Sprints Tries a Comeback Like Eli Manning in the Super Bowl // 02.06.10
by cocknfire on Feb 6, 2012 12:08 AM EST
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We're back, part 95
If you've missed Sprints, we're going to try to get back on the horse and get this thing going again in the offseason. If you haven't -- well, it hasn't missed you.
Site issues
If you've gotten irritated with the site getting a bit buggy lately -- we're with you. The tech team at SBN, which is one of the best in the business, is working on it. We hope that most of the hiccups have been worked out, but you can always let us know if not and we'll pass it up the chain.
Ole Miss alumnus wins strange football 'bowl'
In case you didn't hear, there is football played in New York and New England, though it tends to be of the highly-paid and far more boring variety. The two cities' teams played in something called the "Super Bowl," which pairs the No. 1 team from the American Football Conference with the No. 1 team from the National Football Conference.
In any case, the winning team was quarterbacked by former Ole Miss player Eli Manning. Congratulations to Manning and his football team on winning this bowl, which is fervently watched by canine owners if I got the correct impression from the commercials. I'm sure they'll get a nice trophy for the victory.
Derek Dooley jumps the shark
After he denied several students' requests to be released from their scholarships early, you would think Tennessee head coach Derek Dooley would be willing to hold himself and his program to the same standards he holds his players to and would be happy to offer them multiyear, guaranteed scholarships. You'd be wrong.
You have these contracts. It's called quid pro quo. We give you this. You give us that. But if they don't give us that and we decide not to give them this, then it's the worst thing you can do.
I'm kind of torn on whether I agree with Dooley on the merits of this issue. I understand that athletic and academic scholarships are not a perfect comparison, but I still see something odd about saying that it's fine for a school to judge students receiving academic financial aid on performance (not "trying hard," which some people try to make the standard for an athletics scholarship), but it's terrible for a school to judge students receiving athletics financial aid on performance. I understand both sides of the issue, though, because performance in athletics is more subjective than academic performance -- though neither is completely objective.
But Dooley doesn't have to just be measured by the merits here. Dooley has to be measured based on the standards he's set for his player -- that they have to show commitment to the team before he can release them from the scholarship, and Dooley is judge, jury and executioner in that matter.
In other words, it's not that Derek Dooley wants Tennessee and its players to be committed to each other. It's just that he wants to be the only one who can decide when the commitment can end.
Lorenzo in charge
Garnet And Black Attack sees the hiring of Grady Brown as the cornerback coach for South Carolina as a sign that Lorenzo Ward is in charge of the defense.
One thing that should, thus, be noted is that this hire would seem to suggest that Ward is being given the keys to the defense -- not to say that Spurrier would have any reason to be against this hire, but it's Ward who made the decision, not Spurrier.
This South Carolina fan would be perfectly happy if Brown can simply teach defensive backs to catch interceptions instead of watching them bounce off their hands.
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Here's why it's terrible for a school to judge students receiving athletics financial aid on performance
Because the point of an athletics scholarship (contrary to what Alabama fans would tell you) is NOT to reimburse an athlete for their contribution to the athletics program. The point is to offer that athlete an education he wouldn’t otherwise receive. A student on an academic scholarship who’s making bad grades is, by definition, wasting his scholarship. A football player who fulfills the requirements of the football program—attends practice, follows rules, gives effort in drills, etc.—but just isn’t good enough to contribute ISN’T WASTING THE SCHOLARSHIP as long as he’s working towards his degree. To hamper a football player’s education because he’s not good enough at football is akin to yoinking the academic scholarship from a straight-A student because he’s a bad book shelver at his library work-study job.
If we’re going to treat scholarships as salary for football performance as opposed to a means by which we get football players educated, it’s time to move the whole kit and caboodle off campus and rename it NFL-AAA.
Here’s the problem I have with that argument: Academic scholarships are given to students based on their academic performance. Athletics scholarships are given to students based on their athletics performance. To say that they are not is to ignore the reality — otherwise, why aren’t we just giving every poor kid a scholarship and putting them on the football team, instead of recruiting the best athletes for those scholarships?
Again, academic scholarships are not based on whether a student is doing everything he or she should be doing to get good grades — they are based on whether a student is getting good grades. How is it fair for those students if an athlete can keep a scholarship just for trying hard at what he or she was recruited to the college to do.
But let’s put it a little bit simpler way: If a student on academic scholarships is getting grades that are good enough to continue on progress towards his or her degree but not good enough to keep the degree, why is he or she “wasting” the scholarship? Is it perhaps because he or she is not fulfilling the academic potential that the university or state or foundation thought that student had when he or she was given the scholarship?
This was all a side point to the main point about Dooley — I think if you have a habit of holding students to their commitment, you should also be willing to be held to that commitment — but I think both sides of this debate have overly simplified what is actually a complex ethical issue. And that doesn’t get us any closer to a solution.
(This is actually all tied together with my views on financial aid, which is that we spend what should be an unacceptably small amount on it in this country and that a lot of the students who get financial aid for athletics should be eligible for more based on other factors. But that’s really a story for another day.)
Team Speed Kills. All SEC, all the time.
Still missing the point, CNF—in saying “How is it fair for those students if an athlete can keep a scholarship just for trying hard at what he or she was recruited to the college to do,” athletes are NOT at the school to “do” athletics—they’re there to get an education, which athletics happens to be paying for. Yes, the scholarship is given for athletic ability—and that being the case, may as well give them to the players that give you the best chance to win—but that doesn’t mean the purpose of the athlete’s presence at the school is to perform at athletics. The purpose is for them to get a degree. Are you really going to argue against this?
Which means you still haven’t explained how it’s fair for the athlete to miss out on a chance at that degree for their athletics failings. Your assessment that poor grades revoke an academic scholarship on the basis of failed potential is perfectly correct, but I don’t see how that matters to my argument—an athlete who struggles in his/her sport but makes the grades is still making maximum use of his/her scholarship’s intended purpose.
The only way to make that analogy fair is to say that the purpose of the academic student’s scholarship is not for him or her to get a degree, but to make a certain grade instead. Because it’s possible to make progress toward a degree without making the grade that a scholarship requires you to make.
If you’re going to say that as long as a student on an athletic scholarship is making progress toward a degree, he should continue to get that scholarship, why should a student on an academic scholarship be required to do anything more than make progress toward a degree?
Essentially, you’re saying that a student who gets an academic scholarship has to complete a bunch of additional standards — i.e., make better grades than the norm — while a student who gets an athletic scholarship just has to show up and do just well enough to get through. That doesn’t strike me as particularly fair.
Team Speed Kills. All SEC, all the time.
And I'm not missing your point at all
I just happen to think it’s a bit more complicated than that. Just because I get your point doesn’t mean I have to agree with it.
Team Speed Kills. All SEC, all the time.
No, I'm afraid you still are
Why is it fair for an athlete to lose his chance at a degree over something -his athletic performance-that has nothing to do with that degree at all? You’re still equating the grades of an academic scholarship student with the performance of an athlete in his or her sport, and those two things are simply not analogous when the latter is irrelevant to whether the athlete is taking advantage of his scholarship.
I’ll ask the question point-blank: is an athlete on campus to get his or her degree or to perform in athletics? Why are they there? If it’s the latter, aren’t we just admitting these are professional athletes who we happen to be paying in scholarship money?
by JCCW Jerry on Feb 6, 2012 11:54 AM EST up reply actions 1 recs
Let me try to put it this way
Both the student with the academic scholarship and the student-athlete are on campus to get their degree. For that matter, so is the walk-on student who isn’t getting a dime but is trying to make the team anyway.
(A rarely-noted aside here: When Spurrier yanked some scholarships in his first offseason at South Carolina and caused an uproar, few people mentioned that he didn’t actually use those scholarships to bolster a recruiting class — he gave them to walk-ons that he thought were more deserving of the awards.)
But there is a difference between why a student is on campus and why they are getting thousands of dollars to be able to go to college at a free or discounted level. In the case of the academic student, it is because of the grades he or she earned in high school and because of continued academic performance in college.
And the reason that a student-athlete gets a scholarship is, yes, to perform in athletics. To argue otherwise is nonsensical. Let me flip the question around a little bit: If not to perform athletically, then what in blue blazes is an athlete getting a football scholarship for? Not why are they on campus — why are they getting thousands of dollars that could otherwise go to another student-athlete or to athletic operations?
I think you’re looking at a results analysis here — that the student-athlete in question might be forced to drop out of college. So might the student with an academic scholarship who loses it based on poor classroom performance. That’s tragic in either case. It is not, however, more tragic for the student-athlete simply because the standards he’s being held to are something that people "feel like" shouldn’t be standards.
Again, my solution is to say that public higher education should be free for just about anyone whose family isn’t wealthy. It might force the NCAA to rejigger some of its regulations — roster sizes instead of a limit on the number of scholarships — but I think it would be better for the nation as a whole.
However, if we’re going to live in a world where some students are going to get that opportunity and some don’t, then the people who are getting it should have to do something beyond progression to prove they deserve it.
Team Speed Kills. All SEC, all the time.
Jerry's right.
….If they stay good on their grades, SEC-State U should keep ‘em on scholarship, no matter whether they are a practice no-show, broken-scout-team reject or whatever. Folks, it’s a “sholarship.” Not a “footballship.” Academic measure should always be the main factor in students keeping those things.
…..Based on my remote location in the foothills of the Smokies… SBN site issues lately have been the result of Hackers who are are unhappy with opinions of fans here, and and have sicced various botnets on SBN’s servers. For us fans, it’s pretty much a temporary inconvenience. Those responsible for our difficulties will hopefully realize that slamming SBN with a big Denial of Service attack won’t really impact users terribly much. We’ve got commenting accounts all over the place, and you’re not really shutting anybody off. What those hackers are doing is getting thinly stretched Feds interested in kicking down their doors due to the level of traffic on SBN. Caveat. Go pester someone else, hackers.
......Drowning in cool elixir.
The problem with revoking athletic scholarships for on-field performance is quantifying that cut off point
with academic scholarships, it’s easy. Maintain GPA X.X or you lose your scholarship. Unless revoking athletic scholarships for performance is treated evenly like that, then it will always look ultra-shady.
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by Chekhov's Spread Gun Option on Feb 6, 2012 11:44 AM EST reply actions
To an extent, I agree
I think that’s probably the strongest argument for not having athletic scholarships be a year-to-year thing. But GPAs are only objective to an extent — every professor has different ways of grading and different expectations that are sometimes very subjective.
Team Speed Kills. All SEC, all the time.
But there's still a number
a 3.0 in nuclear engineering doesn’t equal a 3.0 in criminology (even if a general scholarship would treat it the same), but at least there is a number that you can see and understand as the minimum.
Weoejuwejhdjwe!
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by Chekhov's Spread Gun Option on Feb 6, 2012 2:51 PM EST up reply actions
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