Anonymous
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01-05-05 04:44 PM - Post#1910
For those of you who continue to champion giving athletic scholarships, the resignation today of Andy Geiger as AD at Ohio State must be sobering. This is a guy with an Ivy pedigree, who has now presided over as great a stench in both basketball and football as can be almost imaginable. As I noted about a year ago, when he fired O'Brien as basketball coach for a relatively minor violation (at least in comparison with what has come out with respect to the football team), that would not have occured if O'Brien had been the football coach and if he had not had two poor seasons in a row. Geiger was forced to defend the football program to his ultimate demise....and he now has gone down in flames.
No way to deny it---athletic scholarships are contadictory to the essential mission of any University. They reward excellence on the field only and penalize attention to excellence in the classroom. In the past couple of years, we have seen corruption in big time programs such as Ohio State and St. John's, high mid level programs such as Baylor, low mid level programs such as St. Bonaventure and LaSalle, and even low level programs such as Fairfield.
Giving athletic scholarships creates an inherent motive to cheat if you cannot succeed without cheating, and at a minimum creates tremendous pressure on administrators and admissions officers to overlook infractions and admit "students" who never have been, never could be, nor any intention of being students.
The system took down another decent man in Andy Geiger, whose legacy as an Athletic Director with integrity has been totally destroyed. I know the system will not change with the unbelievable amount of money involved in big time football and basketball, but nothing is worth risking the Ivies' reputation for integrity in academics.
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Chip Bayers
Professor
Posts: 7001
Loc: New York
Reg: 11-21-04
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Re: Annual Big Time College Sports Rant
01-05-05 07:11 PM - Post#1911
In response to
If you're going to start with the false assumption that the "essential mission of any University" is the same, then I suppose you can arrive at this conclusion. But as I've noted here before, there's very little if anything in common between a land grant, publicly-funded state university like Ohio State and an elite, privately funded school like Harvard, which could possibly lead you to conclude that they would treat athletes the same way if they both offered financial assistance tied to a willingness to play for the school's teams.
Every institution is different, and every institution is open to its own problems with athletes merely by having teams. You know very well, if you've been paying attention, that the Ivy League more than once in its recent past has had to deal with academic eligibility issues, even cheating and honor code violations, by its non-scholarship athletes. So it's not the scholarships, per se, that threaten integrity.
And your attempt to lump the La Salle or Baylor situations in with the Ohio State or St. Bonaventure problems is absurdly reductive and grossly unfair. Anyone with a passing exposure to logic 101 (in other words, anyone who attended an Ivy League school) should recognize how ridiculous it is to imply a causal relationship between an individual's status as a scholarship athlete and his involvement in murder or rape. You could remove scholarships tomorrow from every college and university in the country, and you wouldn't eliminate human failings or the status of athletes in America.
I'd respect your argument more if you were advocating removing athletics entirely from the groves of academia. But merely by rooting for your alma mater in basketball, you've compromised the integrity you so righteously espouse, haven't you? Your every cheer elevates the players onto a pedestal that's completely unrelated to the academic purposes of the University of Pennsylvania.
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Anonymous
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Re: Annual Big Time College Sports Rant
01-05-05 07:50 PM - Post#1912
In response to Chip Bayers
Frankly, I expected your response (the tone of which is completely unwarranted, but I've learned to expect that). Rather that respond with personal attacks about your intelligence, as you have done, let me address the specific issues.
(1) Notwithstanding the size of the University or whether it is public or private, the essential mission of any University is to educate. As usual, you attempt to employ disingenuous debating tactics to sidestep the point---just because big land grant schools have different interests as institutions does not mean they are different when it comes to the education of their students.
(2) Ivy League academic issues ARE THE SAME for athletes as for non-athletes. A non-athlete who is on academic probation has the same restrictions on his extra-curricular activities as a basketball or football player. I am aware of no instances where Ivy athletes have been accused of having people take tests for them, take payments from boosters, etc. The honor code violations I am aware of are for copying reports---something that many non-athletes also have been caught at. The issue is the same---that when you treat athletes differently (and not just in terms of admission) than everyone else, you accept a completely different level of behavior. This accounts for the St. John's and LaSalle student situations (which are NOT the corrupted part of the program...it was the administration coverups and acceptance that was) where players felt free to beat up or rape not only regular students, but female athletes because they were unable to accept anything other than getting what they want.
(3)St. John's, Baylor and LaSalle all involved the corrupted actions of the administrations to cover up crimes committed by players and indeed, make grossly unacceptable accusations against victims simply to avoid suspending players whose absence might cause those teams to lose. Please don't insult us (and yourself) by putting words in my mouth about "human failings" when the issue was not the crimes committed by the athletes but the attempted coverups and smears by college administrators and coaches. That directly ties into the ECONOMIC investment that the schools have in these players and that the coaches have in their jobs. It all relates back to money, and scholarships, since they are at the heart of the Big Time college sports system. Get rid of scholarships and all the players who have no business going to college have to play minor league basketball, which is the way it should be. Those who want a degree will have to earn it. Of course, this will never happen---indeed, the reverse is happening, now in college football with the BCS and eventually in college basketball too.
(4) Suggesting that rooting for my alma mater somehow is equivalent to institutional corruption might just be the silliest argument I have ever read in this site and its predecessors.
(5) I note that you say nothing about how a man like Andy Geiger ended up no better than Tark.
I will avoid commenting on the pompous and insulting nature of your post other than the above observations.
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Anonymous
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Re: Annual Big Time College Sports Rant
01-05-05 08:53 PM - Post#1913
In response to
I guess it might be at some peril that one enters into this annual scrum, but here I go anyway. It would seem that with the Olympics going "pro" there is less and less reason for any educational institution, true to it's mission, to try to maintain an inter-collegate athletic program. Evan at the Div. 2 or 3 level, coaches are compensated and hiring or firing is often based on their won/loss records; There doesn't seem to be any way to totally eliminate the influence of money. Our league has never been completely pure, only more pure. The European Sports Club model seems to offer the best potential; let students and nonstudents compete and be compensated on an ability basis. I'm just affraid the Ivy Institutions mught be the most likely ones to push for a move in this direction. 
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Anonymous
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Re: Annual Big Time College Sports Rant
01-05-05 09:00 PM - Post#1914
In response to
Why is it that every time I read your annual rants I think of the Simpsons episode "Lisa Goes to Washington" which ends with Lisa ripping the government system in her speech (after witnessing a bribe at the Jefferson Memorial...."One Nation, under the dollar, with liberty and justice for no one!") and Bart chanting "Cesspool! Cesspool!" in the background?
Once we all stop seeing things in stark black and white and realize that there are not only two ways to do this (the Ivy way and the non-Ivy way which is clearly evil according to you) I think we can have a respectful dialogue.
While I think all of your concerns are very legitimate, I think it would serve a better purpose to discuss how the Ivies could avoid these issues instead of throwing up our hands and saying "we'll be screwed" I think we are wise enough to come up with something.
Until then, I'll play Bart to your Lisa 
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Jeff2sf
Postdoc
Posts: 4466
Reg: 11-22-04
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Re: Annual Big Time College Sports Rant
01-05-05 09:07 PM - Post#1915
In response to
I know alot of people want to know what I'm thinking about this issue. But since we're doing animated cartoons, I'm gonna give you Southpark "I'm staying out of this one".
Well except for one question. What is a "land grant" and how is it different from an Ivy? Is it as simple as state school vs. private?
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Green Ghost
goober
Posts: 74
Loc: New York, NY
Reg: 11-22-04
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Re: Annual Big Time College Sports Rant
01-05-05 09:33 PM - Post#1916
In response to Jeff2sf
Technically, Cornell is a land grant school too, or at least part of it is, which is why you will, on occasion, hear opposing bands/fans chant "SUNY Ithaca" or "Public Ivy" at the Big Red. I don't know the specifics off the top of my head, nor do I have the time to look it up, but it is a specific kind of state school, I believe.
-The Ghost
| The preceding opinion is my own, and is not necessarily representative of the opinion of anyone else, but it could be, it should be, and it probably is. |
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light blue heavy
maximus
Posts: 164
Reg: 11-22-04
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land grant colleges
01-05-05 10:25 PM - Post#1917
In response to Green Ghost
fantastic question- totally a corharcol thing. He is probably posting a better researched, more trivia filled response as I write this.
Land grant colleges are a specific class of state universities mandated by the Morrill Land-Grant College Act of 1861 (see the short legislation at http://www.nal.usda.gov/speccoll/exhibits/lincoln/lincoln_morrill.html
Each state effectively got 30,000 acres per 1860 electoral vote, which the US government would purche, for "at least one college where the leading object shall be, without excluding other scientific and classical studies, and including military tactics, to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, in such manner as the legislatures of the States may respectively prescribe, in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions in life."
The best part about the bill is that it was signed by speaker of the house Galusha A. Grow and President of the Senate pro tempore Solomon Foot. Olde Tymey in the best way.
Trivia- NY State land speculators got the best deal in this of anyone in the country- they convinced the government to buy the land Cornell is on for $5.50 an acre (at 1863 prices!) That's over 10 times other states.
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The Lion King
Senior
Posts: 394
Reg: 11-21-04
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land grant
01-05-05 10:27 PM - Post#1918
In response to Green Ghost
For a quick summary of the 1862 "land grant" act, see
http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/rcah/html/ah_061400_morrilllandg.htm
The requirement for male students to participate in military drill continued through the World War I era. James Thurber wrote about his unsuccessful attempts to march in formation in "My Life and Hard Times."
(from the link, it appears that Southern schools cannot properly be called "land grant" colleges, though I wouldn't swear to this)
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Chip Bayers
Professor
Posts: 7001
Loc: New York
Reg: 11-21-04
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Matters of Tone
01-06-05 12:25 AM - Post#1919
In response to
Excuse me, but you and you alone set the tone here. Because this subject only comes up when you initiate it, and you do so every time - as you did again here - with a hyperbolic lecture on morality, which implies that anyone who disagrees with you is somehow lacking in moral judgment. I'm sorry, but screw you - we're allowed to not so respectfully disagree when you do that. And if you're going to hector from your "holier than thou" plane, you should have thick enough skin to handle it when some of us respond with sarcasm.
No matter how many times you repeat the claim that athletes in the Ivy League are treated just like other students, it won't be true. From the moment they are identified as a recruiting target in high school, Ivy athletes are treated differently than their peers - particularly those in the high profile, significant revenue-producing sports of football and basketball - and it continues throughout their career.
And no matter how many times you insist that the purpose of Harvard and the purpose of Ohio State are one and the same, you will be wrong. As the land grant explanations show, the primary reason those schools were created was to further economic pursuits - as opposed to the spiritual and intellectual goals behind the founding of the Ivy League schools. So you can't be appalled when those publicly-supported schools end up believing that part of their economic mission to the citizens who fund them is to provide the entertainment they demand, even when it comes at the expense of academics.
If the corrupting influence of money is the issue, it is not at all silly to suggest that by being part of the system, we condone it despite our lack of scholarships. In basketball, the League happily takes its piece of the $1 billion+ NCAA tournament money, year after year. It happily allows its teams to take ESPN's money for tonight's PU-Duke game. It happily allows Penn to take its piece of the Big Five cable television package from Comcast. But you can't be a little bit pregnant on this subject - some percentage of the League's annual CBS paycheck comes from the activities of the St. Bonaventure's and the St. John's of the world. Penn's piece of the Big Five contract owes something to those who "condoned" the phone card scandal at Villanova, and those who condoned/covered up the rape scandal at LaSalle.
If you are truly serious about this point, than to me the only honorable stance you can advocate is that the League not only refuse to grant scholarships, but refuse every dime of TV money offered to it. You can take the halfway step and drop down to DIII, but they get NCAA TV money too, don't they? Or you could run the sports as clubs with volunteer staff, only seeking to generate enough revenue to pay the electric bill and a few other incidental expenses. Or you could take the ultimate step and decide that intercollegiate athletics have no place in the academy.
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Administrator
Junior
Posts: 241
Reg: 11-08-04
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Re: Matters of Tone
01-06-05 01:37 AM - Post#1920
In response to Chip Bayers
Why are you guys talking to each other like this? It's ridiculous.
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Anonymous
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Re: land grant
01-06-05 03:55 AM - Post#1921
In response to The Lion King
Quote:
(from the link, it appears that Southern schools cannot properly be called "land grant" colleges, though I wouldn't swear to this)
After they rejoined the Union, Southern states took advantage of the Morrill Act. I know that Alcorn A&M (now State) was a land grant college founded by Mississippi's Reconstruction government in 1871. The post-Reconstruction legislature created Mississippi A&M (now State) in 1878. List of all 105 land grant colleges and universities
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Anonymous
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Re: land grant
01-06-05 12:43 PM - Post#1922
In response to
darn, i am visiting this site too little as i try to get my novel out the door...but y'all have answered the "corharcol" part of this issue ably. His reconstitution as "charcoal" seems to have filtered out his trivial productivity; perhaps I should reapply for my earlier incarnation and more felicitous sobriquet?
On the greater issue, scholarships do not necessarily defeat scholarship. Enough said.
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Anonymous
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Re: land grant
01-06-05 12:47 PM - Post#1923
In response to
Maybe not directly, but Big Money does without a doubt, and the scholarship system is an integral part of Big Money. Since no one yet has dealt with my point about Andy Geiger (a former Penn AD for those who don't know), I am attaching a US News article on Geiger from a few years ago....it is extremely ironic, to say the least, in light of his resignation. His key quote...."What do I do about the stench?" Accept it Andy, for you have no choice.
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/sports/articles/18bucks.htm
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light blue heavy
maximus
Posts: 164
Reg: 11-22-04
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Re: land grant
01-06-05 01:40 PM - Post#1924
In response to
apologies for the anachronism (anachropsuedonysm?), charcoal. I did not even realized that I had typed your previous moniker. Best of luck with your book: please let us know when it is published, so that we can take a look at what is going on intside that trivia-packed head of yours.
After reading it, I believe that half of us will start criticizing you for overworking some of your words: perhaps they are tired in the second half of the book, while the over half of your talented vocabulary sits on the bench. Others will complain about the book's tempo, which is far too slow. But in the end, most of us will probably be pretty ok with the result.
Anyways, is it instructive that the posters affiliated with Penn continue to argue over the scholarship issue, while the Princeton and Columbia posters content themselves with the history lessons?
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The Lion King
Senior
Posts: 394
Reg: 11-21-04
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Re: land grant
01-06-05 02:28 PM - Post#1925
In response to
Thanks for clearing that up. And it's interesting to see MIT on the list as well as Cornell. I had no idea.
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Chip Bayers
Professor
Posts: 7001
Loc: New York
Reg: 11-21-04
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Re: land grant
01-06-05 04:57 PM - Post#1926
In response to
First of all, based on that article and everything else I've ever read about Geiger, he was no Tark, as you misleadingly claimed in an earlier post.
As U.S. News reports, he arrived in a situation which was an utter disaster both financially and academically, at a school where the "booster problem" long pre-dated his arrival. The chief task he was handed was to turn a profit and fix the facilities - which he did. But as that article also makes clear, he significantly improved the academic standing of both the football and basketball program, as well as the entire athletic department.
You've offered up the "stench" comment with zero context; according to the article he said that shortly after he arrived there - NINE YEARS BEFORE THE ARTICLE WAS WRITTEN. According to U.S. News, over the intervening time he refused to buy into your ludicrous notion that he should "accept it, for you have no choice." In fact, he did have a choice, and he did clean up a great deal of the stench. Did he completely eliminate the endemic influence of boosters at Ohio State? No. The Clarett situation made that clear. Did he end the societal problems related to our elevation of athletes into heroes before they even reach high school? No, but then no one asked him to.
But if Geiger really did "go down in flames," as you claim (and I think that depiction is itself a gross distortion of what happened this week), it wasn't because he dirtied himself, as you imply. And it wasn't because he failed to take action - because he took a lot of it over the years, from raising the GPAs and graduation rates of the football and basketball programs, right through the firing of O'Brien for doing something that some people have suggested was morally right, even if it was NCAA rulebook wrong.
As a Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist wrote, Geiger's biggest problem in recent years was his "holier than thou" attitude. Sound familiar? In his hubris, he began to believe his own shtick, and that he had eliminated the problems rather than merely cut back on them. That prompted him to lash out repeatedly at Maurice Clarett like a Savaronola, only to be forced to admit in the end that Clarett might not be lying. Geiger didn't go down in flames; he went meekly, apparently embarrassed more by his own self-righteousness than by his institution's failings.
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Anonymous
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Re: land grant
01-06-05 05:30 PM - Post#1927
In response to Chip Bayers
I didn't "misleadingly" say anything. I said he ended up going out like Tark. He did. As for my "ludicrous" notion that he ended up having to accept that he could not clean up the "stench," that is precisely what happened.
One cannot debate with you...you either have a serious anger management problem or a paranoia that makes you feel threatened when someone offers an opinion contrary to yours. I have no clue how you seriously suggest that I am "holier than thou" when I simply offered my opinion, to which you respond viscerally with personal attacks that simply chill the discussion on this Board. I believe that even in here, where the majority are serious basketball fans, most believe that big time college sports is corrupt and we should not go that route. When a poster goes over the top like you always do, no one will want to post. I think you really need to do some self examination as to why you get agita from someone else's expression of opinions that disagree with your own. There certainly was nothing personal directed towards you in my original post, yet you clearly took it that way. That is not healthy.
That being said, you have never addressed how Geiger, who came into Ohio State with a mandate to clean up the program, leaves a broken man if it is not the case that Big Time College Sports is simply so corrupt that from any conceivable academic point of view that for the Ivies to even consider going that route is a serious mistake. This has nothing whatsoever to do with "societal issues" or opportunity for poor kids to get an education. Rather, it is all about money...which if you actually read the US News article rather than search for anecdotes taken out of context you would have realized. Every major college athletic program exists to make money or at least break even---that is irreconcilable with economic reality or a college's academic mission. The Ivies have every right to stay in Division 1 rather than drop to 3 as you suggest they must if I am to be analytically consistent because they do NOT insist on breaking even. They have greater student participation in athletics per capita than almost any major conference and they lose money on sports. Why on earth should they not accept what money they get from the NCAA? They do, however, split it almost equally. If any system gives a student athlete an opportunity to participate in college, it is the Ivy system.
When it comes right down to the issue between us though, it is purely that you for some reason feel threatened by my opinion. Indeed, through 3 posts of yours, all I have read is that I am holier than thou, willfully misleading, and making ludicrous arguments, among other more personal epithets. Through all of this, I haven't read your opinion as to the issue I raised in my first post. Do you realize this?
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Chip Bayers
Professor
Posts: 7001
Loc: New York
Reg: 11-21-04
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Re: land grant
01-06-05 10:09 PM - Post#1928
In response to
If I label your argument ludicrous, I am not labelling you ludicrous. When I label your argument misleading, I am not saying anything about your personal qualities. If I've chilled discussion, it certainly isn't evident from the volume or length of replies in this thread. So before you start telling me that I've got a problem with "anger" or "paranoia," I suggest you look in the mirror.
Please don't presume to publicly psychoanalyze me based on the words I write here. Do I enjoy vigorous online debate? Yes. And I'm not going to apologize for vigorously puncturing hyperbole by you or anyone else in the course of that debate.
I took nothing personal from your address in the initial post in this thread "To those of you who continue to champion giving athletic scholarships." But as one of those who has disagreed with you in the past on the issue, I did feel I was one of many who might respond to your spin on the Geiger resignation when we were addressed that way; that I happened to be the first didn't mean I took you to be directing your comments to me and me alone. I didn't (as others in this thread have) compare you to a cartoon character; in retrospect, dismissing your rant that way was probably the most appropriate response. My mistake, I guess, for trying to engage your posts substantively.
You labelled me "pompous" in an earlier post; anyone who wants a real lesson in the language of condescension and pomposity could start with your posts in this thread.
And there's nothing more pompous, or quite frankly, offensive, than lecturing someone they barely know about how "healthy" their posts are here.
---
As for your argument, such as it is: I'm confused about which unaddressed point about Geiger you want covered.
Is it the first one from your first post, when you claimed that Geiger,
"presided over as great a stench in both basketball and football as can be almost imaginable."
If so, I don't need to imagine a greater stench, because we've already seen much worse than what is alleged to have happened at OSU in recent years. While you're within your rights to make this claim, it leaves you to explain how the current situation is worse than what happened at Baylor, or worse than what happened at CCNY in the 50s, or worse than what happened at OSU before Geiger ever arrived there (just to name three examples).
Or was it your second assertion in that post, that Geiger's
"legacy as an Athletic Director with integrity has been totally destroyed."?
Once again, you're within your rights to believe that Geiger's decision to retire next June, at age 66, wipes out every ounce of integrity he earned during his tenure at OSU, Stanford, Maryland, Penn, and Brown. I reserve the right to respectfully disagree, however; for one thing, the continued success of Stanford athletics without a whiff of scandal or compromise of the university's academic reputation is a pretty strong legacy to leave behind.
Or was it your claim in your first response to me that,
"Andy Geiger ended up no better than Tark."
Or your amended claim that:
"... he ended up going out like Tark."
Either of which, until you back it up with specifics, can only be regarded as more hyperbole. First off, coaches and ADs are different animals under the system; one has direct relationships with recruits and athletes, the other doesn't.
But beyond that, the gulf between what Tark was penalized for doing over the years, (not to mention the behavior he was accused of but never punished for), and what Geiger did or did not do, is so vast as to be infinite. Can you point me to any instance in the current investigations at OSU where Geiger personally has been accused of an NCAA violation, or of countenancing one when he learned about it? Read the US News article again to see what Geiger did to improve NCAA compliance, and tell me how that compares to what Tark did during his coaching tenure at Long Beach, UNLV, and Fresno State.
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Anonymous
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Re: novel approaching
01-06-05 10:51 PM - Post#1929
In response to light blue heavy
I am having it vetted by one of our illustrious Ivy bbu.comrades whose efforts and insight I appreciate. LBH, your review is eerily prescient. High-falutin' vocabulary, but plenty of "word-shooters." A little slow at the start of the game (mimicking its nineteenth century venue) but picks up the pace by the 5 minute mark and starts raining buckets. A few stellar performances off the bench and a surprisingly decisive and contemporary 21st century twist of a victory. Hope it gets invited to the "Big Dance." Pre-pub review yesterday from Dartmouth grad who runs Harvard B School Press nicely laudatory, so I'm hoping I can get out of this law biz and return to my most important avocational interest, posting arcane tidbits on this site....
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mrjames
Professor
Posts: 6062
Loc: Montclair, NJ
Reg: 11-21-04
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Re: Annual Big Time College Sports Rant
01-07-05 07:44 PM - Post#1930
In response to
Since this is something that apparently happens annually, I'm just going to post something that I already posted on the issue, because it's reading period I'm actively seeking ways to procrastinate.
In the admissions process there are two major factors which play a role. Financial aid and acceptance. That is, money and open slots. One of these two is relatively limiting, and it's not money.
But the admissions slots have already been set aside. No matter what, you're getting 30 football players, 2-8 basketball players, 8-12 hockey players. Not using the relatively unlimited resource of money to maximize the limited resource of admissions slots is an error in economics.
Offering athletic scholarships is NOT a value judgment. anyone who believes that only need look at the economics of the situation to dispel those qualms. Offering athletic scholarships is a way of recognizing that there is a market for those athletes who are incredibly gifted on the field and in the classroom. You can't ignore the market. Well, actually you can, but you wind up coming no where close to fulfilling your maximum utility.
And that's what's so frustrating. In the end, the Ivy League believes that its superior product is enough to overcome the fact that it takes a passive stance toward intercollegiate athletics. By maintaining this belief they hamstring their athletic programs, primarily because they've adopted a sensationalistic cost/benefit analysis. "If we offer athletic scholarships, we will begin to see the same problems that plague all the other 'bad seeds' in intercollegiate athletics. We'll be perpetuating all that's wrong with the 'semi-pro' college game today." This convenient shelter provides the Presidents with an easy out--easy in the sense that adopting policies that recognize the complexity of maintaining a balance between athletic pursuits and the academic goals of the university is far more difficult than merely denying this and restricting that.
People love to praise the Ivy League for its athletic vision. They love to point to the gluttonous behavior of the mainstream college programs and beam proudly "That'll never be us." Well, I can honestly say that I have absolutely no respect for the athletic policies of the Ivies. None. [Revisionist history note: I believe that this was a bit overstated, but let's just say, I don't have a high level of respect for the way the Ivies treat athletics in general] And on this point at least, the economics and logic of the situation back me up.
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Anonymous
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Re: Annual Big Time College Sports Rant
01-07-05 08:09 PM - Post#1931
In response to mrjames
The Ivies do not have a policy against athletic scholarships. The policy covers all non-need-based aid.
There are thousands of non-athletes at Ivy schools who could have received merit-based free rides to other universities. They and their parents are willing to pay and/or borrow to attend a great and presigious institution.
I do not think you could change the scholarship policy just for athletes, and if you did, you could not change it just for basketball and a few other sports. A lot more is at stake than whether the basketball coach is able to recruit a few slightly better recruits now and then.
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Anonymous
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Re: Annual Big Time College Sports Rant
01-07-05 08:14 PM - Post#1932
In response to mrjames
The following is from Jim Donaldson's column in today's Providence Journal.
"In the wake of the tearful resignation of former Brown A.D. Andy Geiger as director of athletics at Ohio State, it's worth recalling that the troubles in Columbus didn't begin with the enrollment of running back Maurice Clarett.
Patriots fans should remember the controversy surrounding the academic credentials -- or lack thereof -- of linebacker Andy Katzenmoyer, a first-round draft pick of New England in 1999 who played just 24 games over three seasons for the Pats before injuries caused him to retire.
On the brink of being declared ineligible for the Buckeyes' 1998 season after recording grade-point averages of 1.72 or lower in five semesters, the "Big Kat" was required to attend summer school, where he took such courses as "Presentational Speaking," in which not one of the 22 students enrolled received lower than an A-minus; "AIDS: What Every College Student Should Know;" and then the truly tough one -- "Golf."
In addition, a failing grade Katzenmoyer had received in the spring of 1998 in a course entitled "Introduction to the Computer and the Visual Arts" was changed to a C-plus.
"Everybody has grades changed," Katzenmoyer told me in an interview at Foxboro in June 1999. "That's part of college." "
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Anonymous
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Re: Annual Big Time College Sports Rant
01-07-05 08:14 PM - Post#1933
In response to mrjames
Really, many slots are reserved for students with many different talents, including athletics. It's not an issue of slots, especially since there are "slots" for many athletes in non-revenue sports as to whom you are not proposing giving scholarships. What you really are saying is that we can maximize revenue by paying for players in sports where having better teams will increase attendance. That is the "market" to which you refer.
The "market" does not, as we are well aware, make moral value judgements. The "student" who is receiving a scholarship knows that his first obligation is to play ball, not to go to school---indeed, playing ball is what he is being paid for. If he stops playing ball, even if he needs to concentrate on schoolwork, he loses his scholarship, or the school is not getting the return it is paying for. Moreover, as long as we are looking at the market and return, with the exception of the P's, none of the Ivies will truly benefit on the court without major investment in facilities---no team with a 2500 seat high school level gym can compete with the big boys. Why invest in scholarships if it can't significantly improve the quality of the product or improve the school's bottom line.
As long as we're repeating ourselves (and I have consciously avoided the "slippery slope" argument here), scholarships really would only benefit Penn. I don't think Princeton, which recruits differently, would benefit as much and the rest of the league would be hurt on the bottom line. Thus, it will never happen in the Ivy League, and because I (along with Penn's administration) believe that Penn's best interests lie in staying Ivy, it will never happen at Penn.
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Chip Bayers
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Re: Annual Big Time College Sports Rant
01-07-05 11:35 PM - Post#1934
In response to
A scholarship isn't a job. It's indentured servitude. And the student receiving the scholarship has as much obligation to go to school as he or she does to play the sport - after all, if they flunk out, they lose the grant just as assuredly as they do if they stop playing.
Is the student athlete (no ironic quote marks, please - if they're registered for classes, they're students) required to report the proceeds of a scholarship to the federal government, and pay income and SS taxes on it?
Does the student athlete have the right of any other "at will" employee or contractor to quit and move to another employer in the same industry at any time he or she wishes - including when the immediate supervisor who offered the scholarship is fired?
Does the student athlete have the right to negotiate a better deal, for more money than his or her peers, based on talent, experience, need, or just good negotiating skills?
Can the student athlete retain a paid advisor (attorney or agent) to perform those negotiations, as other entertainers can?
Is the student athlete allowed to supplement his or her income however he or she sees fit, with other employment in the same field, or with a 2nd or 3rd or 4th job part-time job?
Can the student athlete organize with his peers and bargain collectively for better wages or benefits?
Is the student athlete protected by federal and state labor laws?
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Chip Bayers
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Re: Annual Big Time College Sports Rant
01-08-05 12:16 AM - Post#1935
In response to
You're right that a lot more than basketball recruiting is at stake. It's all well and good to talk in the abstract about families "willing to pay and/or borrow to attend a great and prestigious institution." Unfortunately, fewer and fewer who are willing are actually able, as a recent Economist article explains:
"Three-quarters of the students at the country's top 146 colleges come from the richest socio-economic fourth, compared with just 3% who come from the poorest fourth (the median family income at Harvard, for example, is $150,000). This means that, at an elite university, you are 25 times as likely to run into a rich student as a poor one.
"One reason for this is government money. The main federal programme supporting poorer students is the Pell grant: 90% of such grants go to families with incomes below $41,000. But the federal government has been shifting resources from Pell grants to other forms of aid to higher education. Student loans are unrelated to family resources. Federal tax breaks for higher education benefit the rich. State subsidies for higher education benefit rich and poor alike. At the same time, colleges are increasingly using financial aid to attract talented students away from competitors rather than to help the poor."
"Another reason may be “affirmative action”—programmes designed to help members of racial minorities. These are increasingly used by elite universities, in the belief that race is a reasonable proxy for social disadvantage, which it may not be. Flawed as it may be, however, this kind of affirmative action is much less pernicious than another practised by many universities: 'legacy' preferences, a programme for the children of alumni—as if privileged children were not already doing well enough out of the education system.
"In most Ivy League institutions, the eight supposedly most select universities of the north-east, legacies' make up between 10% and 15% of every class. At Harvard they are over three times more likely to be admitted than others. The students in America's places of higher education are increasingly becoming an oligarchy tempered by racial preferences. This is sad in itself, but even sadder when you consider the extraordinary role that the same universities—particularly Conant's Harvard—played in promoting meritocracy in the first half of the 20th century."
This is why ranting against athletic scholarships is almost besides the point. Our alma maters have a fairness problem right now, in the 21st century, at least compared to the goals they set for themselves in the 20th century, when those of us who are "older" alums matriculated as undergraduates. And yet our athletic programs continue to operate as if nothing has changed.
Address the greater fairness issue, and maybe we don't even need to talk about whether financial grants should be directed specifically to athletes. Princeton's "no loan" policy is a good first step in that direction, but of course one they are more capable of implementing than some of the other schools in the league.
[I've edited this to include a link to that Economist survey:]
http://www.economist.com/world/na/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3518560
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Big R&B Truth
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Re: Annual Big Time College Sports Rant
01-08-05 02:33 AM - Post#1936
In response to Chip Bayers
Quote:
"In most Ivy League institutions, the eight supposedly most select universities of the north-east, legacies' make up between 10% and 15% of every class. At Harvard they are over three times more likely to be admitted than others. The students in America's places of higher education are increasingly becoming an oligarchy tempered by racial preferences. This is sad in itself, but even sadder when you consider the extraordinary role that the same universities—particularly Conant's Harvard—played in promoting meritocracy in the first half of the 20th century."
The notion that Ivy League Universities are becoming more of a refuge of the rich and privileged then 100 years ago is laughable at best. The Ivies have always been a haven for the rich. Even worse, until the second half of the twentieth century, many Ivies restricted the entry of members of the “wrong ethnic groups”.
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Big R&B Truth
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Re: Annual Big Time College Sports Rant
01-08-05 03:13 AM - Post#1937
In response to
Quote:
The following is from Jim Donaldson's column in today's Providence Journal.
"In the wake of the tearful resignation of former Brown A.D. Andy Geiger as director of athletics at Ohio State, it's worth recalling that the troubles in Columbus didn't begin with the enrollment of running back Maurice Clarett.
Patriots fans should remember the controversy surrounding the academic credentials -- or lack thereof -- of linebacker Andy Katzenmoyer, a first-round draft pick of New England in 1999 who played just 24 games over three seasons for the Pats before injuries caused him to retire.
On the brink of being declared ineligible for the Buckeyes' 1998 season after recording grade-point averages of 1.72 or lower in five semesters, the "Big Kat" was required to attend summer school, where he took such courses as "Presentational Speaking," in which not one of the 22 students enrolled received lower than an A-minus; "AIDS: What Every College Student Should Know;" and then the truly tough one -- "Golf."
In addition, a failing grade Katzenmoyer had received in the spring of 1998 in a course entitled "Introduction to the Computer and the Visual Arts" was changed to a C-plus.
"Everybody has grades changed," Katzenmoyer told me in an interview at Foxboro in June 1999. "That's part of college." "
There is a difference between Katzenmyer and Clarett. Katzemyer played for John Cooper, who was hired before Geiger became AD. Geiger allegedly fired Cooper because of incidences such as this. In reality, if Cooper could beat Michigan he would still be Coach. Never the less there were many cases much worse then Katzemyer. I was at Ohio State during the late 80s and early 90s before Geiger was AD, and I taught undergraduate classes there. I have this one vivid memory of walking by a dorm where one of the members of the football team was showing off this really nice new sports car off to his friends. Perhaps the guy had rich folks or something, but it really made me wonder where he got that car from.
Geiger brought in Jim Tressell to supposedly clean up Cooper’s mess. Clarett was Tressell’s recruit. Still nothing seems to have changed except that Tressell has a job for life because of a national championship and a winning record against Michigan.
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Chip Bayers
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Re: Annual Big Time College Sports Rant
01-08-05 02:38 PM - Post#1938
In response to Big R&B Truth
You're right, insofar as your strawman goes. But the article itself doesn't go so far as to claim that the Ivy League schools are more of a refuge for the rich than they were in 1905. It merely argues that the schools are now betraying the meritocratic ideal of Conant, which wasn't fully adopted at most of them until the 1960s.
Conant's quest didn't even begin until the 1930s, and, flawed as it was because of his decision to use the SAT as his main tool for replacing the aristocratic elite with an intellectual one, it did lead to the removal of those racial, ethnic, and religious quotas.
Nicholas Lemann's book The Big Test provides a useful history of this, even if you don't agree with all of his conclusions. The Economist article appears to draw heavily on one of his arguments: that as soon as they started to make money, the meritocratic elite of the 60s and 70s began to act like the old aristocracy, gaming the admissions process to favor their kids. Which is how you end up at Harvard with legacies 3X more likely to get in today than non-legacies.
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Big R&B Truth
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Re: Annual Big Time College Sports Rant
01-10-05 03:38 AM - Post#1939
In response to Chip Bayers
Here is why I find this rant against Ivies giving preferred admission to children of alumni silly. According to the article's statistics, 85 to 90% of each incoming class consists of non legacy students. So it’s hard to argue that other people aren’t being denied access. But here is the more important point. Throughout the entire world, human activities are influenced by familial, tribal or clan ties. Being a member of certain group helps, whether it is getting a position in law firm, obtaining a union card or obtaining better terms in a livestock trade. Alumni organizations are not that much different from tribal groups in other parts of the world. So why is it not so surprising that Universities give preferences to members of these groups? The affordability of higher education is the real problem, but this is also true with health care, housing (in certain areas of the country) and many other things. Still after 25 years of the republican revolution, why is anyone surprised that this happened?
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Chip Bayers
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Re: Annual Big Time College Sports Rant
01-10-05 03:19 PM - Post#1940
In response to Big R&B Truth
No one's ranting about legacies. They're ranting about the larger problem, of which legacies are only a symptom.
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Anonymous
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Re: Annual Big Time College Sports Rant
01-10-05 06:03 PM - Post#1941
In response to Chip Bayers
Do you have any statistics to back up your hypothesis that there is a larger percentage of legacy admissions at Ivy institutions now than either in the 1940s or 1960s, when you suggest the "meritocracy" period was at its height?
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Chip Bayers
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Re: Annual Big Time College Sports Rant
01-10-05 07:57 PM - Post#1942
In response to
It's not "my hypothesis," it's The Economist's, channeling Lehmann.
And their hypothesis isn't about legacies, but about who has access to the elite schools these days, including the Ivies. Legacy admits are cited as but one piece of evidence.
I don't personally have at my fingertips complete admissions stats over the years for the various schools. But just to illustrate with some data found on the Web in a quick search: according to an article in the Yale Alumni magazine, Yale, which started the meritocratic process later than some of the other schools (after Kingman Brewster became president) admitted 53% of all legacy applicants in 1961. By 1970, that number had dropped to 37% - still higher than the overall admit rate, but a significant change nonetheless. As a result, the share of the freshman class made up of legacies dropped from 24% to 12% in less than a decade's time.
Remember that the overall admit rate in the Ivies through the early-mid 1980s, when applications exploded, was significantly higher than it is today. In 1980, for example, Yale admitted 26% of all applicants; last year it was 11.4%. At Harvard last year it was under 10%.
So if legacies at Harvard are now getting in at up to a 40% rate, as The Economist suggests, it appears that the "legacy gap" - the difference between general admissions and legacy admissions - is significantly greater than it was during the meritocratic peak years.
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Anonymous
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Re: Annual Big Time College Sports Rant
01-10-05 08:26 PM - Post#1943
In response to Chip Bayers
Even if that 40% number is true, and I have no idea whether it is, I'm not sure that it is meaningful. Isn't it logical to assume that children of Harvard grads are both more likely to have superior intelligence and an educational background which is more likely to result in acceptance to a school like Harvard than someone in the general population? I'm always dubious about this line of thinking (yes, I read the Economist too) because it takes everything in the abstract. Are these legacy admits kids who are getting turned down at other Ivies while being accepted to Harvard? That clearly was the case in the old days...I'm not sure it is now. I think now the status as legacy gets you in when you are in that great pool of qualified, but there are many with similar qualifications. I think that it is within the realm of acceptable discretion for colleges to give the nod, all other things being equal, to a legacy. I certainly don't see it as evidence of general unfairness, which you somehow use to justify your argument that there should be special admissions and special scholarships for athletes since the Ivies are unfair to begin with (which, of course, was the original topic of this thread).
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Chip Bayers
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Re: Annual Big Time College Sports Rant
01-10-05 11:06 PM - Post#1944
In response to
There already are special admissions for athletes - so special, in fact, that Bowen felt compelled to produce an entire study complaining about them.
And I certainly don't think it's logical - in fact, I think it's naive - to assume that the children of Harvard graduates are likely to be smarter than the average applicant.
The point about the legacy admits - when understood in context with the other evidence, like the financial data - is that (as Lehmann suggests) your prototypical Harvard graduates (along with most of us here on this board) are part of a rather narrow upper middle class and upper class socieconomic group, an educated elite which has a particularly sophisticated insiders' understanding of how admissions and financial aid works today in the Ivy League and its peer group of schools - and how to take advantage of that knowledge.
It's not that the parents who went to Harvard are so smart. It's that the parents who went to Harvard are much more likely to know which suburban towns to move to if they want their kid to have the best chance to go Ivy, or which prep schools to send them to if they need to do a year of postgrad. Or to know that if you spend enough money and time, you can manipulate SAT scores through test prep [scores that are already skewed through cultural bias]. Or to know how to beat the financial aid system by hiding college savings, so that they can lessen loan burdens in advance, in an era when loans make up a huge piece of the aid package for anyone who isn't dirt poor. There are other examples, but you get the point.
This is all a fairly recent development - the influence of test prep and the changes in fin aid are less than a generation old - but as a result, whether you're an athlete or not, if you don't come from a background which has an innate understanding of this process (one shared by all your peers and all your peers' parents), you're at an immediate disadvantage in admissions and Ivy affordability.
Thus Lehmann's argument (now echoed by the Economist) that the old aristocracy which once ruled the Ivies - right families, right schools - has been replaced by a new one which also excludes unfairly. Not with racial and ethnic quotas, but with more opaque barriers, which are nearly invisible if you don't come from that educated elite. But they're just as insidious, especially if you believe (as James Conant or Kingman Brewster did) in the ideals of the Ivy founders: namely, that the role of these colleges should be to identify the very best to develop into the nation's, and the world's, future leaders. Not just the best from a particular subgroup.
Now, why are we talking about athletic aid in this context? Because [I believe] there is less and less of a correlation between interest/achievement in athletics and that more narrow socioeconomic background from which we're drawing the bulk of our general student population. If you're looking for a good high school athlete who is also smart, and he doesn't have the right parents or attend the right high school, he's got multiple disadvantages in admissions that weren't present even 25 years ago. Combine that with the increasing sophistication of major college sports recruiting, which makes it harder and harder to find the diamonds in the rough the Ivies used to find, and our coaches' recruiting process has had to become painfully attenuated in just few short years. And yet in basketball, we're still pretending to compete at the same level as we were 25 years ago, while using ever-more restrictive recruiting rules like the AI. Which, as far as I can tell, appears to accentuate the socioeconomic disparities in the general admissions process (by emphasizing even more the role of the flawed SAT, for example).
As I said in a previous post, take steps to correct the unfairness in admissions and affordability for the entire student population, and you've implicity helped athletics. Another possible course would be the development of grants available to all students who enrich campus life, and dedicate a portion of those to student athletes.
I'd like to see our League be able to produce multiple successors to Bill Bradley, great athletes who are also great citizens and great role models. But I think in our misplaced elitism we've painted ourselves into a corner, with a system where the probability of that happening appears less and less likely every year.
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Anonymous
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Re: Annual Big Time College Sports Rant
01-11-05 01:22 PM - Post#1945
In response to Chip Bayers
Come on....your theory (forgive me for using the term "hypothesis") is that because (as an example) Harvard grad parents have knowledge of financial maneuverings, test taking skills, and where to live, they have a great and unfair advantage over the great unwashed in getting into Harvard (before you go nuts, I fully understand that "great unwashed" is my term and not yours). You call me naive---I call you paternalistic and reaking of p.c. thinking (this coming from an unabashed liberal). How can you say with a straight face that 99% of the applicants applying to get into Harvard don't have precisely the same knowledge of financial, educational and test taking maneuvering that the legacy children have? That basic assumption in your posts comes out of thin air. Frankly, admissions offices bend over backward to admit those who do NOT come from the backgrounds you describe. The students who may be prejudiced by legacy admissions aren't the poor kids who are the first from their families to go to college---rather, they are the kids who might be legacies at Penn and Brown. As I said before, and it is a point you ignored, the legacy admissions don't admit unqualified students. Rather, in this day and age, where there is a great pool of similarly qualified students, the legacy will get the nod. Of all the things that you mention that are wrong with college admissions and athletics, I think legacy admissions are an angstrom among miles.
I'm all for getting rid of the AI. What do you suggest in its place to ensure that there won't be gross academic cheating? Because without restrictions, there will be admissions of athletes who simply cannot do the work at an Ivy institution. If you include athletic grants in aid, that will only exacerbate the pressure to admit athletes who can help the bottom line.
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light blue heavy
maximus
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Re: Annual Big Time College Sports Rant
01-11-05 02:58 PM - Post#1946
In response to
For a more interesting and more in depth discussion of test prep and the SAT (I mean, there is actual evidence in this) I would refer you to Malcolm Gladwell's sketch of the life of Stanley Kaplan (of Kaplan test prep, which stretches back to the 50's).
http://www.gladwell.com/2001/2001_12_17_a_kaplan.htm
Though I am interested in hearing how a conversation of a bunch of Penn supporters focusses on Harvard parents, I will assume it is because many Penn students had a parent that went to Harvard, as I did.
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Chip Bayers
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Re: Annual Big Time College Sports Rant
01-11-05 04:44 PM - Post#1947
In response to light blue heavy
We're referring to Harvard because The Economist referred to Harvard. It's just a proxy for the rest of the "elite" schools, Ivy and non-Ivy alike.
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light blue heavy
maximus
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Re: Annual Big Time College Sports Rant
01-11-05 05:44 PM - Post#1948
In response to Chip Bayers
Chip, thanks for correcting the link: I put a period on the end of the link. Why? I don't know.
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Phil
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Re: Annual Big Time College Sports Rant
01-12-05 01:32 AM - Post#1949
In response to Chip Bayers
"The rise in legacies is merely an indicator of the bigger problem identified by Lehmann and others, and reiterated here by the Chuckster. Or as I said earlier, a symptom."
But are legacies rising, they certainly aren't at Princeton?
"We're referring to Harvard because The Economist referred to Harvard. It's just a proxy for the rest of the "elite" schools, Ivy and non-Ivy alike."
It may be a proxy but is it representative? For example the Economist article stated that the median family income of Harvard students is $150,000 whereas 50% of Princeton students get financial aid.
Regarding someone's earlier comment about the likelihood of athletes becoming future leaders a la Bradley I think the situation is better than he fears. Of the athletes I have either taught or coached several are showing promise in this regard so if that's representative then things are hopeful. Some examples from the last few years include two working at the White House, one working in the Edwards campaign, one helped found a missionary school in the poor area of Nairobi (while still a student!), one is a trustee of Princeton University.
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Chip Bayers
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Re: Annual Big Time College Sports Rant
01-12-05 02:37 AM - Post#1950
In response to Phil
Phil, you're missing the point - none of your athletes were college basketball All-Americans - high profile athletes who became high profile professionals and high profile citizens. That's what I meant.
Also, telling me what the aid distribution is at Princeton doesn't tell me what the median income is for its students' families. Anyway, 50% not receiving aid is a very, very high percentage, suggesting that the median family income is well into 6 figures, at the very least.
Finally, the Economist article suggests legacies are rising, and not just at Harvard. Whether they are or not at Princeton doesn't necessarily change the greater point which Chuck describes.
BTW, what's your source for the claim that legacies are not rising at Princeton? And what's the admit rate for legacies versus general applicant pool, and has that changed up or down over the years?
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Anonymous
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Re: Annual Big Time College Sports Rant
01-12-05 04:20 AM - Post#1951
In response to Chip Bayers
If I recall correctly, at Princeton financial aid is available up to a family income of $140K...so, I'm not sure the figures for median income at PU are all that different than Harvard.
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Phil
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Re: Annual Big Time College Sports Rant
01-12-05 05:13 AM - Post#1952
In response to Chip Bayers
Quote:
Phil, you're missing the point - none of your athletes were college basketball All-Americans - high profile athletes who became high profile professionals and high profile citizens. That's what I meant.
That's setting the barrier rather high since that level of athletic achievement was always rare, although someone like Augie Wolf might have potential in that regard?
Quote:
Also, telling me what the aid distribution is at Princeton doesn't tell me what the median income is for its students' families. Anyway, 50% not receiving aid is a very, very high percentage, suggesting that the median family income is well into 6 figures, at the very least.
The cut-off for aid would have to be $150,000 to match that Harvard figure, which on average I'm sure it isn't.
Quote:
Finally, the Economist article suggests legacies are rising, and not just at Harvard. Whether they are or not at Princeton doesn't necessarily change the greater point which Chuck describes.
BTW, what's your source for the claim that legacies are not rising at Princeton? And what's the admit rate for legacies versus general applicant pool, and has that changed up or down over the years?
There has been a tendancy in the thread to lump the Ivies together and extrapolate from the Harvard figures to the rest, it seems to me on at least the point I mentioned that this generalization may not be warranted. Maybe it is PU that is the outlier but it also may be Harvard?
Regarding the legacy numbers one of my sources is the report of the undergraduate Admission Study Group presented in 98:
" • There have been decreases over the last decade in the representation of alumni children and recruited athletes in the entering class. Alumni children comprised 17.3 percent of the Class of 1992, compared to 13.1 percent of the Class of 2001 and 11.4 percent of the Class of 2002."
In an interview earlier this Rapelye said that last year's figure was 12.6%.
As I recall Bowen has data in his book going back to 52.
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Chip Bayers
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Re: Annual Big Time College Sports Rant
01-12-05 07:07 AM - Post#1953
In response to Phil
Doesn't sound like Princeton's an outlier, at least in terms of % of legacy representation. The Economist claimed that legacies across the Ivies were 10-15%; 12.6% would be right in the middle.
The Economist reported that, "Three-quarters of the students at the country's top 146 colleges come from the richest socio-economic fourth, compared with just 3% who come from the poorest fourth." The anecdote about median family income at Harvard was offered to illustrate this.
To your knowledge, is the Princeton student population an outlier in terms of that kind of income distribution? Is it an outlier in terms of being a haven for the children of the educated elite described by Lehmann?
As for Augie Wolf: he's not the kind of person I'm talking about. I'm talking about basketball players. Wolf didn't participate in a major sport, and as a result, accomplished as he might be, his "Q" rating wasn't and isn't ever going to approach that of Bill Bradley then, or Bill Bradley now. The question is whether the Ivies as currently constituted will ever again attract players who could even approach Bradley's stardom, which would be a prerequisite to becoming the kind of highly visible example of Ivy League public service and leadership that Bradley eventually became.
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Phil
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Re: Annual Big Time College Sports Rant
01-12-05 02:28 PM - Post#1954
In response to Chip Bayers
I'm not psychic, if you meant basketball player you should have said so, not 'athlete'. The chances of finding another Bradley are probably the same as a recruited basketball player for Duke changing his mind the week before school started and going to Princeton instead! The chances for another 'wizzer' White I would think are a lot better?
I regard making the USA Olympic team in Track & Field as a major sporting achievement, I would say that it's too soon to judge what someone who graduated in '83 might accomplish eventually.
Regarding the outlier comment that was addressed to the comment about 'rising legacies', i.e. the gradient not the actual level, stop 'baiting and switching'.
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Anonymous
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Re: Annual Big Time College Sports Rant
01-12-05 03:45 PM - Post#1955
In response to Phil
Frankly Phil, that is why I dropped out of this thread, which was started on the issue of Big Time college athletic corruption and the downfall of Andy Geiger. While Mr. Bayers keeps changing the subject and refuses to state a position of his own on anything (criticize, change subject and attribute all opinions to other sources), I would characterize his overall body of work here as espousing a relaxation of traditional admissions standards since they are unfair to those who come from working class or disadvantaged backgrounds----a theory Larry Elder has designated "The Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations."
http://washingtontimes.com/commentary/20040416-085250-2765r.htm
I am unalterably opposed to this line of thinking....whatever you may think of SAT's and GPA.
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Buckeye Quake
PhD Student
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Re: Annual Big Time College Sports Rant
01-12-05 04:10 PM - Post#1956
In response to
I can't believe you're quoting Larry Elder.
Who's next Ward Connerly? Or maybe another blathering self hater like Clarence Thomas?
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Anonymous
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Re: Annual Big Time College Sports Rant
01-12-05 04:34 PM - Post#1957
In response to Buckeye Quake
You're right----based on my background, I should be quoting a self-hating Jew.
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Chip Bayers
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Re: Annual Big Time College Sports Rant
01-12-05 05:20 PM - Post#1958
In response to Phil
What is the context of this entire discussion? Not just in this thread, but every time it comes up? Here's a hint: this is not a board devoted to discussion of Ivy League track-and-field. Or Ivy League fencing. Or Ivy League squash. Or Ivy League swimming.
I assume, on a basketball board, that when I talk about the athletes we want to attract to our programs, it is understood that we are talking about basketball players. And in this thread, I assume that when P38 decries the "disgusting" atmosphere of big-time college athletics, he's not talking about non-spectator, non-revenue sports.
I know you regard making the US Olympic track & field team as a major sporting achievement. So do I. Unfortunately, the American public doesn't, except for a 2-week period every four years. And their interest is confined to only a few events - the shot put not being one of them. Which makes Augie Wolf irrelevant to any discussion about whether the Ivies' collective plan for competing in "big time" college athletics these days is flawed.
Even if Wolf were a basketball player, he'd still be irrelevant, given the era in which he was recruited. He graduated HS in 1979 - before the impact of the AI, before the cost increases, before the changes in financial aid policies.
I apologize for any confusion I may have caused about the relative outlier status of Princeton's legacy gradient.
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Chip Bayers
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Re: Annual Big Time College Sports Rant
01-12-05 05:43 PM - Post#1959
In response to Buckeye Quake
I'm reminded of Bill O'Reilly. The creative twisting of my posts into arguments I haven't made, delivered simultaneously with an accusation that I'm the one doing the twisting, is so very Fox News.
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Anonymous
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Re: Annual Big Time College Sports Rant
01-12-05 06:09 PM - Post#1960
In response to Chip Bayers
Why don't you save us this argument---what precisely are YOU (not the Economist, not Lehmann, etc) saying? You have managed to twist a discussion about big time college athletic corruption into a discussion about Ivy admissions practices (with no fewer than 5 intermediary steps....always changing the subject when challenged). Do you actually have a point?
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Chip Bayers
Professor
Posts: 7001
Loc: New York
Reg: 11-21-04
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Re: Annual Big Time College Sports Rant
01-12-05 07:49 PM - Post#1961
In response to
There's the Bill O'Reilly in you again. On the attack, but not a shred of substantive argument. You've yet to offer anything more than bromides from your very first post in this thread.
If you think this discussion has been "twisted," and you feel the need to blame someone for it, don't blame me. Blame Brian Martin. It was Brian who first noted that this issue was about more than athletic scholarships. Thus our discussion about Ivy admission practices and financial aid, because it's integral to the question of whether we, as a league, can continue to compete in "big time" athletics. Specifically basketball.
Right now we can't. We are seen more and more every year as an anachronism rather than a leader in the NCAA. We've abdicated our leadership role in football, and the economic cost of that sport make it highly unlikely we will ever reclaim it. I don't want to see us do that in basketball. I think abdication is a betrayal of the mission of our universities. And secondarily, as a Penn grad, I see it as a betrayal of the basketball tradition established long ago at two schools in particular, Princeton and Penn.
The fact is, today we are nearly impotent in our influence over the structure of Division I basketball. It's symbolic that our greatest collective leadership "victory" in in the sport in recent years is a pathetic, defensive one, the preservation of the automatic NCAA tournament bid.
Given that the Ivy League presidents have yet to show any real inclination to address the fundamental unfairness of admission practices, restricting the socioeconomic group from which we can draw our recruits, and that they have taken no coordinated steps to address the financial issues (instead, we've seen schools like Princeton act alone, as they did on loans), my position is pretty simple: we need to get more creative than we are now about attracting basketball talent to the league, because our current policy is a failure. And the most practical way I see to do that is to discretely target the family financing problem.
I acknowledge this is only a patch on the bigger problem, not a solution to the institutional issues. I'm also not hung up on the label "scholarship," because I don't think it needs to mimic what other schools do, or be targeted at athletes alone. It could be a "campus enrichment grant" for all I care, for anyone who enhances university life outside the classroom. You run a soup kitchen in West Philly, you qualify. You play violin in the university orchestra, you qualify. You play varsity basketball and advertise the university on television, you qualify.
That's just one suggestion. I am sure there are better ones. But we're really not at a stage yet where offering more suggestions would be particularly helpful. We still have to get past the first step, which is getting the decisionmakers to acknowledge that our current approach, at least in basketball, is a failure. I think Bowen has, perversely, helped in this regard.
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Anonymous
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Re: Annual Big Time College Sports Rant
01-13-05 03:33 PM - Post#1962
In response to Chip Bayers
If I'm Bill O'Reilly, you're Rush Limbaugh.
Leaving that aside, if that is your focus, I am not in any substantive disagreement with you. I agree that Ivy financial aid and their pricing structure is out of whack and inequitable. I really admire what Princeton has done, although I don't believe that it is doable except for the Big 3 of endowments, Harvard, Yale and Princeton. I also think this kind of reform is unlikely given that the market reflects high demand for an Ivy education regardless of the cost. Unless reform is revenue neutral, it is unlikely to happen.
You may be also correct that financial considerations hurt Ivy basketball programs. As you know, I am against athletic scholarships or any other form of financial aid that is not based on need. Princeton would appear to have an advantage now since they can offer more extensive grants than loans (except for that strange "matching" rule) but time will tell on that.
As long as we leave it to financial matters, I think we are essentially in agreement. We are far apart if you are suggesting overhauling admissions standards....but I have not heard what you propose in that area---just that you think it's unfair.
See, when you actually state your postions rather than trolling, we can avoid 90% of a thread like this.
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Chip Bayers
Professor
Posts: 7001
Loc: New York
Reg: 11-21-04
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Re: Annual Big Time College Sports Rant
01-13-05 08:07 PM - Post#1963
In response to
The only troll here was your first post. You've gotten the reaction you wanted since then.
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Domer72
newbie
Posts: 29
Loc: Rural Iowa
Reg: 11-21-04
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Re: Annual Big Time College Sports Rant
01-14-05 02:05 PM - Post#1964
In response to
Are you saying that anyone (i.e. the Andy Geigers of the world) going into a D-1 Scholie program as an administrator is going to be corrupted?
I don't think it's that simple.
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