Oh so you had to go dissing lacrosse……so here is some facts to back my play….
Also, where are the stats on people attaining degrees?
NCAA website for starters.
Do athletes graduate at higher rates than non-athletes?
Yes, in division 1 62% to 60%
Do some sports vary significantly?
Yes, lacrosse is the higest in Division 1 by the way. Basketball seems to be the worst and women have much higher graduation rates than men across the board.
I’d be willing to bet that high-profile sports, the very ones that Brooks talks about, have the worst graduation rates, especially at the big schools.
Division 1 graduates at 62%, Division II at 54%. ( this surprised me)By the way soccer is in no way a high profile sport which is what he was addressing.
I still maintain that sports scholarships become socio-economic affirmative action because students can attend schools like stanford, duke, bc, and usc that have annual tuition higher than their families annual income. If you look at the athletics roster it is usually much more diverse than the schools general population.
I would also offer that the desire of schools to improve their sports program helped diversify schools especially Stanford who recruited non-white athletes as early as the 1920, long before Jackie Robinson.

Nope, sorry, Paul.Karabel’s book goes to some length to show how the decisions of 1906 have repercussions today, including in the area of sports. Sports, except in a few high-profile cases, tends to bring more of the same kids who will go to college anyway, esp. at a school that’s not Div I-A. It takes money and other factors that tend to favor the middle and upper-middle classes (which may be of differing ethnic minorities, but still pretty homogeneous) to make a viable sports star on the college level today.

My point wasn’t that university sports are bad or good, simply that they are not the diversity fostering mechanisms or community-building mechanisms at the vast majority of colleges.

If you want REAL diversity, institute socio-economic affirmative action. But let’s not foist off a significant social problem on football or lacrosse.Also, where are the stats on people attaining degrees? Do athletes graduate at higher rates than non-athletes? Do some sports vary significantly? I’d be willing to bet that high-profile sports, the very ones that Brooks talks about, have the worst graduation rates, especially at the big schools.

Davis can be as good as Harvard. As I tell people here and there, you get out of college what you put into it. The name only gets you so far. I went to Davis and put tons into it, and I’ve been to Cambridge, Berkeley, and Harvard since.

Nate,
Sorry dude but you are way off on your first point. Universities intercollegiate athletics programs have brought far more diversity to campuses than any other single factor. Karabel, who you are referencing is right if this was 1906, not 2006. Athletics and the scholarships they provide allow disadvantaged students to attend top ranked universities and provide a doorway to higher education, not a roadblock as you are suggesting. Whether those athletes contribute academically or not is another matter but since enrollment is required to participate on a squad, college completion is far from assured but much closer in grasp than otherwise.
To the articles point, our footballers, if you will, really must go through the university system to reach the highest levels of their sport. This is true in almost all sports except baseball which has a developed minor league system and routinely drafts out of high schools. He may be seeing a false correlation, as we know someone des not have to be excetionally bright to attend Seattle Pacific University (wink), but athletes use the university to develop their sport and most end up with a degree along the way.
I like your point that Davis is as good as Harvard. I have always known that.