"["some of those athletes had a second-grade reading level,"]" Topic

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This does not make FSU look very good.

Sad. VERY sad.

"Boys will be, apparently, 2nd grade level boys" Boobah Bowden

I have no love for Bobby Bowden, who left WVU for a place you "could win a national title". But I'm sure he never pictured his career closing in this fashion. I'm guessing this will get a lot uglier before the finish.

This was a huge problem in the seventies, with others taking the athletes' tests for them. The eligibility rules were changed and during the Saturday Day of the Week, when the starting line-ups were announced, the players' majors were announced along with their positions.

We've backslid again and it's time to stop giving classroom spots to people who aren't interested in an education.
University isn't supposed to be a minor league affiliate to the NFL so that the owners don't have to pay development costs.

JW

Many Universities could be tarred with that brush.

Can someone remind me why we pretend these guys are students and lift the ban on paying them for their talent?

Yeah, let's give the thugs and morons MORE money, and earlier when they're even less able to judge how to deal with the wealth. God help us!

I'm an instructor at a college where 40% of the students are athletes. The reading/writing level of the average student in my classes is SCARY. Even more scary is that I don't have many fundamental-level football, baseball, and basketball students in my classes! I hear horror stories from the instructors trying to teach 18 year old students basic multiplication tables!

I wish that athletics was extra-curricular. In many schools athletics is first, college classes are second. If athletes can't do school work (college is professional school dammit!) then society should figure out how to give them some other outlets so they can try to go pro. Take the school component out of it… hell, just pay them to play for the college team so they don't have to be bothered by coursework- at least that would be more honest. Municipal teams or something… college athletics is broken beyond belief.

"hell, just pay them to play for the college team so they don't have to be bothered by coursework- at least that would be more honest."

Absolutely. College athletics is a joke. Not to mention--if push come to shove--illegal in terms of anit-trust.

The kids could get paid and the colleges and untiversities would pay if it weren't 'against the rules.' Some will say that its some sort of internship like doctors and such. But that's BS. Hospitals don't want to pay to get the best student doctors; the best student doctors want to intern at the best hospitals. And if one of those hospitals wanted to pay more for the best student then they could; no reason other then economics that a student doesn't pull in 200k. But lack of pay for the athelete is due soley to the collusion between the institutions. If it were economics, why do you hear about so many universities paying players under the table? Becuase it's not; the money is there for the kids. The kids want it. The universities would spend it. But they can't becuase it's 'against the rules.'