https://chronicle.com/article/How-Athlet...0jbllUEQ==

Quote:...several new claims of academic misconduct involving Texas athletes, illustrate how the university has appeared to let academically deficient players push the limits of its policy on academic integrity as it has sought to improve its teams' academic records.

Like many big-time programs, Texas has dozens of athletes who came to the flagship campus unprepared for academic rigor. Keeping those players eligible without sacrificing academic standards is a balancing act that institutions are finding increasingly difficult to manage.

Quote:"Children’s Literature," one class that is popular with players, has a reading list that includes Charlotte’s Web and James and the Giant Peach. The class has no required papers, according to the syllabus. The instructor, though, says she does not give easy A's.

The NCAA is apparently investigating.

(06-10-2015 01:48 PM)CommuterBob Wrote:  https://chronicle.com/article/How-Athlet...0jbllUEQ==

Quote:...several new claims of academic misconduct involving Texas athletes, illustrate how the university has appeared to let academically deficient players push the limits of its policy on academic integrity as it has sought to improve its teams' academic records.

Like many big-time programs, Texas has dozens of athletes who came to the flagship campus unprepared for academic rigor. Keeping those players eligible without sacrificing academic standards is a balancing act that institutions are finding increasingly difficult to manage.

Quote:"Children’s Literature," one class that is popular with players, has a reading list that includes Charlotte’s Web and James and the Giant Peach. The class has no required papers, according to the syllabus. The instructor, though, says she does not give easy A's.

The NCAA is apparently investigating.

lol. Do they get extra credit for watching the movie?

(06-10-2015 01:48 PM)CommuterBob Wrote:  https://chronicle.com/article/How-Athlet...0jbllUEQ==

Quote:...several new claims of academic misconduct involving Texas athletes, illustrate how the university has appeared to let academically deficient players push the limits of its policy on academic integrity as it has sought to improve its teams' academic records.

Like many big-time programs, Texas has dozens of athletes who came to the flagship campus unprepared for academic rigor. Keeping those players eligible without sacrificing academic standards is a balancing act that institutions are finding increasingly difficult to manage.

Quote:"Children’s Literature," one class that is popular with players, has a reading list that includes Charlotte’s Web and James and the Giant Peach. The class has no required papers, according to the syllabus. The instructor, though, says she does not give easy A's.

The NCAA is apparently investigating.

Sounds like Texas is investigating and will turn over anything they find.

As for "Children's literature," that's a course in the college of education. There's even a graduate level course on that. The Education College is not viewed as the toughest. But you need some perspective on it. Its not an English literature course with that as the reading. Its about teaching children.

Most of this is pretty light stuff. From the headline I expected something major. The main issue I see is papers being written for players. Even that only has two examples and they aren't really sure about it. It just looks fishy (Did he e-mail his paper from out of town or did someone write it for him). The other example was excessive "prodding" by the tutor. It isn't clear what happened with the player who got caught cheating. Clearly he didn't get flunked and/or kicked out of school for it as a normal student might have. Teachers really shouldn't ask the athletic department about these issues. But it isn't clear if he really got away with it without consequences. Again, someone who is cheating like that getting a 3.0 looks fishy, but they don't have any specific facts.

Texas did have pretty low APRs in both football and basketball. Their academic advisor got interviewed with that article that came out about UNC players not being able to read. Texas was one of the ones who did respond and at least acknowledged there was an issue with marginal students.

Sending weak students to easier classes isn't cheating. Some regular students try to do that. The tough and hard classes aren't a secret. There's also the Acho brothers. Sam, now in the NFL, had nearly a 4.0 in the business honors program. His brother also had excellent grades in a tough major.

So far as I know there isn't any "athlete" major at Texas. Darrell Royal wanted one, saying Michigan and Ohio St. had it, but he got turned down. If they turned down Darrell, I don't imagine Mack was able to get one.

Texas State better prepare for the worst.

(06-10-2015 06:44 PM)UConn-SMU Wrote:  Texas State better prepare for the worst.

Texas State is pretty safe. This stuff all seems to be 8 or 9 years ago. NCAA doesn't penalize that far back. So San Marcos doesn't have to worry about what Austin might have done.

(06-10-2015 02:06 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(06-10-2015 01:48 PM)CommuterBob Wrote:  https://chronicle.com/article/How-Athlet...0jbllUEQ==

Quote:...several new claims of academic misconduct involving Texas athletes, illustrate how the university has appeared to let academically deficient players push the limits of its policy on academic integrity as it has sought to improve its teams' academic records.

Like many big-time programs, Texas has dozens of athletes who came to the flagship campus unprepared for academic rigor. Keeping those players eligible without sacrificing academic standards is a balancing act that institutions are finding increasingly difficult to manage.

Quote:"Children’s Literature," one class that is popular with players, has a reading list that includes Charlotte’s Web and James and the Giant Peach. The class has no required papers, according to the syllabus. The instructor, though, says she does not give easy A's.

The NCAA is apparently investigating.

Sounds like Texas is investigating and will turn over anything they find.

As for "Children's literature," that's a course in the college of education. There's even a graduate level course on that. The Education College is not viewed as the toughest. But you need some perspective on it. Its not an English literature course with that as the reading. Its about teaching children.

Which children, ....the little ones somewhere else or the big ones wearing jock straps?

This would be easier if the ncaa would simply name the big schools who arent easing athletes though school.

(06-10-2015 07:30 PM)cleburneslim Wrote:  This would be easier if the ncaa would simply name the big schools who arent easing athletes though school.

This is kind of where I am at with all this. The school's being picked for all this attention just so happen to be important in other matters at this moment in time.

(06-10-2015 07:33 PM)He1nousOne Wrote:  

(06-10-2015 07:30 PM)cleburneslim Wrote:  This would be easier if the ncaa would simply name the big schools who arent easing athletes though school.

This is kind of where I am at with all this. The school's being picked for all this attention just so happen to be important in other matters at this moment in time.

This is why I think the NCAA is in an untenable position right now. They have to do something, and make a statement doing it. Otherwise, they should fold up shop and quit pretending this is a non-profit organization.

(06-10-2015 07:30 PM)cleburneslim Wrote:  This would be easier if the ncaa would simply name the big schools who arent easing athletes though school.

Not just "big schools". It might even be easier to bend/break a lot of the rules at programs and in sports that get less scrutiny, because for something as big as Texas football they have media sniffing around all the time, while for teams that are not on the media's radar, it might take a long time for anyone to notice or care about any violations. One example: Boise State had a women's tennis coach who was playing ineligible athletes in varsity matches. IIRC he used players whose eligibility was already done, and at least once he played a new recruit who hadn't yet enrolled at Boise State. It didn't come to light for a few years. If anyone tried that at a big-time football program, the media would be so on top of it that Twitter would explode before the end of the first game in which the big-time coach played a player whose eligibility was up or a new un-enrolled recruit.

It could just be that its tennis why no one noticed. How many on here know anything about whose playing tennis at their school?

(06-10-2015 08:35 PM)cleburneslim Wrote:  It could just be that its tennis why no one noticed. How many on here know anything about whose playing tennis at their school?

Stop and think about this for a minute. Where does the NCAA get most of its money? From the basketball tournament for which the networks pay dearly. How much could the NCAA make if the conferences were configured for an 8 team playoff for a football national championship complete with 4 G4 conference winners as underdogs against the 4 P4 conference winners in a first round? Answer: A helluva lot more than for their basketball tournament.

The targets are Texas and North Carolina, which are probably the two biggest stumps to be pulled to allow a very fertile field to be planted. The struggle right now is between the P5 and the NCAA. By clipping the wings of Texas and North Carolina lightly they could gain a lot of compliance for restructuring and maintaining control of their product as opposed to allowing the P5 conferences to chart their own course to the exclusion of the G5. The NCAA derives its power from the lower tier schools and merely accommodates the behemoths.

If the networks go all in with the NCAA in order to get the restructuring they want for a mega event to be maximized by commercial television then the NCAA may find its niche as a broker or negotiator in all of this. Threatening the two largest obstacles to restructuring is the way to go. Besides they probably can't get anything on the Irish. Texas and U.N.C. pride themselves on taking the (hypocritical) high ground of academics first, but have now been accused of, if not downright caught, doing the exact opposite. For a light chastisement they might be amenable to bringing realignment to a close through the NCAA which for them would be a preference to an amalgamation of the P5 where the SEC and Big 10 reign as the overlords and where with autonomy the sky is the limit on spending.

This whole set of issues could bode very well for roping in the ceiling on spending, finding inclusion for the G5 (to become G4) and for the P5 (to become P4) while providing the oversight once again to the NCAA. And you know North Carolina might like that outcome just fine. I'm not so sure about Texas.

I'm not saying this is the answer, but I am saying the scenario is worth considering given there are probably many presidents right now who fear the uncharted territory of athletic spending run amok.

(06-10-2015 08:13 PM)bitcruncher Wrote:  

(06-10-2015 07:33 PM)He1nousOne Wrote:  

(06-10-2015 07:30 PM)cleburneslim Wrote:  This would be easier if the ncaa would simply name the big schools who arent easing athletes though school.

This is kind of where I am at with all this. The school's being picked for all this attention just so happen to be important in other matters at this moment in time.

This is why I think the NCAA is in an untenable position right now. They have to do something, and make a statement doing it. Otherwise, they should fold up shop and quit pretending this is a non-profit organization.

Bam... Nail, meet hammer.

the school that is hoping this is nothing almost as much as Texas is Tennessee...
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/volunteer-s...03814.html

Pretending every school doesnt perform this on some level...

(06-10-2015 10:51 PM)stever20 Wrote:  the school that is hoping this is nothing almost as much as Texas is Tennessee...
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/volunteer-s...03814.html

Its kind of an odd source for this sort of thing. The Chronicle of Higher Education? And most of it is very old.

There's nothing that implicates Barnes at all so far. For that matter, there's nothing in the report that is definitively a problem. Most of it is just fishy stuff that even in the worst case, probably can't be proved. If someone wrote that paper for Tucker, the only way anyone could prove that 9 years later would be if Tucker or the person writing it admitted it.

Sounds like a former employee/professor who has an axe to grind against big time sports. Someone who suspects something but really doesn't have first hand knowledge.

This will probably blow over very quickly unless it is the tip of an iceberg. But there's nothing indicating a systematic problem in this report (other than the well known one that some athletes really shouldn't be in these universities).

(06-10-2015 02:06 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(06-10-2015 01:48 PM)CommuterBob Wrote:  https://chronicle.com/article/How-Athlet...0jbllUEQ==

Quote:...several new claims of academic misconduct involving Texas athletes, illustrate how the university has appeared to let academically deficient players push the limits of its policy on academic integrity as it has sought to improve its teams' academic records.

Like many big-time programs, Texas has dozens of athletes who came to the flagship campus unprepared for academic rigor. Keeping those players eligible without sacrificing academic standards is a balancing act that institutions are finding increasingly difficult to manage.

Quote:"Children’s Literature," one class that is popular with players, has a reading list that includes Charlotte’s Web and James and the Giant Peach. The class has no required papers, according to the syllabus. The instructor, though, says she does not give easy A's.

The NCAA is apparently investigating.

Sounds like Texas is investigating and will turn over anything they find.

As for "Children's literature," that's a course in the college of education. There's even a graduate level course on that. The Education College is not viewed as the toughest. But you need some perspective on it. Its not an English literature course with that as the reading. Its about teaching children.

In some schools if you are majoring in creative writing? You get these types of classes as well to look at different aspects of writing from poetry to writing children books.

(06-10-2015 08:58 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(06-10-2015 08:35 PM)cleburneslim Wrote:  It could just be that its tennis why no one noticed. How many on here know anything about whose playing tennis at their school?

Stop and think about this for a minute. Where does the NCAA get most of its money? From the basketball tournament for which the networks pay dearly. How much could the NCAA make if the conferences were configured for an 8 team playoff for a football national championship complete with 4 G4 conference winners as underdogs against the 4 P4 conference winners in a first round? Answer: A helluva lot more than for their basketball tournament.

The targets are Texas and North Carolina, which are probably the two biggest stumps to be pulled to allow a very fertile field to be planted. The struggle right now is between the P5 and the NCAA. By clipping the wings of Texas and North Carolina lightly they could gain a lot of compliance for restructuring and maintaining control of their product as opposed to allowing the P5 conferences to chart their own course to the exclusion of the G5. The NCAA derives its power from the lower tier schools and merely accommodates the behemoths.

If the networks go all in with the NCAA in order to get the restructuring they want for a mega event to be maximized by commercial television then the NCAA may find its niche as a broker or negotiator in all of this. Threatening the two largest obstacles to restructuring is the way to go. Besides they probably can't get anything on the Irish. Texas and U.N.C. pride themselves on taking the (hypocritical) high ground of academics first, but have now been accused of, if not downright caught, doing the exact opposite. For a light chastisement they might be amenable to bringing realignment to a close through the NCAA which for them would be a preference to an amalgamation of the P5 where the SEC and Big 10 reign as the overlords and where with autonomy the sky is the limit on spending.

This whole set of issues could bode very well for roping in the ceiling on spending, finding inclusion for the G5 (to become G4) and for the P5 (to become P4) while providing the oversight once again to the NCAA. And you know North Carolina might like that outcome just fine. I'm not so sure about Texas.

I'm not saying this is the answer, but I am saying the scenario is worth considering given there are probably many presidents right now who fear the uncharted territory of athletic spending run amok.

lost leverage?

http://www.sbnation.com/college-basketba...-ncaa-2015

Well, apparently Texas hasn't gained an advantage on the field from this...