Putting the ‘scholar’ back in the title of scholar-athlete – Opinion
The above article, from today’s DTH talks about the issues with the current scholar-athletes coming through the system.
As an educator (well, future educator), I maintain that we should emphasize the importance of education when we are recruiting athletes to our schools. While they are bringing in lots of revenue to the school, they are also expected to be a student. Does adjusting our standards for these students affect our academic credibility?
I think you can argue that either way. However, I’ll also maintain that perhaps we should be encouraging these students to achieve at the level that we are expecting, instead of just saying “they’re athletes” and shrugging it off as if they don’t have the ability to perform academically as well as everyone else. For most of their lives, they probably haven’t been expected to perform well, so it might not be an issue of having the academic capability, but just being encouraged to use it in conjunction with their athletic ability.
Just my thoughts…and I’m sure there are people who disagree. I’d love to see your comments…
Be encouraged all…
life beyond the well... 
March 1, 2006 at 4:42 pm
I agree with Ginny — honestly the main problem with the NCAA is that they acknowledge that a lot of people (yes in sports outside of Basketball and Football) go to college to get better at their sport so they can go pro.
So why hide it? Make curriculum that is specific to them — hire professors in said fields and make an academic process out of what normally would be, the players bored in a class that their never going to utilizie.
March 1, 2006 at 5:58 pm
i’m honestly a little torn when it comes to this. i feel like it’s about one’s purpose. everyone isn’t at Carolina to be pre-med. Is it fair to expect them to perform as such? For some, their sport is pretty much their internship. Should we expect more of them?