First Robbie Frey now McNeal. We don't have to have lot's of basketweaving courses for our players nor do we have to pay fathers $180,000 or have someone take a players SAT's BUT why can't we get a good student into a grad program?Little League Program! BiG asperations? Dream On. I am bitter today!
Not sure I am that frustrated. These types of things add to the elite academic status of the school. I wouldn't mind of 10 years from now we are getting great players that are great students because we did things this way. I want the school to admit a kid like this but I'm not sure it is ultimately best for the school.
Something for the university to work on going forward. They need to learn to accommodate all aspects of the university, including football. Hard to comment on the merits of McNeal's case without knowing the details. But Frey and McNeal are starting to look like a pattern.
Robbie Frey was accepted here. He chose to go to Kutztown. This was covered in another thread already. http://articles.courant.com/2011-02...ch-edsall-kelmetrus-wylie-jonathan-jean-louis "I had been thinking about things during the season and was worried about my future, and when I met Coach Pasqualoni, he had helped me get into Master's classes and work toward my degree. But I had visited Kutztown and decided that it really would be right for me."
bummer, i really wanted mcneal and wish we could have gotten him in here. but lets be real, theres a issue if we couldn't get him in...
Yes and no. He was ultimately accepted, but only after P intervened. By all reports, he wasn't accepted when he expected to be, and then looked at his options -- and ultimately decided one was better -- before he heard that he would be admitted. This is a material hit to the roster, and this is not something that can be allowed to happen if we want to compete. The guy graduated college in three years -- if there really wasn't a grad program that Clemson didn't have that he could have been admitted to, the whole process should never, never have gotten this far.
I found this from Dez interesting - Desmond Conner @desmondconner #UConn coach @PaulPasqualoni said you have to be consistent academically in undergrad to get into grad at #UConn #bemeda #bigeastfb So unless we hear both sides - we'll never know. My sense is this is purely a level of effort academic issue.
Yes and yes, Biz. He liked the fact that Kutztown was an 18 month program versus longer at UConn. And perhaps the bigger point was that he had gotten engaged with his girlfriend. Although he said that didn't enter into the equation....I'll let you decide. My gut feeling is that something completely different happened in the matter of McNeal, and Dez's tweet (thanks, Huskymedic!) seems to support that feeling. I guess we'll wait and see when all the data comes in.
We're either gonna play big boy football or we're not. We have enough obstacles to overcome (relatively new BCS program, lack of fertile recruiting grounds, etc.). This doesn't, and shouldn't be one of them.
We have to play big boy college not big boy football. I am happy, in somes cases, that academia does not care about football.
First of all, you can do both. Secondly, I think it's best to reserve judgment on the McNeal case until all of the information comes out, because up to now, this is really an isolated case. It's not like we make a habbit of sending kids away, unless you are counting the Montrell Dobbs situation.
So is he going to Louisville? Having him go to the team favored to win the league would be a double hit for us, unless Louisville is so loaded at WR that he doesn't get PT. Have any other options been mentioned?
UConn is a research intensive institution that takes its graduate programs very seriously. If you want to get into certain programs, you better be carrying a 3.9 GPA. That's how it is. You can't just hand out masters degrees from respected universities to athletes because they are athletes.
Other than Stanford, how many programs do both at a high level? It's one thing to have a great school AND a great football program, and another thing to have a great football program and a great football program academically.
1) Notre Dame (ughh!) - I know, I know....I thought we were talking about "big boy" football! But still, they are a premier team that gets premier recruits, even if they finish 8-4 every year. 2) Texas - I'm not sure about this one, because I don't know how they handle their football players (queue up UNC joke here ___), but it is certainly a well-respected school in many fields of study. 3) Michigan - A really well-respected school who is finally getting back to their winning ways. 4) Cal - An up and down football school, but perennially a top 40 football team, I would think, and Berkeley is part of the "Ivies of the West". 5) Ohio State - Again, like Texas, it's hard to know how they treat their football players versus their other students, but they are certainly up there in many fields of study. 6) Wisconsin - Same comment as OSU. 7) Florida - same comment as OSU. There are additionally a handful of other schools that have one year of top level football every 5 years (i.e., the Northwesterns and Georgia Techs of the world), but I won't include them in this discussion. I know that I'm opening myself up to some ridicule due to some of the "question mark colleges" that I have pointed out. But I would ask that if someone roasts me on one or more of them, to at least provide some info to back it up, so that I can learn from it too.
As johnhuskies95 said, it's common to be a great school AND have a great football program -- but you will have great difficulty finding any schools that require football players to meet the same academic standards as others. It's not just football. When I was at Harvard, the daughter of the Sultan of Brunei was an undergraduate, and word came down to her professors that she could not fail. Harvard gets its money from donations, but other schools get money from football. Is it really immoral to ease up academic standards for football players or rich girls to benefit the university? Extra money may benefit everyone, including professors and other students.
