Black? Play football at OSU? Wanna graduate? Good luck with that.

I wouldn't have a big problem with that. They do get paid for their services already with a full-ride ($50,000-plus) but I know that's a small price for the revenue the athletic program rakes in with each home football game and bowl games, etc. But the minute you start talking about paying them, the hypocrite athletic department suddenly takes the moral high ground stance and says the integrity of the student-athlete should be preserved.

 

That's not fair...






I'm sure some were marketing majors too.

 

Whoo ... Mr. Lib apparently believes African American athletes can't do their own schoolwork.

 

Whoo, Mr. Stupid's lips got tired at the end of a sentence again.
Very few players who are good enough to jump early to the NFL -- or think they are -- is going to take his progress towards a degree very seriously, particularly within the context of a university that doesn't seem to take it seriously either.

 

Not. I'm sure mr. lib thinks that athletes are \encouraged to do enough classwork to keep their eligibility -- then they're on their own when it runs out.

 

Yeah, I'm sure that would have saved Maurice Clarett.

 

Virtually every major college program has academic centers and advisers and tutors. If a player doesn't leave school with a degree, that player

* has left school early.
* is as dumb as a rock.
* has no interest in obtaining a degree.

 

There's paying them, and there's paying them to ride around in a tricked out SUV...
Then there's Maurice "Inmate No. 2345247" Clarett

 

When did I ever talk about saving athletes like Maurice Clarett? My point is that big-time college football hasn't promoted academics for a long, long time, so why are we concerning ourselves with graduation rates?

 

Because these are places of higher learning here. Because our tax dollars help pay the way for kids to compete at these schools. Because not everyone is going to play in the NFL.

That graphic showed that two BCS schools -- Notre Dame and Wake Forest -- do a damn good job making sure that the student-athletes keep pace in the classroom. Not everyone follows Ohio State, Texas or San Jose State with how to run their programs.

 

Some personal responsibility would go a long way. Athletes shouldn't need their hands held when it comes to going to class and learning. A lot of athletes are failing themselves. I played college baseball (not at the Division 1 level), carried a full load each semester, worked on the side at the local fishwrap and graduated in four years. Am I special? No. It's called getting your priorities straight. An athlete can party, have fun and get classwork done, too. To say an athlete needs all this special help is an insult to his or her intelligence.

 

I never said anything about special help. I just said some programs have their priorities straight, others don't.