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Message: [QUOTE="OttoMets, post: 176093, member: 716"] I can't go into too many specifics - though there are a couple good ones - but I can't take it quite so far as to say that it's racist in impact. It's great to have standards, and the APR is a step in the right direction. The differentiation between academic ineligibility and withdrawal is a good one. It's also true that a good number of basketball players (especially upper-echelon ones) are academically disadvantaged, perhaps more than some realize. I know of one SU player who came into school in the mid-1980s as functionally illiterate (if I mentioned the school system he came out of, you'd probably know why, but that'd spill the beans as to his identity). That's a recipe for some bad academic numbers. It's nice that athletic departments have seemingly unlimited academic support resources, but that doesn't mean it isn't a really difficult task (for student and tutor alike) to bring someone with a subpar education up to even a remedial college level. So are some disadvantaged? Very. But I'd argue that the enforcement of standards is likely to benefit some of these kids by forcing coaching staffs to take academics more seriously and get the kids to buy in. (It's also likely to push more kids away from college, which isn't a good thing.) The goal, after all, should be to educate all the student-athletes to the fullest extent possible. So I like the idea of the APR, though it could probably stand some tweaks (since, for example, the apples-to-oranges comparison between the big state schools and smaller private schools could lead to inequity). While it looks to have an impact on minority students, it's not an unfairly discriminatory one; it's applied with an even hand, and it only requires schools to do their job - to educate the students to whom they grant admission. And that SU player? Busted his ass trying to get up to speed, graduated in four years with his degree, and seems to be doing quite well for himself these days. With a little effort and support from the coaching staff, everyone can do it. [/QUOTE]

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