The New York Times wrote an interesting story this week, about how Auburn University football players who have not exaclty been going to their classes.
Now that fact is not shocking at all. College students outside the Ivy League are not exactly known for their attendance records or punctuality. This is nothing new. Beer and sleep being the two best friends of every college Freshman, and you can expect the first few years of general studies to include a few absenses. But you also shouldn’t expect to be receiving outstanding academic honors.
Here is where it gets interesting. It seems that Auburn players have been “receiving high grades from the same professor for sociology and criminology courses that required no attendance and little work.”
A graphic popped up on James Gundlach’s television during an Auburn football game in the fall of 2004, and he could not believe his eyes.
One of the university’s prominent football players was being honored as a scholar athlete for his work as a sociology major. Professor Gundlach, the director of the Auburn sociology department, had never had the player in class. He asked the two other full-time sociology professors about the player, and they could not recall having had him either.
Not surprisingly, “among Division I-A football programs, Auburn trailed only Stanford, Navy and Boston College and finished just ahead of Duke” in rankings of academic performance.
Seriously. Anyone out there actually believe that Auburn football players are on the same academic plane with Duke and Stanford? If so then I have the strange feeling you live somewher in Alabama. Either that or somethings in the water.
Among those caught off guard by Auburn’s performance was Gordon Gee, the chancellor of Vanderbilt, a fellow university in the Southeastern Conference and the only private institution. Vanderbilt had an 88 percent graduation rate in 2004, compared with Auburn’s 48 percent, yet finished well behind Auburn in the new N.C.A.A. rankings.
Can you spell s-a-n-c-t-i-o-n-s? Well, you and I can… not sure about the Tigers though.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Josh Centor // Jul 18, 2006 at 7:18 am
While these allegations are about as serious as they get, we need to make sure that we don’t make generalizations about college sports and student-athletes. The vast majority of student-athletes are in school to learn and get an education. Stories like this sully the reputation of all 360,000 NCAA student-athletes. While it’s important to recognize the negative stories, there are an immeasurable amount of positive ones we never hear about.
2 eric // Jul 18, 2006 at 1:49 pm
Very true, and it’s not as if I blame the athletes themselves, for the most part they are never to blame. In most cases the schools are put in charge of making decisions in the best-interest of the kids, who are too young sometimes to make the right ones themselves. If the schools are giving them the easy road and bending the rules for them, it is 100% on the school in my opinion.
But for every good story that is not in the news, there is probably another rule broken by a school in order to appease the alumni and field the best team possible, which also does not make the news. It only makes the news if they get caught. It is a two way street but I think that the bad makes headlines because deep down fans want all sports to be clean and pure.
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