OK, that IS impressive!

I don’t wanna be a party pooper but graduation stats are completely meaningless. Graduation does not necessarily equal education.

Schools have complete control over that and they are heavily incentivized to demonstrate outstanding achievement in that area. From my perspective, it’s just common sense that if the graduation stats for your football team or men’s basketball team are significantly higher than the graduation stats of your general student body, that doesn’t add up and should definitely draw some skepticism.

Obviously, a number of student-athletes would be excellent students were it not for their athleticism. However, a large number of those guys get into college in the first place because they can run real fast or jump high. Their SATs are comparatively low, their GPAs are also low, but they get a full scholarship because of what they bring to the university in other important areas.

I just have an impossible time believing that many of these guys come in to college from under-educated areas and/or poor families and suddenly they get to the collegiate level and miraculously, that all just goes away. Again, I’m sure that happens on occasion, but I am equally certain that it is the exception and not the rule.

Please note this is not aimed at Clemson specifically. For all I know, they may be doing an incredible job there in that regard. We know for a fact they are doing an incredible job in recruiting and developing elite athletes. However, there are a lot of teams that claim a 100% graduation rate, or near that, and I simply don’t believe their figures because they defy common sense.

(06-08-2018 10:18 AM)Kaplony Wrote:  

Congrats to Dabo and the entire Clemson football program.

(06-08-2018 09:28 PM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  I don’t wanna be a party pooper

Every other post you have made in this forum begs to disagree.



194 of 198. Prove them wrong..

Maybe, but that’s only because there’s lot of rah-rah BS being constantly being peddled on here. If you sincerely believe that the average football player at Clemson - or any school - is a SIGNIFICANTLY better student than the students from the general student body (as those numbers would directly suggest), then I have some real estate opportunities that we need to discuss.

This is not an indictment of Clemson, per se. It’s really an indictment of a system which incentivizes lying and cheating at the expense of the kids they are purportedly trying to help. The object is not to earn a degree in and of itself - schools pass out phony doctorate degrees to famous people all the time. The object is to learn skills and the degree represents that knowledge gained. At least that is how it is supposed to work - before the millions and millions of dollars get involved.

I’m sorry but if you are passing out degrees to 194 out of 198 kids (98%), I think that is a GLARING red flag that you are skipping the most important part of the entire process to check off meaningless boxes. Seriously, I would like to know what the hell the four kids who did not graduate did or did not do?

Again, college football fandom is full of cognitive dissonance, so this is not really that surprising. College sports fans are a lot like political zealots - they will believe whatever BS their favorite teams feed them even if they know going in that what they’re being sold doesn’t make any actual sense.

We do things better than the other side. We are more special than the other side. We are the prettiest girl at the ball and we will never get old. Anyone who disagrees with us or even dares question us on any issue is just jealous of us and should not be trusted. Blah, blah, blah.

Every school but a few pushes athletes playing sports like football and basketball into easier majors.

Yes, that is true. It’s a little bit like speeding. I think almost everyone speeds. However, only a very few go over 100 mph. When you are claiming to graduate 98% of your football players, you are really pushing the limits of credulity, IMHO.

I just think the graduation rates of your athletic teams should in a best case scenario mirror the graduation rates of your general student body. It can be a few points higher or a few points lower based on other factors. However, if you are graduating 82% of your student body but 98% of your student-athletes, that’s just not realistic... unless you are not doing it ethically.

Again, this is not a Clemson thing, it’s a college football thing. Clemson just happens to be the latest school to make a claim that doesn’t make any sense. Penn State did it for years and so did Notre Dame, Boston College, Connecticut, and many, many others.

I’m not even saying that those schools are doing a poor job with their student-athletes. I have no idea what kind of job they’re doing with them? I just know that if your graduation rate is basically 100% for guys who are often coming from very tough home lives, low income backgrounds, and from some very poor school systems, it’s simply impossible for them to get to college and then magically flourish to the point where they are basically guaranteed to graduate.

Well, it’s not possible if they are actually being asked to do the work.

(06-10-2018 11:32 AM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  Yes, that is true. It’s a little bit like speeding. I think almost everyone speeds. However, only a very few go over 100 mph. When you are claiming to graduate 98% of your football players, you are really pushing the limits of credulity, IMHO.

I just think the graduation rates of your athletic teams should in a best case scenario mirror the graduation rates of your general student body. It can be a few points higher or a few points lower based on other factors. However, if you are graduating 82% of your student body but 98% of your student-athletes, that’s just not realistic... unless you are not doing it ethically.

Again, this is not a Clemson thing, it’s a college football thing. Clemson just happens to be the latest school to make a claim that doesn’t make any sense. Penn State did it for years and so did Notre Dame, Boston College, Connecticut, and many, many others.

I’m not even saying that those schools are doing a poor job with their student-athletes. I have no idea what kind of job they’re doing with them? I just know that if your graduation rate is basically 100% for guys who are often coming from very tough home lives, low income backgrounds, and from some very poor school systems, it’s simply impossible for them to get to college and then magically flourish to the point where they are basically guaranteed to graduate.

Well, it’s not possible if they are actually being asked to do the work.

I agree with everything that you say except the bolded part of your post. My wife is an elementary school administrator, and she used to be a special education teacher in one of the poorest schools in NYS. You wouldnt believe some of the challenges that these kids have to face at home. But every other year, and sometimes more often she would receive invitations to a former student's college graduation since she's been at the same school for almost 28 years. She drags me with her, which sometimes drives me crazy

My point has nothing to do with any programs graduation rate. But I want to dispel the thought that these kids cannot excel in college because they have had bad childhoods with horribly challenged home lives. Many times, because of the terrible home loves is what makes these underprivileged kids want to excel. Its not impossible for them to do the work in their college years.

Dabo is simply killing it. Can't take anything away from him.

(06-10-2018 03:30 PM)cuseroc Wrote:  

(06-10-2018 11:32 AM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  Yes, that is true. It’s a little bit like speeding. I think almost everyone speeds. However, only a very few go over 100 mph. When you are claiming to graduate 98% of your football players, you are really pushing the limits of credulity, IMHO.

I just think the graduation rates of your athletic teams should in a best case scenario mirror the graduation rates of your general student body. It can be a few points higher or a few points lower based on other factors. However, if you are graduating 82% of your student body but 98% of your student-athletes, that’s just not realistic... unless you are not doing it ethically.

Again, this is not a Clemson thing, it’s a college football thing. Clemson just happens to be the latest school to make a claim that doesn’t make any sense. Penn State did it for years and so did Notre Dame, Boston College, Connecticut, and many, many others.

I’m not even saying that those schools are doing a poor job with their student-athletes. I have no idea what kind of job they’re doing with them? I just know that if your graduation rate is basically 100% for guys who are often coming from very tough home lives, low income backgrounds, and from some very poor school systems, it’s simply impossible for them to get to college and then magically flourish to the point where they are basically guaranteed to graduate.

Well, it’s not possible if they are actually being asked to do the work.

I agree with everything that you say except the bolded part of your post. My wife is an elementary school administrator, and she used to be a special education teacher in one of the poorest schools in NYS. You wouldnt believe some of the challenges that these kids have to face at home. But every other year, and sometimes more often she would receive invitations to a former student's college graduation since she's been at the same school for almost 28 years. She drags me with her, which sometimes drives me crazy

My point has nothing to do with any programs graduation rate. But I want to dispel the thought that these kids cannot excel in college because they have had bad childhoods with horribly challenged home lives. Many times, because of the terrible home loves is what makes these underprivileged kids want to excel. Its not impossible for them to do the work in their college years.

I get your point and I agree with you. Individual kids from any situation can succeed anywhere else. However, you are not going to hit on those types of kids at a 98% level and that’s my point. Nobody can possibly roll the dice on that many kids and come up a winner almost every single time. Not Clemson, not Harvard, not Yale, nobody.

I’m sorry but commonsense dictates that this is very phony. It just feels very NCAA-ish to me.

The good Doctor is way off base.
There are some coaches that really do care about their players and will do what it takes to motivate them to succeed.
Dabo's performance at Clemson is admirable and respected.
What he is doing at Clemson reminds me of Dean Smith's tenure at Carolina. Both men have/had a true devotion to GOD and are living their faith.
Dean Smith graduated 97% of his players over his 36 year career.

http://biography.yourdictionary.com/dean-smith

Smith was intensely loyal to his players, visiting them in the hospital and keeping in touch with them after they graduated. Former Charlotte, North Carolina, mayor Richard Vinroot, who played under Smith, said Smith wrote to him weekly after Vinroot graduated and was serving in Vietnam. After Worthy turned pro and was arrested for soliciting a prostitute, Smith called and told him, "We're all human. I know you're a great man. Just deal with it as a man."

"I can't think of a time I've ever heard him blame or degrade one of his players, and in return, his kids are fiercely loyal to him, " Duke University coach Mike Krzyzewski told Sports Illustrated. "That kind of loyalty doesn't just happen. Things done on a day-to-day basis develop that kind of relationship."

Smith was such a straight arrow that he always wore a tie even in practice. He forbade his players to have facial hair. He and his wife Linnea campaigned to ban alcohol advertising at college sports events. "It's hypocritical for a college conference to have student-athletes tell young people they should say no to drugs when we say yes to beer ads, " Smith told Wolff.

Smith always made academics paramount. His players had a 97 percent graduation rate. To the end of his career, he remained firmly opposed to freshman eligibility for high-profile collegiate sports. If freshmen were ineligible, he told Wolff, "colleges would attract young men who are serious about school as well as athletics, because those who want to go pro after one season wouldn't have the patience to wait around." Yet Smith also advocated paying NCAA players, and he encouraged many of his stars to leave college early to turn professional.

Although he was one of the best paid collegiate coaches, Smith criticized coaches' salaries as exorbitant. He insisted that money donated by shoe-company sponsors to the basketball program be spread evenly to all sports programs, men's and women's, at the university. He was also intensely private. Only over his protests was North Carolina's new basketball arena named the Dean E. Smith Center in 1983. He "was the one guy who didn't buy into the myth that had been created around him, " said sportswriter S.L. Price.

Smith's players had to talk him out of retiring near the end of the 1996-97 season. Smith didn't want to break University of Kentucky legend Adolph Rupp's record of 876 coaching wins. After he won the game, he congratulated his assistants.

Some critics said Smith should have won more than two titles. "I don't believe that 'winning the big one' says all there is to say about you, " Smith told Wolff. "You win big ones to get to the Final Four, or even just to get into the tournament." Smith retired at the start of the 1997-98 season. At 66, he said he could no longer bring the necessary energy to his job. Smith was succeeded by Bill Guthridge, his assistant for 31 years.

"He had a style that no one's ever going to copy, " said Krzyzewski. "To be that smart, that psychologically aware, that good with X's and O's-with that system, and to always take the high road-that just isn't going to happen again."

Yeah, the sterling academic reputation of North Carolina basketball definitely disproves my point.

(06-11-2018 12:56 PM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  Yeah, the sterling academic reputation of North Carolina basketball definitely disproves my point.

https://goheels.com/news/2018/5/16/gener...tions.aspx

Posted On: May 16, 2018
CHAPEL HILL – The NCAA has honored 10 athletic programs at the University of North Carolina for ranking among the top 10 percent nationally in Academic Progress Rates in their respective sports.

That is the highest number of programs honored among public institutions in the Atlantic Coast Conference, equals the sixth most among all Power 5 schools and ties the University of Michigan for the most teams honored among public schools in the Power 5 conferences.

The five men's and five women's teams from Carolina that are being honored this year include men's basketball, men's cross country, women's fencing, men's golf, gymnastics, women's lacrosse, men's soccer, men's tennis, women's tennis and volleyball. All 10 teams scored a perfect 1000 in the APR from 2013-14 to 2016-17.

This marks the most top-10 percent awards UNC has earned in a year in the 13-year history of the APR. UNC had eight teams honored two other times, including last year.

(06-11-2018 02:05 PM)XLance Wrote:  

(06-11-2018 12:56 PM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  Yeah, the sterling academic reputation of North Carolina basketball definitely disproves my point.

Posted On: May 16, 2018
CHAPEL HILL – The NCAA has honored 10 athletic programs at the University of North Carolina for ranking among the top 10 percent nationally in Academic Progress Rates in their respective sports.

The five men's and five women's teams from Carolina that are being honored this year include men's basketball,... All 10 teams scored a perfect 1000 in the APR from 2013-14 to 2016-17.

The irony is your post fully supports his point, considering that we all know UNC gave out degrees like breath mints for 20 years to kids that couldn't read.

(06-10-2018 08:25 PM)nole Wrote:  Dabo is simply killing it. Can't take anything away from him.

This!!^^^^

He is the college version Doug Pederson where as Nick Saban's is Bill Belichik.

Both win but in two different ways.
FLossY Out...

(06-11-2018 02:50 PM)CollegeCard Wrote:  

(06-11-2018 02:05 PM)XLance Wrote:  

(06-11-2018 12:56 PM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  Yeah, the sterling academic reputation of North Carolina basketball definitely disproves my point.

Posted On: May 16, 2018
CHAPEL HILL – The NCAA has honored 10 athletic programs at the University of North Carolina for ranking among the top 10 percent nationally in Academic Progress Rates in their respective sports.

The five men's and five women's teams from Carolina that are being honored this year include men's basketball,... All 10 teams scored a perfect 1000 in the APR from 2013-14 to 2016-17.

The irony is your post fully supports his point, considering that we all know UNC gave out degrees like breath mints for 20 years to kids that couldn't read.