The Charade Of The Student/Athlete

notre dame is the only program in the country
where the athletes have a higher graduation rate than the general student body
but it's probably like a tenth of a point depending on the year
it's like ninety eight point two percent versus ninety eight point one percent but
the majority of
and it's especially big-time college programs and and you know we should be clear
here early on in the this interview
I'm primarily talking about men's basketball
and men's football
because those are
the money generating sports those are the sports that pay for everything else they pay for lacrosse
women's field hockey golf all the other sports that really don't generate any positive
revenue
so to go back to your question the graduation rates for a lot of these
teams like Kentucky's like thirty one percent
%uh Bob huggins who I mentioned was the coach in cincinnati for a long time went to kansas
state for a year
now he's at west Virginia
he got kicked out of cincinnati basically by this woman Nancy Zimpher
who was the President at the time
the graduation rate for his basketball team was zero percent
and a lot of times we see these kids coming in they have what they call now the one
and done rule
the NBA created this rule that said okay we're not going to recruit kids directly out of high school
we want them to go for one year to college
Bob knight
who
is not
the most academically rigorous coach he's there to win he's one of these big-name
coaches
that it's win win win
he thinks the one and done is the worst thing to ever happen to college basketball because
he says listen
it really
all it does is make these kids come to college for a year they don't have any intention of
ever graduating if they're just there for a year
they don't have to worry about their NCAA eligibility because they have the
whole year to go through
and then when they to get to June and they have D's and F's and C's
it doesn't matter because they're going to apply for the NBA draft
and so it's it's it's really %uh
that's the most recent development
that people were really critical of now i'll I also should say in reference to the
one and done
a lot of people think that the NFL was more altruistic because they have a three year
requirement you have to be
out of high school for three years before you can be eligible for the NFL draft
that has nothing to do with altruism or the idea that the NFL thinks everyone should
go to college and get a degree
it actually has to do with putting weight on
most the NFL today I mean these linemen are three hundred and twenty three hundred
and fifty pounds
very fast
the running backs now are two forty two fifty
this isn't about going to school it's about putting meat on your bones the average high
school kid no matter how good he is
a jimmy clauson or or anyone like that
they could not go directly
from high school to college to the pros and compete today
the the game is much faster it's a much bigger
learning curve from
college football to the NFL
and quite frankly the linemen and even the guys that come out of high school who are
two seventy two eighty
they've got to go and spend four years in the weight room
%uh and and really put a lot of meat and mass on their bones to be able to even survive in the
NFL today so
the NFL shouldn't get a pass on its its three-year requirement
and to your point if I'm correct the NFL has no college requirement
they just have to be out of high school for three years correct so you could go and play in the NFL Europe
or you could go play well it used to be the Canadian football league
%uh I %uh so you could go play there or arena
%uh it doesn't say you have to go to college it says you have to be three years out
of high school but that let's be honest
a lot of these places like nebraska Penn state
%uh texas
they're they're training grounds for the NFL that's really that's really all they are a
lot of these kids
you know they end up
you know at the end of four years with sixty or seventy credits in a bunch of cake courses
%uh oftentimes in departments that are specifically crafted to
coddle athletes
and
they had they had no intention of graduating in the first place they were just there
to play football
put weight on and
declare for the draft
so do you agree with Bob knight on the one and done rule I do I think it's I think I think
it's it just exacerbates the problem I would much rather see
the NBA you know they this with Lebron James he never went to college
he was this phenom that came out of high school
and he went right to the NBA and Kobe Bryant
I would rather see these kids it would be much more honest
if they were talented enough to come out of high school and went to the NBA or they went to
this NBA development league which they're starting it hasn't really caught on yet it's
it's not as popular as the NBA
%uh but I think it's really a step towards honesty
%uh that
that it's a place for these kids to go
and do nothing but play basketball and not
participate in this charade that they're student athletes because they're nothing
of the kind




okay