OT - CNN Article on NCAA athletes academic standards

I find myself more and more enticed by the model of the Ivies and the Patriot League, which has been somewhat adapted to the big-money D1 game at places like Stanford and Northwestern. Football teams made up of students who happen to be athletes, rather than athletes who have to be pushed through as students. Of course, there are the question of scholarships, but when you approach it from an ideological standpoint, it's interesting.

Look at the Stephen Ross Center over next to Yost. God bless Ross for giving the money, but that facility exists for very specific reasons: to create a place where athletes can be monitored doing their schoolwork, and where an army of tutors (and all of us knew at least one person who worked there) "helped" hopelessly overmatched students who legitimately couldn't write a compound sentence do work that could at least passably stand up next to students who got into the university through non-athletic channels. Never mind the fact they promised there would be hours for the general student body when it was built, which lasted all of about a week.

The problem is people don't want to give up the product these overmatched students put on the court, field, rink, etc. And athletic departments know they won't be able to fill their facilities and pay their bills without them. So we're stuck putting up a facade about "student-athletes," when in reality, we're fielding revenue teams of general studies and kinesiology students. As bad as those Carty articles were a few years back in the AANews, he had a point. And, unpopularly, so did Jim Harbaugh the first time he opened his mouth on the subject.

I'd like Michigan to actually walk the walk as a leading major public university and say they're going to field teams that are academically representative of and commensurate with their general student body, but the fact of the matter is there's too much money at stake not to do so.

Sure, but don't you think there should be a minor league at least for these athletes?  If they're talented, they definitely should not be spending their time getting an education they don't want.  That's the most bullshit thing about that requirement for kids to have to spend 3 years in CFB to go to the NFL.

Finally, after the establishment of a minor league, I feel like if all teams across the nation were to make these football and basketball players student-athletes instead of athlete-students, it would benefit us all academically.  No more kids on Stanford's team that could not hope to measure up in intelligence to a normal admit.

My guess is that after just having normal students playing the games, people would still watch and they'd still generate a lot of revenue. 

I was curious what an 8th-grade reading level was like after reading the OP.  It actually doesn't seem all that bad, if this list I Googled is any indication:

http://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/8th-grade-reading-list

If you can read those books, you can probably read a lot of college textbooks; they're not necessarily written in challenging language.  

Of course, that's just one skill.  If you can't write any better than at a middle-school level, then you've probably got problems.

We would not win many football games, then.

If every institution were to hold athletes to the same standards as non-athletes, elite schools like Michigan would be in trouble on the playing field.  (Maybe EMU would finally rise up and become a power?)  I'm not sure I'd want to go that far.

We do need to make sure our athletes are legitimately meeting the NCAA's standards, though.  There are lots of stories of athletes who "need a lot of work" to become academically qualified (as in, they'll have like 1.5 GPA entering their senior year) and what do you know, they miraculously make it.   It seems like you never hear of big-time recruits failing to qualify academically anymore, whereas in the age of Prop 48/16 it happened regularly.  Makes you wonder.

(+1: Insightful)

At that point, aren't we just whoring out the most storied institutions in America to be minor league football and basketball teams?

I'd rather see the death of "big time" college athletics in the sense that if you're trying to get to the NBA but can't get into college, then too bad to the NBDL you go.  If Division1 athletics becomes like Division 2 athletics (as far as the level of players), I'm okay with that.

" I wouldn't mind seeing a system where players are paid as employees and have four years of eligibility."

Exempt or non-exempt? We paying overtime?

Workman's comp claims?

We can fire poor performers?

Etc.