Academics take back seat to athletics at UM

At Uof M three young men reported to Ann Arbor news that the athletice department was making the schedule for the athletes, to keep them elgible for sports. The department was responsible for getting their ID log in numbers and change their schedules, or even tell them what classes to take. The athletic team would tell the athletes to major in general studies and recieve a bachelors degree. The counselors has told athletes to take just enough credits that's needed to be elgible to play a sport. The Academics Success program has told athletes to take different classes other than the class the advisor suggested. That's not good at all because first you need an education because sports will not always be around. When that day come and you can't no longer play sports, atleast you would have a degree to fall back on. These days everyone needs an education to get far in life.

This is no different that any college anywhere. My first semester at Mott I had a class with one of the basketball players and they said their coach picked their schedules. They do it so they can go full time and get all their credits while taking blow off classes to stay eligible.
It even starts in High school now. Not as much as the coach picking the classes but teachers helping the students out by not giving them the bad grades or even going more lenient on them. Where is all this going to get these athletes when they don’t make it to the pro’s? I mean they are wasting their whole education on the whim that they are going to make millions one day.

As sad as this is, it is so believable. Athletics have become so important for large universities that they will do crazy things to keep their players eligible. Although I can believe it I think that our society is wrong to allow this. Not all of those athletes are going to be going pro when they get out of college and many don’t even realize it. Their advisers and athletic department need to consider this when they talk to these student athletes. Many of them are going to actually need a degree in something useful when they get out of there. Shame on the staff for misdirecting many naive athletes they may just leave college with no job and no idea what they are going to do with the rest of their lives.

I think it’s pretty careless to teach college athletes something like that. Equal attention should be given to education and athletics. Even if they go on to have a career in professional sports, it’s important to let them consider what they might want to do after a career as a professional athlete. With the risk of a career ending injury or just not being very good, it’s important to have something that they could fall back on. I think they should follow in the footsteps of older athletes who have gone on to have successful careers after they retired from pro sports.

Being a athlete i know where these guys are coming from. When i played in high school i took the easy classes so i wouldnt have home work to get in the way of the current sport at hand. being an athlete i got special privileges, i didnt have to worry about attendance or getting in trouble because of the princable and athletic director. I remember getting in a fight in gym class and the athletic director let me off with a warning and the other kid got suspended for three days. The only reason why i got away is because i was a key lineman on the football team and we had a big game coming up. This is going to happen at every school, college or high school.