I’m sure you have a cite for this, right?
Fair enough, but the geography has influenced the cultural role of the SEC, so it is relevant.
Or that it’s on the border of the Southeast and the Southwest. But, not a big deal.
I’d say the Forbes ranking of seventh amongst public schools is more impressive, but YMMV.
If the result isn’t the university not caring, then what’s the problem? College sports fans all care passionately about their school’s sports teams, that’s what makes them sports fans. There aren’t millions of fans rooting for academics on Saturdays, I assure you.
Poor Arkansas - not a single region wants to claim it!
What would you accept as a cite? The fact that Alabama fans and the school’s administration know that Saban doesn’t honor 4-year scholarships, but don’t care? Or, maybe you’d prefer that we take a poll of Alabama fans, asking if they’d trade places with UVA, both academically and athletically. What do you suppose the results of that poll would be?
Hell, the Bama fans on this very board aren’t even disputing the point.
7th at what, again?
For the second time, I’m not arguing that Alabama is a shitty school.
No, it really isn’t.
From here.
Moat of those scholarships are one year, renewable based on performance…just like the national merit academic scholarship I was on.
Were you allowed to transfer out without taking a year off? Could you have easily been accepted for transfer to a different university? Are most National Merit Scholars severely underprivileged youths with no chance at paying their own way or even maintaining their grades without significant assistance? Was your school one of only a handful who offered those scholarships for one year only, or was that the norm?
I didn’t mean the racial component, but the “North versus South” component.
This came up because I heard people yesterday crowing about the South’s advantages over the North, one of which was SEC football. I don’t think many people outside of the SEC view this as a referendum on which region is a better place to live or anything.
These are NCAA rules and have nothing to do with the University of Alabama. Take it up with them.
I certainly was, and so were a number of other people I knew who went to school on NM scholarships. I don’t know that I was “severely” underprivileged, whatever that means, but I certainly could not have gone to college without assistance.
So, what you’re saying is that the U of A operated 100% within the rules of the NCAA. Gotcha.
Yes, it is.
Wow this inane, even by Alabama standards. Enjoy your football and … well at least Alabama has football. And Mississippi.
Aaand there you go. This kind of thing is, of course, what I’m talking about. See you next year!
Exactly. Football over academic integrity, every time. “As long as we’re not breaking the letter of the NCAA law, we don’t need to worry about doing what’s right. FOOTBAW!!”
Athletic scholarships have always been for 4 years, which is why nobody felt like they needed to be specified as such. Until the likes of your coach came along, that is. Now the folks at the NCAA are sitting around going “Holy fuck, can you believe this shit? Christ, give me a pen, so we can spell this out for the morally bankrupt folks who put football above all else”.
I never, ever accused Alabama of cheating. I accused them of having fucked up priorities, which your response illustrates nicely. “We’re slimy, but we’re no cheaters!”
Can you explain the mechanism for this, exactly, and how it’s unique to SEC football? What aspects of a person “dealing with” these problems are infringed upon by also being a football fan? There’s not some office where fandom can be exchanged for infrastructure and public health.
We get it, you hate the South and want us to fail, because we’re just inferior people.
Except that, under Saban, athletic graduation rates, academics, and tutoring are at an all-time high, and are among the best in the nation.
That would be relevant if Alabama gave out four-year athletic scholarships. To my knowledge, the vast majority of schools don’t do this, but I haven’t made an in-depth study of the topic, so I could be wrong.
Why stop there? Why not MIT, or Harvard, or Princeton? Alabama’s not on par with them academically either, right? I’m not sure what the point of this exercise is.
I’m … flabbergasted by this.
I don’t know why. I expected it at some point in this thread.
Not just “don’t”, they weren’t allowed to by the NCAA in Division I, until this year.
Yes, Ogre, arguing is difficult when you’re defending bad people.