College Cheats

Never mind college sports, how about college cheats ... the exposure by a whistle blower of the level of corruption that accompanies the academic element of the US college 'sports' scholarships, has resulted in a slow burning scandal, that no amount of college pressure can seemingly suppress.

College Sports Are Big Business In The US

These scholarships are the backbone of what in the US in known as 'college sports' (mainly US Football, Basketball and Baseball, but with Track and Field, Swimming and increasingly 'Soccer'), a multi-billion dollar industry, which for US Football and Basketball in particular, requires vast numbers of poorly educated, mainly black, 'athletes', to swell the ranks.

 

Its sole raison d'etre is too get sponsorship funds to boost the college incomes, via endorsements, ex alumni sponsorships, advertising, etc etc, amounting to billions of dollars each year. The athletes are generally not qualified for college attendance by any measure of academic ability, indeed many are functionally illiterate, but are given course 'grades', that hard working non-athletes may struggle to achieve. 

 

The fact that the lecturers are told or pressured in to giving out these grades, is no excuse for what goes on, but maybe makes it understandable. However the fact remains that in order to essentially try and fix sports results, non-academically qualified 'ghetto boys' are offered scholarships and guaranteed 'degrees' in return for 'unpaid' professional sports performances as 'jocks'.

This not only is a disservice to those boys, as the degrees are unearned in any academic terms, but also devalues US degrees worldwide, as the recipients can't hold down any job the degree may entitle them to apply for. Only the select few who make it into the Professional US Sports system actually benefit, because of the untold riches they can earn, make the degree's little more than a window dressing.

Such is the disquiet at the large drop-out rate during the college sports years, that many black athletes want to end the scholar-athlete farce, and be paid for being full time pro-sports performers, and to this end are trying to 'unionise' their status. Oddly of course this would end the sham, but also end the sports scholarships as well ... what need for poorly educated, mainly black scholars, when they are not athletes? 

 

Of course if the UK football academy system operated in the US, then there would be no need for the college system, and the poorly educated, mainly black, athletes would be in the professional academy systems, where academic ability is of no particular account. They would still suffer from the high drop-out rates (which are also around 90%), but there would be no pretence that they were academically 'qualified' in anyway.

But the end results of this, is that the poorly educated, mainly black, athletes, given these 'Scholarships' become 10% poorly educated, mainly black, professional 'athletes' with a college degree, whilst the rest, those lost through injuries, inability, or generally not making the cut, end up as poorly educated mainly black ex-college boys, who aren't actually qualified, having been given the degrees for no academic achievement whatsoever.

'College sports' are thankfully a particular import we have not made from the US ... however when we watch the Oxford v Cambridge 'Boat Race', a lot of specialist rowers feature as 'scholars' .... hmm.