NYT scorches Auburn on academics

What Bubba said ...

 

That issue is fairly easy to explain if you look at two things: 1) The NCAA's rule which requires student-athletes to declare a major (I believe they now must declare by their sophomore year), and 2) The ease of many sociology courses.

Look, I went through some of this shit back in the day, and maybe Whitlock or someone else who was a legit athlete at a legit college could shed a little more light on it (I was a hack at a two-bit school). When you go to sign up for classes, you're not doing the shit alone. You've got these advisors who are helping you out and you've got other players giving you tips. Everybody knows who the easy professors are. Everybody knows what the easy classes are. If you come in as a transfer student with an undeclared major, the first thing you've got to do is declare a major. Now, if you're an academic advisor at any school in the country, the first thing you tell an incoming junior who doesn't have a major is: Pick sociology. You think it's some accident that every time they list the players' majors during a TV broadcast that half of them are sociology/criminology majors? Hell no. It's because sociology is a rather easy course of study, sociology requires a very low GPA to remain in good standing and there are a boatload of easy classes within the sociology curriculum which you can use to boost your GPA. When I quit playing ball and changed schools, the academic advisor at the school I transfered to suggested sociology. No joke.

As I've said at least three times now, something was definitely out of the ordinary with all of these damn directed-reading classes being taught by the same guy. I can't figure that shit out for the life of me. I mean, he wasn't being paid extra and he wasn't doing the athletic dept. a favor. The point remains, though, that this is not an athletics issue simply because these classes were open to the entire student body and the ratio of athletes to regular students taking those classes wasn't abnormal. The guy taught 250 students in a year. Only 18 of those were football players. Only 60 or so were athletes at the school. Given the high number of sociology majors at every university, I'd say 60 of 250 is a rather low number.

Look, I know it's not exactly kosher to question another reporter's work. And really, I'm not doing that. I said Thamel did a shitload of work here. The only thing I've questioned is the presentation of this story.

 

Okay, I would for one at least like to establish that at SOME schools, not every student has access to these bullshit, barely-show-up-but-get-an-A classes. It wasn't the case at my school, and as far as I can tell even for the athletes. Now there was a major of choice - criminal justice - but even the athletes had to show up, and there were no easy A's. Just easy C's, just enough to keep them eligible.

These stories I'm hearing from some people of courses they took to up their GPA ... damn I wish I'd had access to them.

So Dog, if what you're saying is that this doesn't reflect badly so much on Auburn's football team as it does on Auburn the school, well then we're in agreement.

 

Dog, the fact that you took a bullshit class should astonish no one.

I'm just surprised it wasn't a logic course, given the continual lack of ability you display in that area.

What was your major? Being Rotting Feces?

 

I hope that's the case, that there are schools out there with no bullshit courses. But I'll tell you, every school I've attended and every school I've ever covered has em. Most of the time, they're meaningless elective courses, but every now and again, you slide into one or two that are legit classes in legit fields of study.

I've always thought these directed-learning courses, where you don't have to attend and don't have to do much more than read and hand in a paper or two were always sketchy. But just about every major university out there has them now, I assume because they all want to stay competitive. But they always seemed like a practice that was just begging for shadiness.

And what I'm saying, as I've said many times, is that there is an obviously a problem here. That one professor was teaching 250 kids a year and 150 of these courses just absolutely reeks of wrongdoing. What I'm questioning is why that wrongdoing is taking a backseat in this story to the fact that a handful of athletes took these easy-A classes.

 

And I'm questioning how having one person in four in a professor's classes isn't statistically significant, unless your going to tell me that Auburn has over 5000 athletes enrolled.

 

This might be the first in a pattern. Consider Auburn's football APR score, a little too high for plausibility (1,000 is a perfect score):

YEAR ONE APR (2003-2004): 960
YEAR TWO APR (2004-2005): ? ? (score not explicity given, but would have to be better than perfect if same squad size)
2-year AVG APR (2003-2005): 981

http://auburntigers.cstv.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/030106aab.html

 

Maybe this will help out some:

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/2003-11-18-atheletes-majors_x.htm

Note the part about the clustering of athletes in specific majors at almost every university. And if you want to get specific, note the number of Duke players enrolled in sociology majors.

 

Now that I'm finally home again, a couple of thoughts:

1. Gordon Gee is by far the most pretentious man I've ever met while covering college athletics.

2. I don't think this will be the last story the NYT runs on this.

3. Cadillac about hung himself a couple of times. I bet he's done being a source with these stories unless they get dirt specifically on him. As nice a kid as he is — and he is — that he got close to a degree surprised me. Remember, this is the guy who said "I also be close to graduatin'" on the radio before his senior year.

4. That 2004 Auburn team has some English-challenged kids. By that, I mean more than your average SEC team. It seemed that way to me, at least. Anyone remember Junior Rosegreen?

 

I felt sorry for that kid after every time I talked to him.

 

This was their player rep at media days. Listed among the bio items was his 13 (or so?) tatoos, and when asked if he was planning to get any more, he responded, "Yeah, I think I'm gonna get one on my other chest."

 

I believe Rosegreen scored a 2 on the wonderlic