How Does Everyone Else “Do It”?

BobLee
October03/ 2012

One of my pet peeves is knee-jerks’ reaction that each problem in Life is unique requiring its own unique solution.  Horse Pucky!  There is nothing in Life that is unique when it involves human nature and group behavior.  “We need to hold a bunch of meetings on this and devise our own unique solution to this problem….” is nitwit-speak for “We don’t have a freakin’ clue. If we stall long enough it will just go away.”…….

UNC’s yuckier-by-the-day mess has squatted over our campus for 2.5 years.  If / when it ever moseys on to where ever yucky messes go, the clean-up is going to take OneWaya lot of wheelbarrows, a lot of shovels and more time to clean-up than it took to screw-up.   – The Good News is:  Someone has already invented both the wheelbarrow AND the shovel.

From Day One screeching hairshirts in the basement of TarHeelNation bleated “Everybody Does It” which might have had a scintilla of credibility if those same nitwits had not bleated for decades “but we don’t do it at Carolina”.   That is the nit-wit version of being hoisted upon one’s own arrogant petard.  Nit-wits of all persuasions have well-used petards.

If Holden takes his design for a reform horse to a faculty committee we will get some aberration between a camel and a giraffe.  Given the centuries old tradition of academic committees.  We don’t need a came-raffe.  We need a horse, which are quite plentiful.

Shutting down UNC FB & BskB IS an option
Hamstringing the two programs to where they are compettive laughingstocks IS an option.
Restructuring the two programs to eliminate flim-flam academics IS an option.
“Something Else” IS probably an option too.

Lets concentrate today on #3.

Every football and basketball player recruited to Carolina had offers to attend other colleges where he would have matriculated in some fashion.  Lets not get bogged down by what Choo Choo majored in or whether Christian Laettner, as a Tar Heel, might have taken Swahili because “it sounded like fun”.

Every single one of those other 53 “exceptions under Butch” (and all the other exceptions UNC has admitted over the decades) would have been admitted somewhere and been (or pretend to been) “students” wherever they enrolled.

Butch & Blake went head-to-head with regional SEC schools – SoCar, Tenn, et al – for many of their “gets”.  And, yes, they competed against a certain regional rival-in-red for many of them.   Those individuals would have arrived on whatever campus as equally “prepared” (??) for college-level academics as when they arrived in Chapel Hill.  How would they have remained “eligible” in those environments?

Bogus classes in silly diversity reparation curriculae is probably not the best route to go.

These young men arrive as naïve teen-agers away from home for the first time.  Four years or so later they are young adults supposedly ready to barter their academic qualifications for a first step on some career ladder.  If that career is pro sports, OK; but job openings in that field are only slightly better than “being an astronaut” or “movie star” or “the next J.K. Rowling”.   It’s probably best to have a back-up choice in a field with more likelihood for success.

ZINGER ALERT!  The smart-alecky question: “What the heck do you do with an AfAm degree” has been asked more times than “Who’s Tami dating these days?”

I have yet to see an answer to the question.   Figure the answer is not an endorsement for justifying that curriculum tract.

Holden, go back 10-15 years to see what has been emerging from the UNC student-athlete pipeline.   Where are those end-products 3-5-10 years after adiosing dear ol’ Franklin Street?  Remember – we are only talking about Football and Men’s Basketball.  Mucking up the statistics with lacrosse, field hockey and fencing was Dickie the Putz’ old trick.

BRILLIANT IDEA:  The NCAA should require every BCS school to keep up-dated “where are they now” records for every recruited FB/BkB player for 15 years from the day they set foot on campus.  Not just “Here Are Our NFL / NBA Alumni” but “Here Are 95% Of Our Student-Athletes”.   The validity of the records to be signed off on by a representative of each school’s bitterest rival. ….. see, I told you – BRILLIANT IDEA!

With Basketball, there is a global market for former college players.   Basketball is played all over the world so a UNC 7th-8th man can get on in Estonia, New Guinea or Upper Volta with one phone call from Ol’ Roy.   That’s fine.  They are gainfully employed and seeing the world.  With any luck they can bounce around for fifteen years before hanging up their sneakers.

Not so with Football.  Opportunities are limited to the NFL.  (OK, or go to Canada) NASA doesn’t hire very many “astronauts”.

So…. where are they going after their UNC eligibility is exhausted.  What did UNC prepare them to do when they get “there”?  Inquiring minds want to know.  Fraternities track their alumni.  Surely its not hard to track 15-20 young men who leave UNC FB / Bskb each year.

NC State has long had a Recreation / Park Administration curriculum aka “Leisure Services”.   That is totally legitimate.   It has been popular with athletes over the years.  There are countless career opportunities in public / private recreation facilities and services.  Careers that are much more attractive than liberal arts degree-holders working as tele-marketers for mortgage companies or other similar “is this what I went to college for four years to do” jobs.

What do VaTech student-athletes do when they are no longer students or athletes?  Clemson?   Alabama?  UVa?  Texas?  LSU?  Notre Dame?  Vanderbilt?  Northwestern? Every BCS-school recruits the Top 200 high school players.  Those kids are on-campus for 2-3-4 years before they are drafted by the NFL or…. drop out-of-sight.   Do they just go back home no more literate than when they left, and hang-out until they die?

I’m betting they are not all being shuffled thru non-existent courses in goofy curriculae with the nutritional value of a rice cake.  SOME COLLEGE SOMEWHERE has figured out a worthwhile academic tract for these “marginal students”.

Public education has failed these kids at every level via “social promotions”.  UNC is their last chance at even a modicum of “education” and we are neither giving them a fish nor teaching them how to fish.  UNC is failing them just like every other stage did…. with another form of social promotion.  Frank Porter Graham weeps!

Holden, gas up your Miata.  Go visit “comparables”.  Do it yourself.  For GAWD SAKES don’t assign this to The Putz.   NO …. NO!

Every BCS school has some version of Athletic Academic Support.   Probably not waaaay over-staffed silliness that Putz set-up in The Loudermilk Recruiting & Eligibility Palace.   That’s absurd like so much of Putz’ Legacy.  Flush everything Putz ever did.  Have Bubba start over from scratch.

We are only taking about 85 or so FB / Bskb student-athletes on campus at any one time.   Forget the fencers and field hockey kids. Geezzz.

If NCState’s Rec Admin is serving their kids well – COPY IT.  If VaTech or Clemson or GaTech has some “Property Management” tract that serves their kids in a legitimate fashion – COPY IT.   Does Vanderbilt have Read&Write 101?  They all have something.  COPY THEM!

This scandal has cost UNC bazillions in legal fees and ancillary damages.  You could hire a handful of faculty and set up a legitimate academic tract “like other schools do” for a pittance of what this Putzian train wreck has cost.

Heck, I’ll come over and run the damn thing for you for a very “reasonable fee”.  Bubba and I could jerk this knot straight in no time.  You have my #.

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