Sonia Sotomayor for USSC?

[Valmy]

Oh and of course I present my own very tiny study sample: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myron_Rolle

Graduating pre-med in 2.5 years while being an All-American safety is pretty sick.

[Valmy]

See, this is the basic problem with your position (and Malthus) you are looking at one ridiculous extreme, and then apply that in general to a group that is a thousand times larger tahn your cherry picked examples, and concluding that the problem is systemic.

Well Malthus did link to that book that seems to indicate that athletes at small Northeastern schools, including Ivys, are underperforming and that is surprising if true.

[Berkut]

Judging from the summary, that book does not argue anything at all what you are suggesting - that there is widespread cheating and some kind of systemic and serious problem with athletics degrading the mission of schools overall even outside the realm of the athletes.

And it is a rather obvious false appeal to authority to boot.

Shrug. I know that nothing will persuade you. Here's another article, a bit more in depth.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3860/is_200405/ai_n9391704/

More logical fallacy - the fact that your argument does not persuade and is not persuasive is not evidence that "nothing" will persuade me.

I would argue the reverse - your insistence that we extrapolate extremes into generalities while I argue that the general case is not really much an issue suggests that it is YOU who will not be convinced, regardless of the evidence.

Why you feel a need to take the argument to a personal level to begin with is rather telling, I think.

[Berkut]

If we are talking about drastic lowering of standards, my guess is that only frequently occurs in football and basketball at most schools.

As for it not being a representative sample of college football player intelligence, on the one hand you are correct that it is just a subset of those that go to the NFL. But would you really argue that there is a bias among college football players that the dumber ones go to the NFL?

No, but it is certainly the case that if you have NFL potential, then you are going to be able to find a college that will take you, so it is not at all surprising that if you only look at those athletes that make it to the NFL, they will have an overall average score lower than the body of athletes in general.

[Grey Fox]

I have made no arguments but I'm pretty sure nothing will make you change your mind Berky.

[Berkut]

Yes because those guys who have a shot at the NFL, and go to schools where that is a realistic possibility, simply have different priorities than the ones that do not.  I have a hard time imagining a football player at the average Division I FCS, Division II, or Division III school not knowing that his time playing football was over the moment his eligibility runs out.

Why does that matter? Doesn't it indicate that at least for those players with NFL potential, the whole student thing is a charade to get them on the field?

No, it shows that in the total set of NFL football players, they are on average not as bright as non-NFL football players. That could occur if only a small percentage of them are not actually as bright. That is how averages work.

And no, it does NOT suggest that the entire student thing is a charade, unless you can prove that even among the NFL players, there is an appreciable portion that never actually go to class and do student like things - in which case call the NCAA, because they investigate that kind of thing.

To the extent that this is a problem, there are already solutions and rules in place. Schools do in fact get into trouble, and there is a governing body to deal with this.

[Berkut]

I have made no arguments but I'm pretty sure nothing will make you change your mind Berky.

Why do I care that you are incapable of thinking objectively though?

[Grey Fox]

Cause you are giving & caring person

[Berkut]

See, this is the basic problem with your position (and Malthus) you are looking at one ridiculous extreme, and then apply that in general to a group that is a thousand times larger tahn your cherry picked examples, and concluding that the problem is systemic.

Well Malthus did link to that book that seems to indicate that athletes at small Northeastern schools, including Ivys, are underperforming and that is surprising if true.

Really? Why would you find that surprising?

Exceprt:

Just as Bowen and Levin's analysis of the problems in college sports begins with the admission of athletes into higher education, they launch their reform proposals by adamantly opposing special admissions, special financial aid, and special academic treatment for athletes. Their basic tenet is simple: "Players shall be truly representative of the student body." Bowen and Levin offer steps for ending the athletic subculture and integrating athletes into the student body, and also for allowing regular students to participate in college sports. If doing so results in lessintense and less-well-played intercollegiate contests, so be it, they write. Their "first principle" is that the "program in intercollegiate athletics is to be kept in harmony with the essential educational purposes of the institution." Every college and university in America trumpets a version of this principle; Bowen and Levin say that the time has arrived to stop paying lip service to this credo and to start implementing it. Education must come first.

They are looking at this from a pretty extreme position - not necessarily a wrong position, by any means, but something radically different from what we have now.

They are basically saying that there should not be "big time" college athletics at all. I can certainly understand that position, and find it much more intellectually defensible than the idea that there can and should be, but that somehow we should magically make it be all about students first.

You ahve to pick one or the other - you cannot have CBS paying the NCAA billions of dollars for showing the NCAA BBall tourney, and yet still insist that college athletics be all about academics first. It simply won't ever happen when in fact college athletics is generating billions of dollars a year in revenues, and represents a huge economic activity engine.

What I don't understand is the claim that there needs to be some systemic change, or that this change can come from the NCAA. The NCAA exists to exploit and control the very system that would need to be destroyed in order to make the fundamental changes they are talking about. But I do not even understand why anyone would insist on that - there is a trivial solution for everyone involved that works perfectly fine right now.

If you do not want YOUR school (if you are an administrator) to suffer these evils, then don't have bigtime college athletics. Walla, problem solved. If you don't like schools where tehre exists this culture of athletes, then choose another school for you or your kids - there are lots out there that do not recruit athletes.  Or go to one that does, but don't involve yourself in it - is anyone really arguing that some student at Stanford is harmed by the fact that they have a successful big time athletic program? I find that a little hard to believe, but even if you do not, then simply choose another school that more fits with your particular criteria for value.

Obviously, the more particular your criteria, the more restricted your choices will become, but that is true for all criteria you find important.

[Berkut]

The big time college sports thing is pretty uniquely American, right? Some in Canada as well, IIRC, but most of the world does not subscribe to the American system of college athletics - at least I don't think that is the case.

Which is, IMO, fine - there is nothing about big time college sports that is necessary to collegiate life, and I can certainly understand individual decisions made (as in teh case of the University of Chicago) to simply pass on the entire thing as an unnecessary distraction from the primary missions of higher education.

What I don't think you can do though, is have your cake and eat it as well. You cannot be engaged in the business of college athletics at the level it is in the US amond the D1 schools, while insisting that in fact for the athletes, it isn't about athletics. You cannot ahve big time college football, but run it like an intramural club. Maybe it would be nice if you could, but you cannot.

So you do your best - which is what we have now. To some degree (and it is a very small degree, numerically) there is this fiction of the "college-athlete". Someone who is there to play a sport, and he isn't really going to get an education. That is unfortunate, but I don't see anyway to do more than minimize it. So the NCAA passes all kinds of rules to do just that. They do not work perfectly, but short of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, I don't think you are going to do much better, at least systemically.

[alfred russel]

Finally, and again, this is such a tiny tiny minority I dont see it as conclusive enough to say that all College Athletics are a bad thing.

But then, who is saying that?

[Valmy]

But then, who is saying that?

So you think College Athletics are fine then?  Ok then we have nothing to discuss further.

[alfred russel]

That is looking only at athletes who make it to the NFL - what is that, maybe .001% of all college athletes?

See, this is the basic problem with your position (and Malthus) you are looking at one ridiculous extreme, and then apply that in general to a group that is a thousand times larger tahn your cherry picked examples, and concluding that the problem is systemic.

Your source fails to show what you are claiming. If you want to claim that the average NFL athlete is not exceptionally bright, so what?

I'm not talking about college athletics in general, I'm speaking primarily to high profile sports at high profile schools. Football players that go to the NFL are a small, but not insignificant, portion of that group. They also seem to be the only group that is tested after their education concludes in a way that allows us to assess their aptitude, rather than the school's abilities to bend rules to keep up eligibility.

My point is, assuming the link has accurate information, skill position NFL players, don't show any more aptitude than security guards. Considering that many of those were apparently making decent enough grades to stay eligible, doesn't that cause you to question the educational value of the "student" portion of their role? What would you think if the majority of students graduating from your degree program were similarly astute? Wouldnt' that tarnish your degree?

[alfred russel]

No, but it is certainly the case that if you have NFL potential, then you are going to be able to find a college that will take you, so it is not at all surprising that if you only look at those athletes that make it to the NFL, they will have an overall average score lower than the body of athletes in general.

And there is the problem.

[crazy canuck]

Berk, you mischaraterized what JR was saying.  Re-read the post he was responding to.  By that definition Paris Hilton is the perfect example of why that line of reasoning fails.

I was being sarcastic, and illustrating that his objection was simply based on his personal definition of what constitutes "worthy" culture.

Ah sorry.