http://www.gatorsports.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070327/GATORS01/70326037
This article discusses how the mens basketball team has to deal with their academic workload, along with their responsibilities as basketball players. I can't even imagine how hard it is to focus on anything related to school right now. I'm struggling with it and Im just a huge fan! They are expected to learn how to play against teams that they might not have ever seen, and sometimes they only have about 40 hours. Then the players are expected to keep up their GPA's to a standard that is worthy of the University.
Sometimes this doesnt always work. "Walter Hodge walked into a midterm exam Monday and didn't know any of the answers."All guesses," Florida's sophomore guard said. "I didn't know anything." (Zimmerman, 2007)
People all over the world will read this article and chuckle at this. They'll laugh because right now, who cares? The Gators are in the Final Four. Months down the road when Hodge could potentially become ineligible due to bad grades, all of a sudden there will be an uproar.
3 comments:
I couldn't even imagine having to deal with what these players are going through right now. School has been kicking my butt all semester long and I'll I do is work full time. They are traveling all of the time and expected to keep their grades up to par.
It's a shame that Walter had to walk into a test and not know anything. But do you think that says something about our tutors that go on the road with them? I know that tutors are required to travel with the team, but school is probably not the 1st thing on these guys minds right now. I know it wouldn't be even on my radar.
The fact of the matter is that it's hard to do what these kids are doing. It's tiring and draining just thinking about it. But to play at a top notch university, that's the price you pay. That's why we are who we are and we graduate our athletes.
Hodgey, come on you hoss. During ESPN's all-access tournament edition with Wisconsin basketball, they actually showed wisconsin guard kameron taylor studying in the hotel in-between their first and second round games. Maybe that's why they lost. Despite the fact that I'm sure that it was staged for the show, I can't even imagine thinking about school when I was about to PLAY in an ncaa tourney game the next day.
Part of me wants to look at this a bit more cynically though. Before the game at Kentucky, ESPN showed a puff piece about the 4 juniors who all live together. Most of it was uninteresting, but then they went into Taurean's room and he was playing video games (standing up, by the way, which seems odd) and they asked him how much he played. His response was something like 3 or 4 hours a day, "after practice, after class" (Green, 2007). If that's true and the other players have that kind of time to waste as well, I really think that they have time to study.
My theory is that the school (coaches, teachers, administrators) will keep those guys eligible. Furthermore, I believe the story, especially Hodge's "I didn't know anything" quote shows where we place our emphasis in college athletics. I really could care less than to hear about the sob stories that student-athletes always have about being an athlete and a student. Being an athlete is a privilege, not a right. Furthermore, they have more than ample opportunities to "excel" in their classes via the homework do-ers, excuse me, tutors provided by the athletic association. I feel at times that Universities across the country use athletes for their talents and do not allow them the chance to obtain a good education. I feel this way because so many teachers bend or break rules for athletes simply because they are athletes. Many athletes would not even be able to TOUR, much less attend, a college campus if it were not for their God given talents. Then when they arrive at school they are infantilized by teachers and administrators that allow them to get a way with murder for the sake of their participation on an athletic team. Walter Hodge may FACE academic ineligibility, but I bet you $1,000 he will never become ineligible.
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