A Sea Of Red

Some minor talk of this in regards to Fitzgerald from UVA. I know players have to maintain a certain standard while in the school. That's not debatable (unless we get into whether or not they really earning the grades but that's something else all together.). However, does a school really care about an athlete's academic's to get admitted to a school? Fans will try to explain away a recruit that they lost, as "well, we can't go after him because he wouldn't get through admissions". But really, are you telling me that teams like Duke, or Georgia Tech, or Georgetown, or Stanford, or Cal (keep naming schools known for their great academics) have never taken a player that wasn't good in the classroom and yet they remain top programs in many or most of the major sports they compete in? I am skeptical of this.

LUconn wrote:But really, are you telling me that teams like Duke, or Georgia Tech, or Georgetown, or Stanford, or Cal (keep naming schools known for their great academics) have never taken a player that wasn't good in the classroom and yet they remain top programs in many or most of the major sports they compete in? I am skeptical of this.

EVERY major ACC program has gone after questionable student-athletes.....every one.



For trivia....

Order of the number of 1st team academic All-Americans they have/had recruited to their programs in their careers:

Dean Smith - 7 (Cunningham, Scott, Wuycik, Previs, LaGarde, Hale, Montross)
Roy Williams - 3 (Vaughn, Haase, Robertson)
Billy Donovan - 2 (Bonner, Humprey)
Jim Valvano - 1 (Terry Gannon)
Jerry Tarkanian - 1 (Danny Tarkanian)
Coach K - 1 (Battier)
Jim Harrick - 1 (George Zidek)

It's ludicrous if you believe that athletes could make it through the recruiting process if they weren't athletes. Case in point: Allen Iverson, who had done jail time in high school, would not have gone to Georgetown, one of the most prestigious colleges in the country, if he didn't know how to dribble a ball between his legs.

One of my friends said they saw Julius Peppers in a McDonald's, and he didn't know how to read the menu... and he went to North Carolina for three years.

Shane Battier went to Duke... and he conducted part of his collegiate interview in German (wait, maybe he did deserve to get into Duke). But still.

Everyone knows that athletes don't deserve to get into the colleges they go to (with the exception of very, very few). So why does it happen? Simple. A strong athletic program benefits the school. It generates more interest in the school, which means that the school gets more applications from prospective students, which means that the school is able to be more selective in the quality of the students that will attend its school.

Ed describes it perfectly. Even UNCA is allowed an occasional "exception."

Ed Dantes wrote:One of my friends said they saw Julius Peppers in a McDonald's, and he didn't know how to read the menu... and he went to North Carolina for three years.

As someone who knows Julius from back in the day & played a lot of pick-up ball with him when he went to Southern Nash High School.....I can tell you this is not true.

So, we're all in agreement. If you ever see someone say their school didn't go after so and so or didn't let him in for academica related reasons, it's bull.

blwall1416 wrote:

Ed Dantes wrote:One of my friends said they saw Julius Peppers in a McDonald's, and he didn't know how to read the menu... and he went to North Carolina for three years.

As someone who knows Julius from back in the day & played a lot of pick-up ball with him when he went to Southern Nash High School.....I can tell you this is not true.

Plus the menu at McD's is really just pictures now.

LUconn wrote:So, we're all in agreement. If you ever see someone say their school didn't go after so and so or didn't let him in for academica related reasons, it's bull.

Not necessarily. From an elitist standpoint, yeah it's pretty much crap, but the NCAA has academic standards of eligibility as well so it's quite possible that some schools don't go after kids because they know he won't make it academically while other schools recruit the same kid hoping that he can pull off an academic miracle and help their program.

LUconn wrote:

blwall1416 wrote:

Ed Dantes wrote:One of my friends said they saw Julius Peppers in a McDonald's, and he didn't know how to read the menu... and he went to North Carolina for three years.

As someone who knows Julius from back in the day & played a lot of pick-up ball with him when he went to Southern Nash High School.....I can tell you this is not true.

Plus the menu at McD's is really just pictures now.

Maybe it was because Julius didn't speak Spanish....

"Trust me when I tell you graduating from Duke [sic] isn't all that hard."
--John Feinstein

This was so good, I had to make it my sig for a while....

do not forget about sheldon williams being accused of rape in high school........but coach K recruited him anyway

It also depends on the school. For example, at PC we have 16 varsity sports teams and only 1,200 students. I'm not saying that athletes are stupid, but if there's a serious gulf between athletics admissions standards and those of the general student body, it will kill our overall stats. Plus, schools like Duke and UNC have legions of tutors and academic support staff for athletes that ordinary students don't have. They can afford to drop their standards a little for athletes because of a large and an academically strong student body.

LUconn wrote:So, we're all in agreement. If you ever see someone say their school didn't go after so and so or didn't let him in for academica related reasons, it's bull.

You just have to balance it out.....Recruit one Rob Attaway for every Phil Ward.

Ed Dantes wrote: if he didn't know how to dribble a ball between his legs.

Recruit one Rob Attaway for every Phil Ward.

The top Christian high school athlete in the Lone Star State in 1998 is still getting some love.

I hope everybody else has ridiculously high standards of academics. Because if they do, we will always let them in

They dont even have to tell time