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Researcher Gets Death Threats After Revealing Shocking Findings About College Athlete

Dibbler

Dibbler

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Researcher Gets Death Threats After Revealing Shocking Findings About College Athletes

There are lots of jobs where you might expect to get death threats: a judge, a cop, a divorce lawyer. But never a million years did University of North Carolina learning specialist Mary Willingham expect that her research would inspire so much hate. But it has. What could be so incendiary? She released data showing that 10% of college football and basketball players read at a 3rd grade level. And 60% of them were only reading between a 4th and 8th grade level. As disheartening as these finding are, I don't see why people are really very surprised or angry.

Willingham spent years tutoring athletes at the school -- which has one of the best athletic programs in the country. So she clearly isn't pulling this research out of thin air. She knows first-hand that many of these gifted ball players can barely read. Not only that, she combed through eight years worth of test scores and found that 25% of them didn't even have the skills to take classes at a community college. "I mean, we may as well just go over to Glenwood Elementary up the street and just let all the 4th graders in here, the third-graders in here," she said.
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Researcher Gets Death Threats After Revealing Shocking Findings About College Athletes | The Stir

Enjoy your College Football, sheep.
 
Re: Researcher Gets Death Threats After Revealing Shocking Findings About College Ath

Dibbler said:
Researcher Gets Death Threats After Revealing Shocking Findings About College Athletes



Researcher Gets Death Threats After Revealing Shocking Findings About College Athletes | The Stir

Enjoy your College Football, sheep.
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What? Just because college athletes can't read to standard, people shouldn't enjoy watching them play? Wtf?

I understand the concern, but that concern should be that we are passing kids up the chain, and out of high school, without requiring them to actually meet minimum requirements, but really? "Enjoy your College Football, sheep."?
 
Re: Researcher Gets Death Threats After Revealing Shocking Findings About College Ath

I am surprised that people are surprised by this finding.
 
Re: Researcher Gets Death Threats After Revealing Shocking Findings About College Ath

lizzie said:
What? Just because college athletes can't read to standard, people shouldn't enjoy watching them play? Wtf? [...]
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People (fans) are tacitly condoning the practice for their own enjoyment. I can't think of a term to describe that offhand, but it would not be complementary. That sports is considered more important than academia does not reflect well on the intellectual development of humanity.
 
Re: Researcher Gets Death Threats After Revealing Shocking Findings About College Ath

Infographic: Is Your State's Highest-Paid Employee A Coach? (Probably)

Infographic: Is Your State's Highest-Paid Employee A Coach? (Probably)
ku-xlarge.jpg
 
Re: Researcher Gets Death Threats After Revealing Shocking Findings About College Ath

Our culture values people who can throw balls well more than people who do scientific research, invent things, heal people, feed people etc. Our city had a pro ball team win the season championship around the same time a genetic scientist won a Nobel prize for a discovery that could reduce disease. Guess which was celebrated with a big parade down main street?
 
Re: Researcher Gets Death Threats After Revealing Shocking Findings About College Ath

These findings should surprise no one. I would wager most of the threats were misspelled. Heaping money and fame on these athletes does not serve them well.
 
Re: Researcher Gets Death Threats After Revealing Shocking Findings About College Ath

Has anyone ever met one of those mythical people who will only give money to a college if they have a winning sports team? They're the ones driving all of this nonsense and they sounds like A-holes.
 
Re: Researcher Gets Death Threats After Revealing Shocking Findings About College Ath

lizzie said:
What? Just because college athletes can't read to standard, people shouldn't enjoy watching them play? Wtf?

I understand the concern, but that concern should be that we are passing kids up the chain, and out of high school, without requiring them to actually meet minimum requirements, but really? "Enjoy your College Football, sheep."?
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Yeah sheep !

Lizzie, the milquetoast bartender. :2razz:
 
Re: Researcher Gets Death Threats After Revealing Shocking Findings About College Ath

Dibbler said:
Researcher Gets Death Threats After Revealing Shocking Findings About College Athletes



Researcher Gets Death Threats After Revealing Shocking Findings About College Athletes | The Stir

Enjoy your College Football, sheep.
Click to expand...

Good post. It is nice to see this brought back into the public forum for discussion. We forget all too soon. It is a problem, and is embarrassing for universities, since it paints them as complicit in evading laws in many states that now require high school athletes to pass their subjects with at least a "C" or above and the high equivalency exam (some states may have a different name for it). I don't know how many times I heard stories from one of my daughters, who was paid by her university to tutor, but what really amounted to doing all the work and taking the tests for many athletes. It really is a travesty.
 
Re: Researcher Gets Death Threats After Revealing Shocking Findings About College Ath

I grew up/went to school with several pro-athletes and all were pretty smart, but I grew up in a fairly affluent area too.
 
Re: Researcher Gets Death Threats After Revealing Shocking Findings About College Ath

Dibbler said:
Researcher Gets Death Threats After Revealing Shocking Findings About College Athletes

Researcher Gets Death Threats After Revealing Shocking Findings About College Athletes | The Stir

Enjoy your College Football, sheep.
Click to expand...
The Dungeon Master gives everyone the same number of attribute points to make their character. Obviously athletes put more points into Strength, Agility and Constitution than in Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma. The opposite is generally true for NASA physicists. No one is surprised when an advanced bio-chemist researcher can't bench-press even half his body weight, so why is anyone surprised when an collage starting quarterback can't spell his own name? No one is tuning into this coming Super-Bowl to watch Peyton Manning read Moby Dick. These are just the choices their player made when they were rolled. It's not good or bad, it just is.
 
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Re: Researcher Gets Death Threats After Revealing Shocking Findings About College Ath

sangha said:
Infographic: Is Your State's Highest-Paid Employee A Coach? (Probably)

Infographic: Is Your State's Highest-Paid Employee A Coach? (Probably)
ku-xlarge.jpg
Click to expand...

And? Last year Texas' football program netted $78 million in profit. With these kind of returns investing in a competitive coach is a no-brainer.

Total Frat Move | Forbes Ranks The 20 Most Valuable College Football Programs

The Economics of College Football: A Look At The Top-25 Teams' Revenues And Expenses - Forbes

The Amazing Growth in College Football Revenues - Businessweek
 
Re: Researcher Gets Death Threats After Revealing Shocking Findings About College Ath

Jerry said:
The Dungeon Master gives everyone the same number of attribute points to make their character. Obviously athletes put more points into Strength, Agility and Constitution than in Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma. The opposite is generally true for NASA physicists. No one is surprised when an advanced bio-chemist researcher can't bench-press even half his body weight, so why is anyone surprised when an collage starting quarterback can't spell his own name? No one is tuning into this coming Super-Bowl to watch Peyton Manning read Moby Dick. These are just the choices their player made when they were rolled. It's not good or bad, it just is.
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:lamo

Yep, min-maxing. Who needs to be able to read when you can launch a pigskin 75 yards through the air? :lol:
 
Re: Researcher Gets Death Threats After Revealing Shocking Findings About College Ath

This must be one of those threads where people who don't like sports **** all over people who do like sports.
 
Re: Researcher Gets Death Threats After Revealing Shocking Findings About College Ath

Kobie said:
This must be one of those threads where people who don't like sports **** all over people who do like sports.
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Oh you enjoy football? So you support JoePa and his child-molesting assistant!

Why are you defending child molestation? What's wrong with you?!!
 
Re: Researcher Gets Death Threats After Revealing Shocking Findings About College Ath

Hard Truth said:
Has anyone ever met one of those mythical people who will only give money to a college if they have a winning sports team? They're the ones driving all of this nonsense and they sounds like A-holes.
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Yea, they are called football fans, basketball fans and baseball fans. And it's not so much about "giving" the college money, it's about purchasing tickets, getting good tv ratings, and buying those tshirts. Has nothing to do with academics.
 
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Re: Researcher Gets Death Threats After Revealing Shocking Findings About College Ath

imagep said:
Yea, they are called football fans, basketball fans and baseball fans. And it's not so much about "giving" the college money, it's about purchasing tickets, getting good tv ratings, and buying those tshirts. Has nothing to do with academics.
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Is this wealth redistribution?

Should we tax the hell out of the schools?
 
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