SI: Oklahoma State football players got sex, drugs and money

Meh -- just one more story that makes for good fodder in a sociological discussion of the ills of college football but doesn't make Oklahoma State stand out in any way.

My thought on stories like this is usually, Take 20 kids in that group who went to OSU. And say only two of them got their degree. Well, without football, zero of those 20 would have gotten a degree. I think it's pretty rare that a person who is interested in and otherwise capable of earning a degree fails to do so because he is a football player.

 

Artrell Woods should chill and smoke a joint. Maybe get a tattoo that covers his entire upper body.

 

I think you'd be very surprised at how not rare that is. Universities devote enormous resources to advising, counseling, etc., to keep students on track. They do this, especially at the lower tiers, because so many of those students simply don't know how to keep on track. Scholarship athletes are provided with even more intensive advising and counseling. But that, it should be obvious, is not to keep them on track. It's to keep them eligible. That agency dilemma almost ensures that many young men who might otherwise have earned a degree won't, simply because their university is only interested in getting one thing out of them.

So Okla. State's not the only big-time program that does this. That doesn't make it "meh"-worthy ...

 

How do you jibe this with NCAA eligibility requirements? The NCAA now requires you to be moving toward a degree to remain eligible, not merely passing a certain number of hours. If you complete your senior season at a Division I school, you HAVE to be 60 percent through your degree curriculum by the end of year 3.

If they have simply kept you eligible through your third season, you are over halfway done with your degree plan entering your senior season. If you redshirt, you'll enter your senior season at least 80 percent through your degree path (in Sociology or General Studies, I'm sure).

By simply staying eligible, you almost get handed a degree.

I would be outraged if athletes do nothing to get their degrees. Would I be outraged if they are getting helped along with classes that qualify as their "renaissance man" courses? Like the Biology class taken by the English major? I've seen liberal arts majors who weren't athletes slide by with the help of understanding professors (I may or may not have been one of them, not telling...). And I've seen science majors who had no interest, and little aptitude, for a Forensics or English classes that were required in their curriculum get help from an empathizing professor.

I've seen these kinds of classes fill up. My biology teacher who had such a reputation for being easy on liberal arts majors that his classes had the looks of a class you'd see in the arts building. The English teacher with a 101 class full of technology majors looking to slide by that part of their curriculum as painlessly as possible.

Often, those were the classes that were also full of athletes.

 

Those regs help, certainly. But watch a game on TV and notice how many kids are majoring in University Studies or some such thing. Those majors are tremendously flexible, which means pretty much anything you take "counts" toward the major. But you are right ... it's a lot harder to pull this kind of crap now than it was when I was an undergraduate.

 

NCAA investigating:

http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/11214389/oklahoma-state-football-investigation

 

Lawsuit filed.

http://m.newsok.com/sports-illustrateds-dirty-game-articles-spark-false-light-lawsuit/article/4988072

 

"Fundamentally unfounded," says NCAA and school's consultant:

http://newsok.com/article/5358636

Oops.

 

They're trying to fool people into believing their "investigation" is part of some true legal and judicial board.

People usually fall for it.

 

Well, since the NCAA signed off on the statement, I'd say it will hold up:

https://twitter.com/InsidetheNCAA/status/524585919849201665