Strikes me as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Once someone adopts this attitude, you can plunk their butt in a classroom, but it's basically a pointless exercise in carcass parking.
And when he craps out like 80% of young NFL quarterbacks, he can say, "you want fries with that?" Of course, he'll have to lose the attitude if he wants to keep the position. Fuck him and the horse he rode in on.
On the other hand, D1 football and basketball programs need to own up to their status as farm teams and pay their players openly; let them attend classes, or not, as they choose. The head-spinning hypocrisy's as bad as the Olympics. At least the IOC decided that it was OK to allow openly professional athletes, since they were competing anyhow.
Cardale just tweeted what the vast majority of students, athlete or not, think about their education on most days. Just replace "football" with "partying" or "dicking around" or "finding my future husband," and that pretty much sums up my students' belief system.
It's like Romney's 47 percent remark--an unsurprising non-revelation, a total "no duh" moment.
He is right. He is there employed (in all but name) as a sportsman. Why should he do something as unrelated to his main reason for being at university as as attending class? It makes as much sense as demanding that a Physics student turn up for ice hockey practice.
Like many of you, I don't disagree with Jones. He went to OSU to play football. He, and others like him, generate bazillions of dollars. Pay him a salary for playing football, and let him make his own choices about what he does with the rest of his time.
But the young are often poor at determining what they need for their future. For example, I confess that when I was a just-turned-17-year-old freshman, I resented having to take physics. I now see this was astonishingly narrow minded, since I was an astronomy major. This sad tradition continues: none of my current grad students can program computers since they didn't see the need for it and were allowed to neglect it when they were undergraduates, and now it severely limits their ability and usefulness to me as researchers.
But then, we may be comparing apples with oranges, since the pea-brain tweeting here can't even spell his name consistently. All it will take to negate his argument is one rough tackle.
As someone who was once forced to "tutor" football players, I completely agree with Jones. Those guys do not have the time to study or do any work, and they are simply, many of them, not prepared for the rigors of college anyway. It is very unfair that they have to squander the free education they are well and truly earning from their schools by trying to miraculously squeeze in the hours and hours and hours of study and hard work it would take for many of them (not all of them.....many of them) to pass.
I have long believed that the athletes who play for a given college should be allowed to take the actual college classes later----after their football career is over. They should get a credit for all four years and left free to do what they were essentially hired to do win games or matches for their schools.
That plan makes sense to me. Another option would be to have a farm system for football unconnected to higher ed, pay those players as well as the market will bear, and the let them use the money for college later if they so choose. I'd favor that one.
Also, the first thing I'd do if I were put in charge of my (or any university) would be to abolish all separate academic/student services for athletes. They'd get coaches and trainers (preferably paid no more than professors and support staff for other programs -- and that's still a concession, since athletics are not part of the core mission of the university), and they could use the same academic and student services as everyone else.
I've got many students who struggle to juggle full-time work, family commitments, and school. They're every bit as overstretched as the athletes, and it doesn't end at the end of the season. Some of them should almost certainly be going part time, or even taking time off, but they don't, often because their funding, too, depends on full-time status. But there's this big, expensive separate support system just for athletes, parallel but not equal to a badly-stretched support system for everybody else. Why not have just one, and treat the athletes like anyone else trying to juggle too much. I know, I know; the NCAA wouldn't approve. And the athletes are being exploited in a very direct way by the college, which probably owes them something. I'd vote for acknowledging their semi-pro status and ceasing to exploit them by shutting down the football program. If they actually want to come to college to learn (and can do the work) at any stage in their lives, great; they're welcome. If they only want to play football, let them do that, in the pros, semi-pros, a recreational league, as high school or Pop Warner coaches (assuming we don't decide that the risk of brain damage is just too high to continue such activities), whatever.
I agree it is not fair they have a separate support system. That is to make up for the fact that their employer (the school) is requiring a 50 hour week from them, not allowed to pay them, and forcing them to take and pass classes on top of all that. I don't think paying them would work, allowing them to use the money as they like. There is something about their being students at the school that seems to matter. So let them be students at the school. Real students. That's important for some reason. They just don't have to take classes. They could get credit for a full year's classes for each year they play football. They can use those credits whenever they like. If they think, say, they could pass/have time for one class, let them take just one during that semester. And if a full course load for that particular point in college is five classes, they get credit for the other four to take at a later date. If they are not college ready, let the college give them tutoring designed not to pass them through college level classes, but instead to make them college ready.
I don't think the comparison to your (and my) other students, those who also are fully committed but have to take a full course load stands. Because those students are not bringing in tons of money for the college. Those students have not been "hired" by the same college that does not leave them any time for classes or classwork.
We could lament the fact that our society places such a high value on football, but that is a different conversation.
Football only brings in "tons of money" for a very few, elite programs. For every other school in the country, it's a money sink that everyone hopes makes up for it in alumni donations.
Second that, introvert.prof. In terms of moneymaking, football is a complete scam for most schools, but every state institution with a population of at least 25,000 seems to harbor ambitions to become one of the exceptions. My alma mater, for one, has suffered great lapses in its public image and squandered much, MUCH money pursuing just such a pipe dream...and I say that without fear of being "outed," because I think that's pretty much all of them.
While this attitude might make sense from the future Heisman winner, it makes no sense coming from a third string quarterback at a school banned from bowl games this year. While young Cardale has much to learn, first on the list is: learn to keep your mouth shut. Nobody heard of him before, now everybody knows he's an idiot.
Strikes me as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Once someone adopts this attitude, you can plunk their butt in a classroom, but it's basically a pointless exercise in carcass parking.
ReplyDeleteAnd when he craps out like 80% of young NFL quarterbacks, he can say, "you want fries with that?" Of course, he'll have to lose the attitude if he wants to keep the position. Fuck him and the horse he rode in on.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, D1 football and basketball programs need to own up to their status as farm teams and pay their players openly; let them attend classes, or not, as they choose. The head-spinning hypocrisy's as bad as the Olympics. At least the IOC decided that it was OK to allow openly professional athletes, since they were competing anyhow.
Anther stellar performance from a student-athlete.
ReplyDeleteCan we stop pretending they're students now?
Hell, this one's barely an athlete at OSU. He's their third-string QB and has yet to play a down.
DeleteCardale just tweeted what the vast majority of students, athlete or not, think about their education on most days. Just replace "football" with "partying" or "dicking around" or "finding my future husband," and that pretty much sums up my students' belief system.
ReplyDeleteIt's like Romney's 47 percent remark--an unsurprising non-revelation, a total "no duh" moment.
He is right. He is there employed (in all but name) as a sportsman. Why should he do something as unrelated to his main reason for being at university as as attending class? It makes as much sense as demanding that a Physics student turn up for ice hockey practice.
ReplyDeleteYou will all ignore the extra "as"
DeleteWe ignore and forgive tpyos. See?
DeleteLike many of you, I don't disagree with Jones. He went to OSU to play football. He, and others like him, generate bazillions of dollars. Pay him a salary for playing football, and let him make his own choices about what he does with the rest of his time.
But the young are often poor at determining what they need for their future. For example, I confess that when I was a just-turned-17-year-old freshman, I resented having to take physics. I now see this was astonishingly narrow minded, since I was an astronomy major. This sad tradition continues: none of my current grad students can program computers since they didn't see the need for it and were allowed to neglect it when they were undergraduates, and now it severely limits their ability and usefulness to me as researchers.
DeleteBut then, we may be comparing apples with oranges, since the pea-brain tweeting here can't even spell his name consistently. All it will take to negate his argument is one rough tackle.
As someone who was once forced to "tutor" football players, I completely agree with Jones. Those guys do not have the time to study or do any work, and they are simply, many of them, not prepared for the rigors of college anyway. It is very unfair that they have to squander the free education they are well and truly earning from their schools by trying to miraculously squeeze in the hours and hours and hours of study and hard work it would take for many of them (not all of them.....many of them) to pass.
ReplyDeleteI have long believed that the athletes who play for a given college should be allowed to take the actual college classes later----after their football career is over. They should get a credit for all four years and left free to do what they were essentially hired to do win games or matches for their schools.
. Win games or matches for their schools. It's typo day!!! I think it is always typo day here for me!
DeleteThat plan makes sense to me. Another option would be to have a farm system for football unconnected to higher ed, pay those players as well as the market will bear, and the let them use the money for college later if they so choose. I'd favor that one.
DeleteAlso, the first thing I'd do if I were put in charge of my (or any university) would be to abolish all separate academic/student services for athletes. They'd get coaches and trainers (preferably paid no more than professors and support staff for other programs -- and that's still a concession, since athletics are not part of the core mission of the university), and they could use the same academic and student services as everyone else.
DeleteI've got many students who struggle to juggle full-time work, family commitments, and school. They're every bit as overstretched as the athletes, and it doesn't end at the end of the season. Some of them should almost certainly be going part time, or even taking time off, but they don't, often because their funding, too, depends on full-time status. But there's this big, expensive separate support system just for athletes, parallel but not equal to a badly-stretched support system for everybody else. Why not have just one, and treat the athletes like anyone else trying to juggle too much. I know, I know; the NCAA wouldn't approve. And the athletes are being exploited in a very direct way by the college, which probably owes them something. I'd vote for acknowledging their semi-pro status and ceasing to exploit them by shutting down the football program. If they actually want to come to college to learn (and can do the work) at any stage in their lives, great; they're welcome. If they only want to play football, let them do that, in the pros, semi-pros, a recreational league, as high school or Pop Warner coaches (assuming we don't decide that the risk of brain damage is just too high to continue such activities), whatever.
I agree it is not fair they have a separate support system. That is to make up for the fact that their employer (the school) is requiring a 50 hour week from them, not allowed to pay them, and forcing them to take and pass classes on top of all that. I don't think paying them would work, allowing them to use the money as they like. There is something about their being students at the school that seems to matter. So let them be students at the school. Real students. That's important for some reason. They just don't have to take classes. They could get credit for a full year's classes for each year they play football. They can use those credits whenever they like. If they think, say, they could pass/have time for one class, let them take just one during that semester. And if a full course load for that particular point in college is five classes, they get credit for the other four to take at a later date. If they are not college ready, let the college give them tutoring designed not to pass them through college level classes, but instead to make them college ready.
DeleteI don't think the comparison to your (and my) other students, those who also are fully committed but have to take a full course load stands. Because those students are not bringing in tons of money for the college. Those students have not been "hired" by the same college that does not leave them any time for classes or classwork.
We could lament the fact that our society places such a high value on football, but that is a different conversation.
Football only brings in "tons of money" for a very few, elite programs. For every other school in the country, it's a money sink that everyone hopes makes up for it in alumni donations.
DeleteI did not know that. Well, they obviously think the program is bringing in money through those donations......
DeleteSecond that, introvert.prof. In terms of moneymaking, football is a complete scam for most schools, but every state institution with a population of at least 25,000 seems to harbor ambitions to become one of the exceptions. My alma mater, for one, has suffered great lapses in its public image and squandered much, MUCH money pursuing just such a pipe dream...and I say that without fear of being "outed," because I think that's pretty much all of them.
DeleteWhile this attitude might make sense from the future Heisman winner, it makes no sense coming from a third string quarterback at a school banned from bowl games this year. While young Cardale has much to learn, first on the list is: learn to keep your mouth shut. Nobody heard of him before, now everybody knows he's an idiot.
ReplyDeleteEspecially unfortunate for him is the fact that he apparently cannot even consistently spell his own name......
Delete