Comments on: Our athletes are too smart

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 12 May 2009 20:16:36 +0000

Also, do you know what Bob Sanders’ SAT score was? Your use of him as an example makes no sense unless you have that sort of information. Maybe we recruited him. I doubt you know if we did or not. Also, so few varsity athletes strike it rich in the pros across the board at all schools. Maybe an example of an disadvantaged youth who, through earning an athletic scholarship, achieved success in the real world would be more effective.

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 12 May 2009 20:11:51 +0000

Pushing athletes who aren’t capable of handling NU’s academics through the university with an undeserved degree (see Michigan Football – General Studies Major) will not help them be more socially mobile. It will throw them into the real world, unless they achieve enough success in pro sports to support themselves throughout their life, without anything close to an adequate education. This is simply using them to achieve sports success for the sake of the fans and the pockets of the University.

Do you think a coach could, in good faith, could look a recruit in the eye, promise him/her a scholarship to NU, knowing that he/she had a relatively small chance of earning a degree…

By: Alex

Alex — Fri, 08 May 2009 06:53:06 +0000

“Our university is so busy trying to uphold its academic standards that it doesn’t realize it’s limiting social mobility.”
Yes, academics are of higher priority to Northwestern that creating chances for people from the ‘lower class’ to attain a higher social status. Is this article seriously claiming it should be the other way around?
Also, it claims that athlete recruitment policies at other Universities are a way to circumvent the lack of social capital that is preventing Americans from realizing the American dream. However, sports scholarships are available to such an extremely small amount of the population that they don’t help anything.

But sports have been, and still are, a way to circumvent that problem at other universities.

By: Just incredible...

Just incredible... — Thu, 07 May 2009 18:43:08 +0000

i no sum atheets our dumb!!???!! they rune the school because they ask dumb questions for are class

By: A Salmon Up Shit-Creek

A Salmon Up Shit-Creek — Thu, 07 May 2009 03:25:41 +0000

In my humble salmony opinion, this was a really good article.

By: the only one?

the only one? — Thu, 07 May 2009 03:07:31 +0000

i’ve taken classes with some really retarded athletes.

By: Aaron Morse

Aaron Morse — Wed, 06 May 2009 22:19:26 +0000

Also, we don’t even have a water polo team :)

My point is, you take ALL our sports, INCLUDING football and basketball, and we are 40th best in the country.

Think how high our ranking will be this year…since football went 9-4 and basketball made the NIT.

By: Aaron Morse

Aaron Morse — Wed, 06 May 2009 22:11:44 +0000

Wrong again Sam. Those rankings are indeed only showing the spring sports. Mainly because it’s an update at the end of the year and because of space consideration. Look to the right…it has fall total, winter total, and spring total, then the number on the left has the OVERALL TOTAL FROM ALL THREE SEASONS.

NU is number 40. One of the best in the country.

By: Sam

Sam — Wed, 06 May 2009 21:50:30 +0000

Aaron Morse, I checked your link. It rates schools according to men’s and women’s water polo, volleyball, track & field, tennis, softball, rowing, lacrosse, golf, and baseball. What important sport do you think is missing from this list? I’ll even give you two, two important sports?

FOOTBALL and BASKETBALL.

If you’re submitting rankings into consideration, they should be of the prominent sports. Not water polo.

By: C

Wed, 06 May 2009 16:33:31 +0000

I understand everyone’s opinions… on the surface it could seem like this article is saying that we should completely forsake our competetive academic standards and admit anyone who wants to go here. That’s not what this article is saying at at…
First of all, Trey… I’m not convinced that you know what “social capital” is… life lessons are great, but there’s only so much they can do to help you when you are working three jobs and still can’t afford to feed your family, much less send your kids to college. Cultural capitai is a similar story… when you go to a school whose culture is a little different from the dominant mainstream culture, but you’re expected to take standardize tests based on the cultural capital of the “dominant” culture, how can you be expected to succeed? Lowering our admissions standards for deserving students could be a good way to even the playing field… instead of making some arbitrary standard that some people are definitely more likely to reach just because of their race or socioeconomic situation…

And Max, the point of lowering admissions standards for athletes isn’t to improve our athletics. It’s to give people a chance at an illustrious education who wouldn’t be able to get it any other way. A lot of kids who could definitely succeed at a university of this academic level never get the chance because they lack the social and cultural capital. It’s unfair. Just like the author of this article says, sports are a place where we could give some of them a shot… but instead, our sports scholarships are given to kids who would’ve gotten in here and been able to pay anyway. All this does is reinforce socioeconomic reproduction. People who are very competent and intelligent are trapped in the same socioeconomic sphere that their parents were in because no one gave them a shot to break the cycle.

In order to stop this cycle, drastic steps have to be taken. Maybe that means that we let a few kids in here who didn’t get a 4.0 all four years, or a perfect SAT score, but who have demonstrated an incredible work ethic and are very talented athletes. It would be good if people here were a little more open-minded and actually committed to trying anything to break the cycle of poverty.

I don’t think that implementing this kind of policy would take anything away from our current and even future students or athletes. The kids who deserve to go here would still get in, and yeah, maybe our athletics would be a little more competetive… but is that the worst thing ever?
Northwestern could use a little diversity.