yet. Some of them never make that level.) Some schools, like Stanford and Princeton, have enough of an accademic reputation to get a fair percentage of the rare players who are really student athletes, not just athletes who happens to be students. The other players tend to leave school when things don't go their way, or, on the rare occaision that they can go pro. They'll change schools if they don't get along with the coach but still look good to another program. They'll drop out if they can't cut it. And look at how many are in class after the end of the last season of their eligibility. (Heck, attendance after the end of the season but before the NBA draft, will tell you whether an underclassman is going to announce for the draft.) I don't see a change as long as there are people like me.
I LOVE COLLEGE BASKETBALL.

Well, I know I'm a little weird, but I did in fact have the chance to leave college and go into a career with the offer of immediate big money, and bigger out there in the near future; with national exposure and celebrity status. It was a career that I had been working away at, and the offer was that sort of phone call everyone always dreams of. And I turned it down. And I have never regretted it, other than those three am regrets that everyone has. (It was NOT an athletic career, by the way) But that was more years ago than I care to admit. How can you convince kids in this age of glitter and hype? "Hoop Dreams" doesn't look as real as "Space Jam". And then, too, there may be more kids that turn down the offer than we realize. We only hear about the kids that leave school, but there may be some of the others. Why would any commentator want to discuss mature, quiet, logical thinking?

[Edited by rainmaker on Oct 18th, 2002 at 11:38 PM]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by rainmaker

Quote:

Well, I know I'm a little weird, but I did in fact have the chance to leave college and go into a career with the offer of immediate big money, and bigger out there in the near future; with national exposure and celebrity status. It was a career that I had been working away at, and the offer was that sort of phone call everyone always dreams of. And I turned it down. And I have never regretted it, other than those three am regrets that everyone has.

Good for you! Success is not just measured in $$$.

Quote:

And then, too, there may be more kids that turn down the offer than we realize. We only hear about the kids that leave school, but there may be some of the others.

I believe once a kid gets far enough into negotiations to
turn down an offer (or maybe even just an offer of an offer)
he has forfeited his amateur standing under NCAA rules.
So maybe the reason we don't hear about kids turning down
offers to remain a student is they are no longer included in the "student athlete" column. WHen we hear a kid has
decided to not go pro it means he's decided to keep his
amateur standing and not pursue offers (in theory).
I'm sure there are lots of "under the table" discussions, so
if a kid decided to turn down one of these offers it would
never get out. Anyway, I'm be no means an expert on NCAA eligibility but I do believe it works along those lines.
But I bring it up to include the boat load of complicated
NCAA regulations into the discussion.

If there are any recruiters/agents/NCAA compliance people
out there maybe you can add more...


[Edited by Dan_ref on Oct 19th, 2002 at 09:25 AM]

Why do we expect more out of coaches than ourselves?
 

Many in this thread have asked--explicitly or otherwise--what kinds of priority sets the coaches at the major programs have when they are producing numbers like the ones in the referenced article. Responses have varied: "ultimately the kids have to take responsibility as adults," "parents have to instill these values earlier; coaches can't be expected to do the impossible," "of course the coaches are just in it for the money." Despite the quotation marks, I'm paraphrasing here, but I think I'm capturing the spirit of the responses nevertheless.

There are grains of truth in all of these. But they all miss the big picture. What is so striking to me is not the low graduation rates. What is striking is the collective incredulity on the part of almost everyone whose reactions I have heard or read about when they see this or a similar article. The monster that is major semi-professional, er, college sports didn't just pop up. We created it. You and I. Every time we tune in to March Madness. Every time we pay $35 to get into a BCS conference football game. I know I'm guilty. Last Saturday I went to watch my favorite football school play. They're paying some of their players, and I know this. And yet I continue to give tacit approval to the system by showing up in colors (By the way, if you wonder if your favorite college team is cheating, you need only ask yourself the following question: Are they winning?).

We as fans have a nearly insatiable desire for coverage of these events. On at least some level, we realize that this interest means big money. We don't have any problem looking at what kinds of actions greed motivates in the non-sporting world, and in some cases it may even generate genuine outrage (Enron and WorldCom). But when it comes to decadence in the world of college sports, we feign disbelief. Maybe it's because we want to hold onto the notion that there is still something pure in college athletics. Well, there still is plenty that is pure in college athletics, but what there is, you will not see on television, which is why it's still pure. Television is, after all, the food that this monster feeds on.

I confess I am too weak to do what I know that I should do; what I would do if I had the courage of my convictions: never watch another college football or basketball game on television. Not even attempt to ever make it to DI basketball as an official. Because to do these things is to give tacit acceptance to a system that makes a farce out of the ideals of the university, and mocks, directly and indirectly, all of the people that study and teach in it. But I went to college at a basketball school. And I grew up in a state where college football is king, and those passions run deep. And I want to work that 9pm Wednesday ACC game of the week on ESPN someday.

But I am addicted...to watching those games, and pursuing this dream. So at this point, my tack is simply not to gasp when I see that Cincinnati doesn't make a habit of signing a young many to play basketball, and helping him to get a degree there within six years. I recognize that in many cases it's a joke to call these athletes students.

That doesn't mean I think they're bad people, the players or the coaches. They're simply products of a system. They are products of a system that I have created. So when I make value judgments on these people, I am looking in the mirror. I hope as fans we can all recognize our part in this tragedy, and act individually to change its ending.

jbduke
 

Why do kids go to college? <b>To get a job</b>. If they can get one that pays or has security that allows them to not finish, they will do that. If people could find out a way to become a lawyer or a doctor and make the same kind of money, they would. Just like anything in life, people tend to have unrealistic expectations. Whether it be a business deal or what they will do with their education, not everyone thinks of the reality that life will bring them. When I went to college, most of my peers thought they would roll of the graduation ceremony with a $40,000 a year job no matter what. What many of them found out that they might be lucky to make $30,000. And that is why many are going back to school because what they thought about the real world was not so true. Well unfortuanately basketball players are the very same way. Everyone thinks they have the talent to be a first rounder and make that guaranteed money. But they do not see all the players that do not make it. Or the Stacy King that was a first rounder but sat the bench his entire career. Or even the Arkansas team that won the National Championship and the entire starting 5 went pro regardless of experience. What about the great Duke teams or UNLV team? How many pros are off those two teams that played one of the classics?

We are in a Sportcenter and video game age. We see the highlights or the name in the game or on the cover, but do not see the hard work it took to get there. Not much differnet than officiating if you think about it. ;)

Peace