I never thought that it was the athletic department's responsibility to guide me through the process and make sure I graduated. It was my responsibility. Maybe part of the problem is recruiting athletes who are not prepared for college. That and a much bigger time commitment to the sport than we had back in the day.

The APR leads to a very significant reason whey the proposal to move the Sook to the control of academics is a very bad idea. In designing any organizational system, you always want to delegate authority and accountability together or you end up with something disfunctional.

As it stands, that's the way it is, but if you move the Sook to academics, that is no longer true. With that structure, the Athletics office remains accountable for the results, and if the APR results are not met, will suffer the punishment, but they will have no power or control to enable them to meet that goal. This is the single most frustrating situation you can create - placing someone in a situation where they end up punished for something they have no control over.

Meanwhile, academics would have control over tutoring, but no accountability for the results, and no consequences if it doesn't turn out well. In that situation, good intentions alone don't usually lead to very good results, but worse, suppose they have a darker purpose, and would like to eliminate football? No problem, just don't run the tutoring program all that well, and viola, the APR drops, and football scholarships vanish, and football becomes non-competitive.

The reason the system evolved the way it did at Ohio, and at every other school, is that athletics has been given by the NCAA the responsibility of making sure that their athletes make academic progress. That, in turn, forced them to create the tutoring system so that they could make it happen. It is the natural and obvious answer, and, it works. Since the NCAA handed down the mandates, and since all schools created tutoring programs under the control of athletic departments, APR rates have steadily been rising everywhere.

Wow, where to begin. First, I was an Assistant AD for Academic Services and Compliance at an NCAA DI institution. If anyone else has held a similar position, please let me/us know. I have overseen an academic center for student-athletes and a certified tutor program. The idea of having the Academic side of the University oversee or manage the Sook Center is just dumb. For starters, cross functional alignment is an integral component of running an effective and compliant academic services program which includes academic support staff, coaches, student-athletes and athletics leadership. Everyone must be on board with the program and how it's being run. That won't work when the people running the program don't report into the same department as the people participating in the program, especially at OU, where the Academic side appears to have a pretty major "beef" with college athletics in general. Yeah, that's going to go real well. If you don't see this as just a political move by these "academics" who have their panties in a bunch about an athletics only facility, then you're totally out to lunch.

Then there's the rules component. Dear God, the number of times I had to educate the Academic side about all the NCAA eligibility rules, etc. only to have to continually remind and educate them because the traditional "advisors" kept screwing things up which would render a student-athlete ineligible. I can't imagine people from that arm of the University world trying (or caring to) manage things properly. I could go on and on.

People need to get it through their thick skulls...student-athletes are special and have special needs that require special attention and care from a special academic support staff. Example: my university had a very strict class attendance policy and due to the proximity of the schools in conference, we had soccer and tennis teams traveling all over the Earth during the week for competition. I had professors who were prepared to fail the student-athlete for missing class due to participation in University sponsored NCAA DI athletics competition. The Athletics-based Academic Support Advisor is going to work across the University within the guidelines of the rules (which they know and understand - and are changing all the time btw - yet they're required to know and understand) to find a reasonable solution so the student-athlete doesn't fail out of school for missing classes due to playing a sport which that same school recruited him/her to play (and are required to play to get the financial aid they signed up for). Just one of many examples. Academic-based counselors aren't going to advocate for the student-athlete in these scenarios because they don't report into the athletics department and guess who's going to suffer...you're student-athletes and then your athletics reputation.

This is also a matter of institutional control and as an AD, I'll be damned if I'm going to be on the hook to ensure my athletics department complies with all rules and regulations when I've got a whole arm of my operation that's out of my control. That's a lot of exposure and frankly, I don't want to be an AD where I don't have that control. It just takes one rogue or ignorant academic counselor or tutor to destroy everything and that can happen whether it lives on the Academic side or the Athletics side but let's be serious - where is it going to get undivided attention and oversight?!? Based on experience, there's only one correct answer - Athletics.

Why aren't these same "academics" requesting that the Athletics business affairs be managed by the University business office? Or, the NCAA compliance affairs be managed by the University Legal arm? Or, the Athletics fundraising handled exclusively by the University Advancement team? NCAA secondary violations and major infractions can easily occur in each of those areas, too, so why not? Umm, because that would also be very dumb and ultimately, because none of those functions are building an athletics only facility.

God you’re exhausting.

You totally nailed it!! It is precisely all those things and more. It is more than a full time job and it's thankless work for very little pay. People do it because they love college athletics and student-athletes and that makes the hours and pay worth it. The "academics" are barking up the wrong tree and they may have bit off more than they can chew this time...just so they could stake claim to a physical structure. So sad that our "academics" are so dumb.

"Fine, let faculty senate weigh in on this. And let each one know that they have to attend regular workshops and professional development to keep up with NCAA regulations, and they must also pass the same NCAA exams, and fill out the same NCAA disclosure statements, and by the way, they will not receive extra money! They also must be available all year on weekends for when recruits visit to speak with them and parents about 50 weekends a year. Oh and they get no extra money! They will have to field phone calls by 30 coaches at all hours of the day, night and evening and by the way they will get no extra money.

Now let's see how bad they want control over Sook and Academic Advising. [/QUOTE]You totally nailed it!! It is precisely all those things and more. It is more than a full time job and it's thankless work for very little pay. People do it because they love college athletics and student-athletes and that makes the hours and pay worth it. The "academics" are barking up the wrong tree and they may have bit off more than they can chew this time...just so they could stake claim to a physical structure. So sad that our "academics" are so dumb."


CA BOBCAT NAILED IT! ACADEMICS WANTS NO PART OF THIS.

I'm not for it no matter who pays for it. It's one of those perks that adds to the arms race of collegiate athletics. Because it's an "academic center", somehow it's holier than a players lounge, etc. It further separates the athlete from the rest of the students, which is not a good thing. Everyone is wired to the internet and intranet, plus there is a library. Maybe there is too much time being allocated to the sport and players time needs to be micromanaged. I guarantee if you mandate that players graduate, they will.

Giacomo rants about the time they spend in their sport while it is well known that the NCAA mandates how much time they are ALLOWED to be in their sport in any given week. I suspect it may be much less than you think. How many hours a week did the rules allow when you played?

CABobcat and LC are spot on here.

Giacomo rants about the time they spend in their sport while it is well known that the NCAA mandates how much time they are ALLOWED to be in their sport in any given week. I suspect it may be much less than you think. How many hours a week did the rules allow when you played?

Every school we visited during the recruiting process and the others I have been to since have academic centers that help the athletes on the road with organizing and planning their weeks schedules/study and ensure study tables and tutorials. Best in our conference is CMU that has had their center in place for 10 years http://cmuchippewas.cstv.com/genrel/101207aaa.html Spoke with a mid 200s CMU baseball player ar Applebees the other night in Muncie on a biz trip about the center. Nothing but kudos.

My experience is pretty negative at both Ball and Ohio. A surprising number of Professors do not give a crap about athletes and openly tell me and the athletes to their face they do not appreciate their presence. I have listened to them voice their disdain toward athletes in my own office. Sometimes listening and just letting them talk is a pretty powerful learning tool

Experienced the ugly side with my own kid after an Ohio prof said "attendance is required to pass" knowing that the basketball team would be on the road 10 of 18 sessions of the class. THe kid was putting up stellar work and testing well but that was going to be negated by the attendance grade. Thankfully compliance jumped in and helped the prof with the regs. Putting those folk in charge does not seem to be the answer and LC and CaBob have eloquently stated some of the reasons why. I have yet to see anything in the discussion that would sway my opinion while I have seen good arguments against it by folks who understand it far better than those arguing for the Faculty Senate version