Comments about ‘Poor graduation rates show NCAA still shortchanging athletes’

I'm sure this op-ed is well intentioned.

And it would be nice if 100% of NCAA athletes, regardless of race, would go to class, study hard, and get their degrees.

And I'm sure there are universities that need to do a better job of helping athletes graduate.

That said, this op-ed by focusing only on the NCAA and the schools serves to absolve the athletes of any personal responsibility in the issue.

Is that what you intended, Derrick Z?

Only about half of all students enrolled in college at any one time will graduate. Those who get a degree are those determined to do so.

So here's my point: One man's "exploitation" is another's "opportunity." Many athletes would have no opportunity for a college education if not for athletic scholarships.

Ideally all athletes would seize that opportunity to provide themselves a better future. But one of life's tragedies is that people often squander opportunity, knowingly or not.

The NCAA and its member institutions should do all they can to encourage athletes to graduate. But if a player doesn't care about getting a degree, nobody can force him/her to graduate.

NCAA sports is not about what's in the interest of the student athletes. The genie is out of the bottle. It is money, money, money. The student athletes are being exploited. One was to recompense is to mandate a lifetime scholarship so that after athletic eligibility, the student can attend college for free as long as satisfactory progress towards the degree is being made. Thrown in room and board, too.

Shouldnt this read

"Athletes are shortchanging themselves as they focus too much on NCAA."

BYU and Utah have great graduation rates, even among minority athletes. I wasn't aware it was the NCAA's responsibility to do these kids' homework at night and study for tests.

Perhaps if teams had to have... say a 60% graduation rate to be eligible for the NCAA Tournament, schools like USU that expect their athletes to also be students would not be at such a recruiting disadvantage.

Might also restore some credibility to the NCAA.

There are too many questions left unanswered in this piece. It seems that the targeted sports here are primarily basketball, but seem to indicate football also. What's the graduation rate of Women's gymnastics, or swimming, diving, golf etc? I'll guess that athletes in programs that traditionally don't lead to a "draft" by a professional team after college, do far better academically then those programs where athletes are looking for post college employment (basketball, football, baseball?)

What's the statistics of graduation rates amongst non-athletic scholarships (purely academic scholarships)? Assuming they are very high, that will bolster arguements that the NCAA is exploiting athletes, and the arguement that the athletes are exploiting the system.

Introduce into the scholarship contract a clause that requires graduation by the athlete or they must refund of the full cost of the scholarship. Athletes have incentive to graduate, schools would have incentive to help otherwise they spend years and money in legal fees trying to recoup the scholarship costs

The NCAA does have academic requirements for obtaining a scholarship and require maintaining a certain gpa in order to stay eligible to play. Most NCAA teams provide tutoring and academic resources for athletes. This year, there are many college graduates that are searching for a job, so a better measure than graduation is average salary after college. I'm sure most players in the NBA and NFL will make more than most graduates. Sure improvements should be made, but making it sound like the NCAA is just exploiting athletes does remove their personal responsibility for taking advantage of their opportunities.

An NCAA athlete may put in as many as 40 hours a week and be travel 3 days out of the 5 classroom days. Yet they are expected them to compete in the class room at the same time. Coaches win or are fired. Do you really think they care if their athletes graduate? The athlete is always expendable and always will be. NCAA rules are put into place to allow them to study and they need to sign a paper every so often saying those rules are not being violated. Ask any D1 athlete you know what he does when he is asked to sign and he knows the coach has fudged a little (or a lot) on the rules. You do what have to do — and for student athlete it a lot more than most of you realize.

No one is kicking these athletes out of school... They are choosing not to finish. Perhaps the school should give them a bit more encouragement, but ultimately it's their choice!

My understanding of the deal is that in return for playing and allowing the schools and coaches to make billions, the players get a valuable college education. The problem is, many of these athletes have no business being in college, as evidenced by their graduation rates. If the school recruits somebody who just doesn’t belong in college, the school is exploiting that athlete–they are getting hundreds of millions of dollars, but not providing the valuable college education.

That’s exploitation. People who play basketball to make people rich but aren’t capable of acquiring a bona fide college education are really semi-pro athletes who should be paid.

Every so often the local and national media thump their chests and wonder why there isn't more minority coaches. Some scream racism. They say 90% of players are minorities but only 5% are coaches. This article inadvertantely may explain why.

Typically the first step into a coaching career is being a graduate assistant. If you don't graduate, you can't be a graduate assistant.

Also, coaching is way more than Xs and Os. You are a manager, a motivator, a communicator, a disciplinarian, etc. My guess is that if Urban Myer, Mike K (Duke), etc weren't coaches, they would be CEOs of some type and they probably would have graduated from college anyways.

If you want more minority coaches, get the minorities to graduate.

If the NCAA wants to get serious about it, link available scholarships for each sport to that team's graduation rate. Otherwise, stop calling them student-athletes and start calling them temporary workers.

College athletes in men's basketball and football should be paid cash as well as getting a scholarship. They are making their institutions untold millions of dollars.

The author of this article obviously didn't do his research. Aside from Leon Powe and Ryan Anderson, who both left early to the NBA, virtually every player in the California program has graduated. All four of this year's Seniors, Jordan Wilkes last year (in 3 years), Ayinde Ubaka and Richard Midgeley the year before that, and Omar Wilkes (again early) the year before that. So the author's claim of 0% clearly shows he hasn't done his research. His grade: F-

This article says "This is particularly outrageous as the NCAA no longer penalizes schools in graduation-rate reports for players who leave early for the pros, as long as they were in good academic standing."

Well of course not! Due to some ridiculous rule, there are anywhere from 10-15 kids who have never had any intention of attending college who are now required to go for one year before pursuing their NBA dream, something they are qualified for out of high school. That is the real money problem for college, the NCAA loves the rule that requires these kids to play college, but he still wants them to punish the schools where these kids choose to play?

Did someone really comment on this article that USU requires their athletes to be students as well? According to the NCAA Academic Progress Rate, USU is only in the 30th percentile of all NCAA tournament schools. Who exactly is being the student? Not the USU guys.

The NCAA should "seed" the tournament by the previous year's graduation rate. The lowest-graduation-rate team plays the next lowest, etc. These teams would still have a chance to win it all but only by beating other semipro, non-student-athlete teams in early rounds.

Look at the article on Graduation rates. USU is one of four NCAA Schools with a 100% Graduation rate.