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

The money wasn't being handed out during the four- or five-week period when football was out of season, right? When the broke players would have to fend for themselves. Wasn't it all during the season, after games, on the way to class, etc? Do we think they were just socking that money away and saving it for when they would be "starving" in a few months?

 

There's so much money sloshing around the system that some of it has to fall on the players one way or another in the current setup. But most payment is in kind, the sleazy kind, I might add, in services such as sex and general immunity to the rules of the university. To me, that's more damaging to the idea of higher education than just giving jocks payment for their services rendered. That way, the school can just stop payment if the kids fuck up.

 

They'll all be Congressmen

 

Part 2:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/college-football/news/20130911/oklahoma-state-part-2-academics/

 

If a program is going to go through the trouble of academic fraud, you'd think they would go far enough to ensure they aren't the third worst in APR out of all BCS schools. From the sources used to the Thayer axe to grind, this whole story stinks so far. I'm not naive enough to believe OSU is clean, but there are some things thus far that don't add up.

 

I suppose it's possible it doesn't add up, but, IMO, you've watched too many movies about supposedly great criminal enterprises.

Corrupt organizations are always inefficient. My favorite is and may always be one about China under Mao: To show the Mao and the world how bountiful the Chinese harvest was, Chinese officials ordered farmers to bundle their grain and leave it by train tracks so Mao and his PR crew could see the harvest as they rode by. Millions starved to death over the course of several years.

 

We could also guess that all the academic help likely disappears after their fourth football season - at least a semester before they're likely to graduate - since intelligibility no longer matters. And it's not hard to imagine that after having your hand held for three and a half years academically, you'd fail once on your own. Or that enough credits to be eligible isn't the same as enough credits to graduate in 4 years.

 

Coxeff recalls a 2003 team meeting in which Miles asked one of the Cowboys to write house on a chalkboard. "He spelled it H-A-S," says Coxeff. "I was like, Oh, my God, how is he even in this room? ... How can someone who can't spell come to a major college?"

To be fair, that probably happens with a lot of non-athletes at Oklahoma State too.

 

I don't know about anyone else, but this entire report is very, very shocking. I'm glad SI used so much time, money, and resources on this. This is very important journalism.

 

Great passage here:

Carter says that he and Bell took two courses together taught by the same instructor. Carter says they received A's in both despite never attending class or doing any work. In the spring of 2004, after their eligibility expired, the two players again enrolled in a course taught by that instructor, but Carter says that this time they both received failing marks. "I'd guess that there was pressure [on the instructor] to give us those A's when we were playing, but not when we weren't," he says. (Bell denies this, telling SI he only got C's and D's.)

 

Brazilian slum dwellers get a free college education?

 

Academic fraud isn't just for athletes.