the rock

[irishX25]

If any of you havent heard of the website, ndnation.com, I would recommend checking it out. I found this great article there this morning and thought it might interest some people. Just goes to show how fraudulent the NCAA really is. Here is the link:

http://therockreport.blogspot.com/2007/02/college-footballs-real-villains.html

 

[Akron Irish]

Very good read. It makes a lot of good points. I think the african american gradutation rates may be slightly biased. I don't know if they take in to account those players opting to go pro early. It doesn't seem like there choice should effect the grad rate for a school.

With the NBA min age rule, I imagine the bball graduation rates for traditional powerhouses will dramatically drop also.

 

[cuss444]

Jim Delaney is the leader of the pack..........He is the real reason why we don't have a playoff. Great article, I've been saying this for a long time, but "The Rock" says it better.

 

[irishunclebill]

Very good read. It makes a lot of good points. I think the african american gradutation rates may be slightly biased. I don't know if they take in to account those players opting to go pro early. It doesn't seem like there choice should effect the grad rate for a school.

With the NBA min age rule, I imagine the bball graduation rates for traditional powerhouses will dramatically drop also.

He is taking into account the rates based on who leaves early to go pro, that is why in the report he has this quote about Florida, "Florida does have a good graduation rate". That is the one point I disagree with because it is based on the so called unbiased GSR. (Graduation Success Rate) Everyone seems to be convinced that Florida does extremely well in graduating its' football players. That is because of the GSR (Graduation Success Rate) statistic that the NCAA posts on its' website. The GSR is a bogus stat specifically designed by the NCAA so that they already have in place a rigged measurement if they are ever forced to actually use academic success as a standard for post-season eligibility. The latest NCAA stats show Florida with an overall Student-Athlete GSR of 92%, by comparison Ohio State's is even 80%. Both of these numbers are a cruel joke. The only academic success statistic that actually means anything is the % of students who entered as Freshman at a University, and actually graduated. If you look at those numbers, especially as it relates to football and the actual number of athletes that graduate, Florida is just as bad as the rest of them on Black athletes, and actually worse than Ohio State in total.

The latest posted NCAA actual 4-Class graduation % stats for Football players at Ohio State is Black 32%, White 71%, Overall 49%. For Florida the rate for Blacks is slightly higher at 38%, for Whites it is significantly lower at 50%, and the Overall rate is lower than Ohio State at 42%.

I am not trying to imply that Florida is any worse overall than Ohio State, but this perception that Florida is such a great academic university for student athletes is quite simply false, and is a result of their ability to propagandize the GSR as a legitimate measurement of academic success. The fact of the matter is that almost all of the schools in the super conferences have dismal actual graduation rates for their football and men's basketball programs, with notable exceptions such as Stanford and Notre Dame. That is why it is such a fraud when these conferences have the guts to actually call the players in those programs student athletes, when in fact less than half of the recruits in those two programs actually ever graduate. It's all a joke anyway at most of these schools, so it really does not matter whether those that opt to leave early are counted or not counted towards a university's student athletes academic success measurements because the NCAA will never actually enforce any minimum academic standards in the big money sports. The worse hypocrisy of this is when the coaches from these schools actually try to say that they are looking for the best "student athletes" to go to their schools, when in fact the vast majority of them could not care less.

See for yourself at the NCAA Graduation Rates website:

http://www.ncaa.org/grad_rates/

 

[GoshenGipper]

Yep, it a pretty good blog it actually has it's own atomatically updated section in our Irish Blog Syndication Forum.

 

[johnnd05]

From the NCAA (link):

The GSR measures graduation rates at Division I institutions and includes students transferring into the institutions. The GSR also allows institutions to subtract student-athletes who leave their institutions prior to graduation as long as they would have been academically eligible to compete had they remained.

I take it that it's the latter clause that's important: it clearly means that if a student goes pro early or drops out before using up his/her four years of eligibility, this doesn't count as a "failure to graduate". And I suppose I think that at least that latter category should count.

But what about a student who uses up his/her ATHLETIC eligibility and then leaves without taking a diploma (perhaps because he/she didn't get enough credits to graduate). Does this count as no longer being "academically" eligible? It certainly seems to me that a student who does this should count against the university's graduation rate.

Perhaps more to the point: is failing out of school the only way you can be counted against the GSR?

 

[irishunclebill]

From the NCAA (link):



I take it that it's the latter clause that's important: it clearly means that if a student goes pro early or drops out before using up his/her four years of eligibility, this doesn't count as a "failure to graduate". And I suppose I think that at least that latter category should count.

But what about a student who uses up his/her ATHLETIC eligibility and then leaves without taking a diploma (perhaps because he/she didn't get enough credits to graduate). Does this count as no longer being "academically" eligible? It certainly seems to me that a student who does this should count against the university's graduation rate.

Perhaps more to the point: is failing out of school the only way you can be counted against the GSR?

For all practical purposes, you last sentence is correct, but my understanding is that if you do use up all of your athletic eligibility without graduating that you do count against the GSR. However, there are multiple loopholes in this, Miami just received permission for someone to get a 6th year of eligibility, and schools can appeal any case that goes against the GSR. Basically, everyone has at least 5 years of eligibility, so all of the Florida kids who do not graduate and leave after their Junior year or their Senior year with athletic eligibility still remaining do not count against the GSR. That is why Florida has a 42% actual graduation rate for the football program, but their GSR is 80%. At Ohio State where most of the players end up staying till their athletic eligibility is used up, the actual rate is 49%, while the GSR is only 55%. The only valid comparison is actual vs. actual, and the reason why IMO the GSR is bogus is because it assumes that all of those kids that leave Florida early would have graduated before they used up their athletic eligibility. That is an assumption that is based more on a fairy tale than on any actual historical facts. However, it perfectly suits the NCAA's purposes, as Florida is actually rewarded, in terms of the GSR, whenever a student athlete leaves to turn pro, or for any reason, as long as they were still academically eligible to play when they left. I think you will agree that at the football factories they ensure that it is almost impossible to become academically ineligible as long as you have athletic eligibility left. About the only way it happens is if you are foolish enough, like Reggie Ball at GA Tech, to think that you can even get away with never showing up at any classes.

 

[BGIF]

Very good read. It makes a lot of good points. I think the african american gradutation rates may be slightly biased. I don't know if they take in to account those players opting to go pro early. It doesn't seem like there choice should effect the grad rate for a school.

...

The NCAA Graduation Success Rate (GSR) allows for Tranfers and Early outs IF the student was in good academic standing (Katzenmoyer not attending any classes his Fall senior semester and then moving on would count against OSU). The Federal Graduation Rate doesn't make exceptions. You can check them at the NCAA site.

 

[irishunclebill]

The NCAA Graduation Success Rate (GSR) allows for Tranfers and Early outs IF the student was in good academic standing (Katzenmoyer not attending any classes his Fall senior semester and then moving on would count against OSU). The Federal Graduation Rate doesn't make exceptions. You can check them at the NCAA site.

Here is another insidious aspect of the GSR, especially if the NCAA actually tries to use it as a basis for post-season eligibility. The scenario is, a coach has a player that has been with his program for 4 years, has one year of athletic eligibility left, and is academically eligible to use that last year. However, there is no chance that the player will actually graduate after the 5th year, and he is only a role player anyway. The coach is left with two choices. He allows the player to come back for his 5th year knowing that he can’t graduate, and that the player will count against the GSR. On the other hand, he is a role player anyway, and if he does not allow him to come back for his 5th year, it will not count against the GSR. What a terrible choice to allow a coach to have in the increasingly unscrupulous world of College Football.

I am actually opposed to the NCAA setting academic standards for post-season eligibility because of the possibility of a scenario like the above, and also because to do so would probably deprive a lot of kids from getting a college education because a school’s admission model might mark them as statistically unlikely to graduate. However, I also believe that the GSR should be abolished because it is symbolic of the blatant hypocrisy of the NCAA in regards to its’ policies regarding student athletes. The most hypocritical element is for them to posture that it would ever be enforced. For example over the last 10 years, UConn & Duke have had the Top 2 programs in NCAA basketball. The actual 4 year graduation rates for Blacks in the Connecticut basketball program is an incredible 0%, even their GSR is 0%. The program’s overall graduation rate is only 18%, with a GSR of 30%. Education in the Connecticut basketball program is the ultimate joke, it is nothing more than a minor league program for the NBA, but does anyone actually believe that UConn will be ever be declared academically ineligible. The other hypocrisy is that the GSR allows football programs like Florida to pretend that they are interested in the academic success of their student athletes by parading around GSR rates of 80%, when the probability is that only 11 of the 27 athletes from Florida’s 2007 Football Recruiting Class will ever receive a diploma.

 

[johnnd05]

Those were great posts, IUB - thanks very much! Basically what I gathered (and tell me if I'm right in glossing you this way) is that "academically eligible" means that you are BOTH:

1. In good enough academic standing to stay in school for another year; and
2. Eligible to play another year of football (or basketball, or whatever).

So if a player leaves without a diploma but still has a year of eligibility and a passing GPA, he doesn't count against the GSR.

Better than I thought it was, but still bogus.

 

[irishunclebill]

Those were great posts, IUB - thanks very much! Basically what I gathered (and tell me if I'm right in glossing you this way) is that "academically eligible" means that you are BOTH:

1. In good enough academic standing to stay in school for another year; and
2. Eligible to play another year of football (or basketball, or whatever).

So if a player leaves without a diploma but still has a year of eligibility and a passing GPA, he doesn't count against the GSR.

Better than I thought it was, but still bogus.

That's correct. As long as you meet the minimum GPA, and minimum class requirements, you remain academically eligible. That means to be eligible for a fifth year, you only need to have 90 credits by the end of the summer of your fourth year, and a cumulative 2.0 GPA.