(06-08-2018 10:11 PM)Barney Wrote: Or if that's a bit harsh, then why the heck are male athletes apparently so miserable at Rice?
Do they simply hate to actually have to study?
Is it a red/blue thing, with athletes all coming from red Texas suburbs, and the rest of the diverse, international student body all blue?
Is it the empty seats?
I'll give you a bunch of reasons why most male athletes (especially in revenue sports) don't like the Rice experience... Others can add or subtract from this as they see fit:
1) They don't like the school work. Though they are smarter than your average FBS athlete, most are still in the bottom 15% of Rice when it comes to test scores and other universal metrics. Rice is hard for most normal students, so think of what it must be like if you are already behind the curve. Yes, there are easier majors available. But even those aren't "easy." For example, sports management has lots of required internships that suck up time. The humanities majors might not be quantitatively challenging, but require lots of reading and quite honestly, not many athletes are interested in them. Lots of guys used to be able to scratch it out through economics if they had to... Not so anymore after they upped the math reqs.
2) Our academic support is not commensurate with the difficulty of the school. All of the tutoring athletes receive is from students getting paid $10-12/hr. At many P5 schools, there are full-time tutors whose JOB is to help athletes with their school work. At Rice, our full-time academic support staff is there to help plan schedules, work through grading disputes, put out fires with professors, etc. While the way Rice does it is probably more "morally" correct, it certainly isn't easier on the athletes.
3) Our social life isn't on par with other schools, at least in the way most athletes want. There is no greek life where being a football, basketball, or baseball player gets you automatic entrance into whatever party you want) It's not just greek life though... It's a pain (though not impossible) to get into bars when you're under 21 unlike some college towns and even if you do get into them, they're packed with 22-28 y/o young professionals not hundreds of 18-20 y/o's with a 60/40 female-male ratio.
4) Few fans come to their games. I've been to almost every C-USA venue and lots and lots of P5 venues and almost all of them beat Rice. We're ahead of FIU and about tied with FAU. That's it. This is especially a problem in basketball where the emptiness of Tudor is especially noticeable.
5) Facilities lag other schools. The Patterson center is nice but we still lag lots of schools. Is there a free nutrition/snack bar open 24/7 for athletes? Nope, but there is at Texas Tech (a "low-end" P5). Do we have an indoor practice facility? Nope, we have access to the Texans' on their terms but a team still has to load up onto a bus for that. Can you punt or kick a football on our practice field without it possibly ending up on city streets? Nope. Do our locker rooms (for any sport) have digital displays? Nope.
6) Can family watch a game on TV without having to reinvent the wheel? TBD... The ESPN3/+ is a promising development but still annoying that you'll have to pay $5/month extra.
7) Does it feel like the administration cares about athletes? The Harvey car flooding (whether you think the university should've paid for damages or not, it was not handled with haste and compassion), the stipend checks coming late, the parking office giving tickets (this isn't limited to athletes granted, but they do like to park on the loop), assistant coaches jumping at the first chance to leave because salaries aren't high enough...