Should Tech Recruiting be Judged by a Different Standard?
by Atlanta's original team on Jan 26, 2011 1:58 PM EST
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PrintGeorgia Tech appears to be recruiting a stellar class of football talent this year but spend two minutes monitoring various blogs and one will see some very acrimonious comments about the recruiting abilities of Coach Paul Johnson. These comments no doubt cause concern among some fans and may even scare off some future potential players. But these comments almost to the letter fully miss the point of athletic scholarships.
Can you say education?
Perhaps a more germane question should be directed to those football players who attend certain well known football factories, "Can you spell education?" It no longer should be debated that some schools offer easy courses and some schools offer scholarships to players who probably are not college material. Georgia Tech could not do that even if it wanted to. Though players no longer have to attend class on Saturday prior to the big game as they did in Bill Curry's day, there are still no easy majors at Georgia Tech.
A Wall Street Journal article "Why Football Players Don't Speak Spanish" charted the majors chosen by starting football players across the country. The clever title comes from the fact that only one football player in the entire country chose to major in a foreign language. There were only 20 Engineering Majors and only 2 Math Majors. Close to 200 starters majored in General Studies or Liberal Arts. Something like 118 majored in sports related majors.
If around 300 starting BCS players are involved in the so-called "softer" subjects this observation should not be construed as a denigration of their majors nor of their life's calling. The world needs liberal arts. Not only can we not all be scientists, it would be a really dull place if we were.
Those who want Tech to recruit the next Cam Newton should keep in mind several things. Cam's reported academic problems in the past indicate he was not Tech material. Currently most football players tend to prefer the "softer majors." Educators generally agree that the three most difficult subjects in college are engineering, math and physics. The pool of athletes that can handle upper level math is quite small. Though there is nothing to prevent a Cam Newton type player from showing up in that pool, Tech is not the only school fishing.
If one were to name the most rigorous schools in the country that play big time football four that come to mind would be Stanford, Army, Navy and the Air Force Academy. These are also among the more difficult schools to get into. Any success that they have on the football field is in part due to the fact that they recruit nationally. In other words their pool is a little bigger than most schools. Other schools that come to mind that have lofty expectations for their students include Cal Berkeley, Vanderbilt and Wake Forest. To be sure there is a little bit of apples and oranges in comparing these last schools but what they have in common are high SAT scores and top of the class standing for their entering freshman. Each for different reasons presents formidable hurdles to the potential student athlete.
Tech recruits some nationally (in my opinion they should do more) but for the most part they work the same vineyards as Alabama, Auburn, Clemson, Tennessee, Georgia and the like. In case anyone doesn't remember, the area that Tech recruits has some of the worst high schools in the nation. The state of Georgia ranks 46th in SAT scores, near the bottom in math and is almost dead last in graduation rates. This ranking is all the more alarming when one realizes, as President Obama pointed out in his recent State of The Union address, that U.S. education as a whole has slipped to 9th place in the world.
In light of these facts Tech's latest class is all the more remarkable. These students embody the Athenian ideal of physical fitness and intellectual rigor. They will not only dazzle us on the playing field they also will likely not flunk out. Nor are they the type that would attract NCAA investigations.
Here is what we expect from them as a group. They will be exposed to a cosmopolitan Atlanta atmosphere and without half trying will baste in a rich sauce of culture and experiences. Though many will worry about staying academically eligible and thus choose a Management Major over a Physics Major, here too we will take satisfaction in knowing that they still are being stretched further than the vast majority of their competitors at other schools. And if things play out the way they do for the vast number of former Tech athletes, they will be well prepared for life, whether in sports, business or as community leaders.
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Well Written
Two comments:
1. I doubt the blogs and sports writers will impact future recruiting. Tech winning on the field and Paul Johnson and the other coaches talking to the players is what gets it done.
2. I don’t think CalTech plays big-time college football.
Overall, I agree with your conclusion that recruiting in the south is difficult for Tech (due to the competing schools and often poor academics), and our players must be smarter than your average jock (although I refuse to admit that Management classes were hard…I took a couple, so I know). One thing I would hope everyone knows is that Scout, Rivals, and ESPN are extremely inaccurate in assigning stars to high school recruits. Outside of their top few players, it’s very hit-or-miss. Even Demaryius Thomas only had 3 stars…an average ranking at best.
Thanks
1.) Some players do read blogs and sports writers, though I would admit that if this is what sways them they are a little more unstable than the kind of player one would want.
2.) When I say big-time I am referring to what some call Division I and what others refer to as BCS schools.
I agree about ratings. Three stars is a toss up ranking to me, almost as if those doing the rating are afraid to stick their neck out. If they say five star or two star they have definitely put their reputation on the line.
by Atlanta's original team on Jan 26, 2011 3:10 PM EST up reply actions
Oops!
I confused my Cals.
In the back of my mind swirling around was this gnawing question, “How can there be so many quality colleges in California and so many of them seem to be respectable in football?”
by Atlanta's original team on Jan 26, 2011 4:18 PM EST up reply actions
May I digress a moment?
On my to-do list after I finish all of my other pointless investigations is to try to find a plausible explanation (as in a unified theory of the universe) as to why Florida can have so many Division I football programs and Georgia only has two. I know population is part of the equation but even North Carolina has four and Mississippi has three, respectively.
by Atlanta's original team on Jan 26, 2011 4:22 PM EST up reply actions
Southern doesn’t have the money and State didn’t have a team until recently. KSU is getting a team soon. Emory just doesn’t want to. None of the HBCUs in town have enough students to compete. I can’t really think of any other schools in the state that even have teams…
valdosta
This is my Family Tradition
by The_GT_LineageX11 on Jan 28, 2011 10:32 AM EST up reply actions
Ton of tradition and history winning there
Much like Southern, and I’m not sure I’m buying money as a reason to not have your team in 1-A. Both of these schools can win championships where they are, but if they move up it makes things very difficult to win a championship. That might have more to do with it than anything.
"You could spend the next fifteen seconds of your life watching a man and a tiger scream together, or you could be an idiot."
Fact.
This is one of the reasons why I respect Georgia Tech
And many other engineering or high academic universities that play division one football. And those that will not change there stance on only allowing those that have earned the right of the education provided at that university. I know my alma mater can be accused of not always holding to this standard, but to know that my university would rather continue to produce intelligible men and women for tomorrow instead of just spewing out whatever for the sake of it means that my degree matters in the hole.
Just my two cents.
Don't give up, don't ever give up ~ Jim Valvano
Glad my article reminded you of your school pride.
I am actually most proud of the fact that I got out of high school.
by Atlanta's original team on Jan 26, 2011 3:13 PM EST up reply actions
also the NCAA
requires student athletes to have a 2.0 gpa to play sports… Tech requires they have a 2.3 ( i believe) to play.
plus so called “recruiting stars” are primarily calculated from what schools are looking at the same player.. nothing on their actual ability to play the game
This is my Family Tradition
by The_GT_LineageX11 on Jan 26, 2011 3:10 PM EST reply actions
You know though
if you keep this kind of talk up what eventually happens is that someone takes offense claiming that you are calling their state school a barnyard for dumb animals.
by Atlanta's original team on Jan 26, 2011 3:30 PM EST up reply actions
The truth sometimes hurts…
by Rob_The_Slender on Jan 30, 2011 1:57 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
hahaha
i think thats already the case for the state of georgia… :) haha
This is my Family Tradition
by The_GT_LineageX11 on Jan 26, 2011 4:13 PM EST reply actions
hey, I was born in Georgia and contrary to popular belief some of us did graduate from high school and some of us did not marry our mothers.
by Atlanta's original team on Jan 26, 2011 4:24 PM EST up reply actions
and there are even some of us who didn’t marry our sisters either.
by Dive Keep and Pitch on Jan 27, 2011 9:21 AM EST up reply actions
yeah, even when each of our six sisters had a different father we upheld the family honor, tempted though we were.
by Atlanta's original team on Jan 27, 2011 12:55 PM EST up reply actions
hahahahahaha
This is my Family Tradition
by The_GT_LineageX11 on Jan 26, 2011 5:00 PM EST reply actions
Lost all of the comments by making an editorial change
but it was necessary because of one egregious error in the original text. I confused Cal Berkeley with Cal Tech in my rush to publish.
Though Cal Tech is considered one of the top ten colleges in the nation it is not the football playing school that Cal Berkeley is. Cal Berkeley on the other hand, while not being in the top ten academically, does have standards higher than many state schools. 98% of entering freshman graduated in the top 10% of their high school classes. 91% of entering freshman have a GPA above 3.75. 75% of entering freshman scored above 730 on each section of their SAT.
by Atlanta's original team on Jan 26, 2011 5:30 PM EST reply actions
STUDENT-Athlete
As a former athlete and a math major I can tell you without a doubt that taking math courses during season is nearly impossible. You the student and the professor have to be extremely willing to work and put in the extra time into your classes if you wish to succeed in these majors. I personally realized this as a freshman during my first season of traveling around the country and I fell too far behind in Cal 3 after missing 2 straight weeks of class due to travel and also missed out on an A in another class because the professor felt that playing a Div 1 sport is the equivalent of joining a fraternity and that I would be given no special attention.
So i commend both the GT student athletes as well as the professors who allow for the student athletes to excel both on and off the field
Uh oh
Sounds like we need a chart showing a school’s avg SAT score (of all the students not just athletes) vs. wins.
Ramblin', Gamblin', HELL OF AN ENGINEER!
Guys, I have a plan!
So we know what Tech is good at, yes? All it takes is familiarity with US News to see we rank Top 5 in nearly EVERY technical major we offer. BUT read a list of the top public universities in the country. Who’s competing with us there? Names like UNC, UVA, Michigan, tOSU, etc. come up, right? Of those, who’s been good at football? Well, hey there, midwesterners! Aren’t they the very same schools respected for their research in engineering fields (fellow AAU members)? Ohio State and Michigan compete with us in all our best majors and beat us in the liberal arts. Just look at the rankings in any publication. Now do THEIR athletes take those tough engineering classes? NO WAY! Those schools keep top prestige as public ivies but ALSO offer plenty of “easy” majors. Now that U(sic)GA offers our biggest majors, the gloves should be off and we ought to offer whatever we want. We do NOT have to stay strictly an engineering school. We only offer BS’s – even in Management, PubPol, STaC, and HTS – but WHY?!! Especially in a world when MIT is offering BA’s and big, highly ranked public schools like Michigan and Ohio State simultaneously keep easy majors for the football players and keep their prestigious academic reputations. I think developing this state’s best sports science department (maybe even utilizing the connections we already have with Russel Athletic) would be the best thing to make us more attractive for players that wouldn’t cut it in Management.
Go Jackets!
Well, there is that trade off
My wife is from Michigan and you are correct about the degree to which athletes are segregated from the regular school’s high academic performance in many of the top Midwestern schools. The old cliche of basket weaving courses came from this observation made decades ago.
Personally, I would want Tech to think very carefully before it ever watered down the requirements for its football players. That would be a major break with what has been an historic tradition of integrity and excellence.
by Atlanta's original team on Jan 27, 2011 8:24 AM EST up reply actions
Meanwhile I would just settle for our little continuing education project for the fans of football factories that simply reminds them that your players aren’t like our players. Our players actually go to class.
by Atlanta's original team on Jan 27, 2011 8:29 AM EST up reply actions
Well...
The problem is we’ve already watered down our product a little. Many people might not be aware of this, but Georgia Tech is not ranked at the top when it comes to selectivity. High SAT’s, yes, but we’re middle-of-the-road for the hard-to-get-into measurements. Most big schools are tougher just because more kids apply. What makes Tech difficult is STAYING at Tech through the legendary core curriculum (at least survey of calculus and two lab sciences for all). AND…there’s a secret. We already have majors that are relatively lowly-ranked for their fields, and if you declare one of them on your application it’s definitely easier to gain admittance to GT. Majors like “Society, Technology and Culture”, “History, Technology and Society”, “International Affairs”, “Public Policy”, and even “Building Construction.” I name these not because kids don’t go off and do wonderful things with them, but simply because these majors are known among the students as the easiest and least difficult to get into. I’d be willing to bet Tech’s academic reputation is not suffering much for having these majors, however, because our tradition of top-level engineering and scientific research is an unstoppable juggernaut and is all but set in stone. Along the same lines, I’m not sure it would hurt adding something just as light for the football players. It could be as simple as a BS in Sports Management. Take their current major – Management – take out the accounting classes and economics classes and replace with classes studying all things sports-related…coaching styles, team philosophies, workout methods, training, sports medicine, and the business of colleges and pro franchises.
Confession time
I did not go to Tech so I am now at the edge of my ignorance. Having gone to a school which is consistently ranked nationally I can say that no matter what school you go to there are hard majors and easier majors. This is true even at Princeton. Of course for some athletes any major at all is hard. But my point is these are the stud-muffins who go to an Alabama rather than a Georgia Tech.
As to whether Tech has already watered down or whether it should consider watering down more I will simply give you an outsider’s opinion. Tech course work seems to have a level of intergrity that many football factories do not have. Being trained to be a physed coach sounds like something you could pick up at vocational tech school not a university of higher education.
by Atlanta's original team on Jan 27, 2011 12:51 PM EST up reply actions
Now do THEIR athletes take those tough engineering classes? NO WAY! Those schools keep top prestige as public ivies but ALSO offer plenty of "easy" majors.
How many of your players take those tough engineering classes? There apparently only 20 engineering football players nationwide, and you have at least 85 players total on your football team. Even if all of them were at GT, which they aren’t, at best you would have less than 25% on your team who major in that. So what do the rest do?
My understanding
is that management is the go-to major but I don’t have the latest breakdown of who takes what. My guess is that what makes Tech tougher than your average public school is the calculus requirement.
by Atlanta's original team on Jan 30, 2011 1:58 PM EST up reply actions
That's also a big complaint
about Notre Dame. Every once in a while, someone will complain that they should get rid of the calculus requirement so they can recruit better players. Never really hear this about Tech though. I’ve heard it’s because ND’s football expectations are higher than Tech’s.
Wow
that says volumes. For as long as I can remember there have always been people who wished Tech would go ahead and turn itself into a football factory. Forty years ago the argument against doing that was twofold: (1) Tech has a proud heritage that must not be sullied. (2) One day the world will catch up to how badly we need the sciences and technology and Tech will be well positioned to recruit the cream of the crop. Well, we keep waiting on part 2 of this equation as the overall pool of athletes seems to be regressing academically rather than getting stronger. I still think Tech should hold out for a higher standard. Our country desperately needs a reinvigorated emphasis on education.
by Atlanta's original team on Jan 30, 2011 2:25 PM EST up reply actions
Another interesting thought or 6
Joe Irwin gave some interesting statistics the other night.
Look at Tech and Stanford. Both are 125 years old, both have had comparable student populations over the years, Stanford has 50,000 more live alumni than Ma Tech. Think that old saw, “look to your left, look to your right” doesn’t have some bearing? I many ways, we are coming to look more like Stanford with Dr. Pettit’s push to ramp up Research in the 1970’s and 80’s. He came to us from Stanford and brought the model.
I can remember in my day that we were compared favorably against Clemmins and AwfulBurn for Engineering. NOW we are World Class, and the “London Times” ranks MaTech as the #2 Public Engineering School in the WORLD after Berkley.
Tech looked awfully selective for a State Supported Technical Institution in the South that also competes at the Division I Level. I cannot remember the selectivity rate, and it wasn’t near MIT, or Stanford, but with an incoming Frosh GPA at 3.9 and and SAT’s (I can’t count that high), we looked selective enough that I’m glad I got in and out when I did.
You can compare to Michigan, but that is THE State U, with a large non-Engineering component, sort of what Dr. Adams wants at the Clarke County Cow College. We actually model/compare ourselves against 20 big institutions on a meta-analysis level, and Maize/Blue is in the mix.
Stanford? Private vs. Public, but probably pretty close. They had a better 2011 on the field than the Jackets.
Purdue? I don’t know enough about West Lafayette to compare, and Indiana is not as CFB crazy as they are CBB.
I think we have a double edit on recruiting. Grades/SAT, and who fits CPJ’s system.
by DressHerInWhiteAndGold on Jan 27, 2011 8:33 PM EST reply actions
Thank you
that was very helpful and illuminating.
by Atlanta's original team on Jan 28, 2011 9:13 AM EST up reply actions
Let me know when you crack the top 30 and drop below a 59% admissions rate
And then we’ll talk about this GT=Stanford nonsense.
Again, I think the point is that when comparing apples and oranges you can only approximate. You might say, “well, Tech is more like X than it is like Y.” I would interpret DressHerInWhiteAndGold’s comment as saying something like, “given that Tech is trying to recruit in a part of the country that has the lowest academic standing in the nation Tech stands out in terms of the difficulty of its requirements. Given that its curriculum is more like Standford’s than say Vanderbilt or North Carolina, then Standford becomes a legitimate measuring stick for how the recruiting is going.”
My point is that Standford probably has it a little easier when it comes to recruiting since they recruit nationally and in some parts of the country there is a bias about going South if you want a good education. I have never detected a bias about going up East or to the West Coast for a good education.
by Atlanta's original team on Jan 30, 2011 2:10 PM EST up reply actions
I do not recall any NCAA investigations with regard to him.
by Atlanta's original team on Jan 29, 2011 10:40 PM EST up reply actions
Nevertheless he was clearly an idiot. There is no way he honestly passed any course at Tech, and everybody knows it. Therefore, whatever academic standards there are, the athletic department can work around them, and they can’t be blamed for poor recruiting.
Clearly an idiot?
I do not know the young man personally so I don’t know what you are referring to.
I do know that in a certain game with UGA he was late hit out of bounds (helmet to helmet) and no penalty was called. As a result he went back to the huddle for two more plays. Later we found out that he was “out on his feet.” It was a severe concussion and he never seemed the same after that to me just watching him no the field.
By the way, the kind of helmet to helmet hit he received is now a “no fooling around” automatic penalty.
Also, you are the first person I have heard suggest professors at Tech pass flunking athletes. I had always heard coaches complain in the past that professors seemed to be extra hard on players.
by Atlanta's original team on Feb 4, 2011 4:32 PM EST up reply actions
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