How about the other 8 games they lost last season?
O.K. I just thought it ironic that in both your case and Hornung’s, semi-legitimate questions were getting overshadowed by unnecessarily insensitive language.
If ND really does have substantially higher academic requirements than other schools with historically big-time football programs (and I have no way to know this), then they are likely missing out on some talented athletes who are academically deficient, a large proportion of which would be black. But since there would also be quite a few white players who couldn’t meet the admission standards, I don’t know why Hornung made comments suggesting he viewed it as solely a racial issue.
I guess he just doesn’t have the “necessities” to be a public spokesman on this issue. 
I don’t see anything racist in Izzy’s remarks. And it’s valuable to note the extent to which universities exploit athletes who bring prestige and money to their schools and then wind up with no degree, or a degree in something like Recreational Theory.
I highly doubt that a majority of basketball players who don’t get their college degrees are earning big bucks in the NBA. It may be true for those who voluntarily leave early for the draft, but that has to be a pretty small percentage of all players.
When I hear debates about this sort of thing (i.e. concerning Maurice Clarett at Ohio State and his academic follies), I think of a classic James Thurber story about his days at OSU circa 1900. There was supposedly a history class he took in which one of the other students was a star lineman, dumber than a box of rocks. The instructor tried to feed him a softball question in class one day “Name a form of transportation, Zbiegnewski.” The guy just sat there looking confused. Eventually the other students starting trying to help out by making train noises (choo-choo sounds, whistles).
This stuff has been going on for ages. It’s just more organized now and there’s lots more money at stake.
Oops, sorry. They went an impressive 4-7 last season. It was 2002 in which they went a stellar 2-9.
Careful there, Munch. 
While it may not be true that a majority of the players who count as non-graduates go to the pros, the way they calculate that stuff is pretty misleading. Players who transfer away from the school in their freshman year, or any year, are counted as non-graduates, no matter what they do after they transfer. When you consider the amount of football and basketball players who hop from school to school looking for playing time, that in itself is pretty significant.
Also, you have to graduate within five or six years of first enrolling at the school to be counted, so that knocks off quite a few, I imagine. Add on to that the fact that walk-ons don’t count for graduation, it’s only the scholarship players, and all of a sudden the few dozen players who go professional starts to affect the percentages more. Remember, if a player plays four seasons and goes pro, and then comes back later to get his degree (which happens fairly often in my experience), he’s counted as a non-graduate. Just for the hell of it, I tried to find an article bitching about some school’s graduation rate, and right away I found this from last year. Here’s what I think is the relevant section:
Now, when Toledo’s basketball program’s grad rate is reported at 13%, you can’t help but think to yourself that 87% of the players just leave school and never finish. In reality, that applied to five out of fifteen. The seven who transferred and the one who got cut from the team are the hidden weight against the graduation rate. You’ll never hear what happened to those kids who transferred, although wherever they go they’ll probably count against that team’s graduation rate too.
On top of all that, sometimes the NCAA just gets it wrong- I can remember when Michigan was supposed to have a zero graduation rate for its basketball players one season, and then some guy who actually graduated came out and protested.
I’m not saying that athletes always take advantage of the academic opportunities available; I don’t think that’s true. I’m just saying that when you hear statistics about these big schools’ athletic programs, there are a few hidden factors they don’t tell you about that affect the numbers.
I agree with bordelond’s post. The graduation/education problem has to do with lowering standards for athletes, not with guys dropping out for the pros. (Frankly, if I was in their situation I would also drop out early for the big bucks. The real losers in the end are the guys who neglect their education for sports and then don’t make it to the pros).
I don’t think you need extensive studies - it’s pretty obvious to most people. (Though maybe not to guys like Jimmy Chitwood.)
The difference between dumb and academic underachiever is also obvious. (Though maybe not to guys like Jimmy Chitwood.) I don’t see that he implied the former, at least in the linked OP article.
It’s OBVIOUS that most black athlete are academic underachievers? I just want to make sure of what you’re saying.
I did not say “most”. I said “disproportionate percentage”. No need to change that.
FWIW, “most” is probably also true. But I wouldn’t say this was obvious.
Yeah, that could be falsely attributed to me…oops. And I should also qualify that 30% - that’s roughly what the percentage was when I was there, but I have no hard facts.
OK, IzzyR, you tell me. Since guys like me can’t handle this level of intellectual discourse, dumb it down for me. How is
not a racist statement? He didn’t say the athletes in general aren’t able to keep up academically, he said the black athletes. Are you telling me that saying black athletes need low standards academically does not imply lower intelligence on the part of the black athletes? Is the reason behind fucking saying “black athletes” and just saying “athletes” NOT obvious to guys like IzzyR?
By the way, hate speech is prohibited, I thought, and
in response to jarbaby’s
is racist bullshit rhetoric. Fuck off, you’re a racist, and you’re contradicting yourself to boot.
I’m having a little trouble understanding how Paul Horning saying that ND should award more football scholarships to black athletes than it does now is racist. If he’d said the school should recruit fewer blacks, yeah, sure that be racist. Recruiting blacks who want to study to be accountants, lawyers, doctors or English professors will certainly help society but it won’t necessarily help the football team! 
It is of course an entirely separate question about whether recruiting better athletes of whatever skin tone, as opposed to student-athletes, is a good idea for the university as a whole. I am against the school lowering academic standards for athletes but I’d rather the school administration listen to what Coach Willingham thinks about the matter. He’s the one stuck between the “Win or else” mentality of the alumni and school administration and the really difficult football schedule.
Personally, I think ND’s problem is that it schedules too many good teams. In the old days (60s, 70’s and 80s) ND would mix in chumps like Northwestern, Army, Navy, Tulane and the pre-Schellenberger Miami, Florida. Now its down to Navy being the only real patsy on the schedule and even Navy has come damn close to beating the Irish several times in the last 15 years. As a ND alum and fan I’d recommend Notre Dame replace Washington, BYU and Tennessee on this year’s schedule with say, Kent State, Eastern Michigan and Vanderbilt.
The rest of your post seems to support this statement. Any coherent point that you might have made has already been addressed. Reread, but slower this time.
Are you by any chance a student athlete? (He he, I crack myself up).
:rolleyes:
Two seasons determine the quality of a program, I suppose. Idiot.
What ARTICLE ARE YOU READING? Paul Hornung said ND should LOWER THEIR ACADEMIC STANDARDS to attract black atheletes. Do you see what that means? He’s saying “let’s dumb it down so some black kids can go to school here”. It has nothing to do with scholarships. He’s saying that there are less black atheletes at ND because the school is so academically focused.
IZZY, I’m not even buying “a disporportionate amount”. Don’t make me sit here and name off people like Priest Holmes, Mike Anderson (a marine) countless other black NFL players who have degrees in Veterinary Medicine, PreMed, Engineering and whathaveyou as compared to White guys like Jeremey Shockey, Brian Urlacher and Brian Griese who are dumb as stumps.
Actually, let me amend something. Notre Dame has always had a better football program than Stanford, I don’t think that’s in dispute here.
But if the problem is that Notre Dame is recruiting intelligent black athletes (I have no idea if that’s the case), then they are not doing something correct as Stanford has maintained over the past decade a fairly competitive football program with academic standards higher than Notre Dame and with much less reputation to use bringing recruits.
So, if Hornung is maintaining that intelligent black students aren’t coming to Notre Dame, then that isn’t an indication that Notre Dame needs to lower standards so much as an indication that it needs to fix its recruiting methods.
IzzyR, you sad, bitter, condescending fuckface. One more time, jarbabyj said:
Then you said:
The first quote uses the word “dumb.” Not “academic underachiever,” “dumb.” You said that it was obvious. Maybe, if you get a chance in between jamming redwoods up your ass and chortling to yourself about your imagined wit, you could answer my question. Are you saying that blacks are dumber than whites, yes or no? If not, why’d you post what I’ve quoted above? If so, well, we’ve covered that.
Neurotik, can I assume you’re putting yourself in the “idiot” category with me since you essentially agreed with me in your last post?
Anyway, I don’t think it’s a matter of recruiting, and it’s not a matter of admission requirements. You can lower the requirements all you want for athletes, but you’re not going to be able to lower the standards in the classroom. You can tell the star high school safety that you’ll let him in, but you can’t tell him you’ll let him pass - that’s Notre Dame’s highest hurdle (and Stanford’s, most likely). There are no easy outs that aren’t available to regular students - athletes have the same requirements and standards everyone else does (and they have to live with average schmoes like me their freshman year).
The main difference between ND and Stanford is that Stanford’s alumnae and fanbase don’t expect and demand success nearly to the extent that Irish alumnae and fans do.
Well, I am in the idiot category, but not for anything I’ve done in this thread.
I wasn’t calling you an idiot for saying that Notre Dame has a better program than Stanford, that’s an obvious fact. It was for using one game and two seasons to pass a judgement on whether a program has been competitive over a period of time. If you had done it by pointing out the fact that Notre Dame has had more winning seasons than Stanford over the past decade, I would have wholeheartedly agreed and acknowledged the misleading implication of my post.
Agreed.
I think you’re reading too much into Hornung’s comments. Regardless of intellect, black high school graduates are going to have more difficulty meeting higher academic standards. This is because they’re more likely to go to shitty schools- it is no reflection on their intellect, but on the quality of education available to them. That’s why we have affirmative action, of course- it’s a lot harder for the mean black child to display his or her academic potential than it is for the mean white child to do so.
Still, Hornung is wrong. ND needs to lower its standards to attract the athlete. Its white players suck just as badly as its black ones.
And IzzyR is clearly a dipshit.
No doubt Willingham will continue to exhibit his trademark class by issuing a brief, carefully considered statement expressing his disappointment and never bringing it up again. I interviewed him many a time when he was coaching at Stanford, and when it comes to the press, he doesn’t just play it close to the vest, he plays it inside the vest. If you ask him if he thinks the sun’s going to come up tomorrow, he will hesitate to commit one way or the other.
Off the record, on the other hand, he can be a pretty funny dude.