Robservations: Proposal just more VU whining
Normally, I’d be the first guy to step up to the plate in a “let’s-slam-UT” contest. But an article in Wednesday’s Standard has caused me to — I can’t believe I’m saying this — defend the Volunteers.
Of course, in doing so, I get to slap around Vanderbilt for a few minutes. So maybe this isn’t all bad.
Vanderbilt’s Chancellor, Gordon Gee, recently launched into rant with the Chattanooga Times Free Press about the graduation rate for student-athletes at the University of Tennessee. He went so far as to call UT’s 59 percent clip “criminal” before catching himself and changing his description to “shameful.”
In fact, Vandy officials have a proposal for the SEC, that will make the amount of scholarships a university receives directly proportional to the amount of athletes that graduate.
But there are two things about this that really bug me, and if you read that article, I bet they bug you, too.
The first thing that sticks in my craw about this is, why pick on UT in the first place? Its graduation rates are just as high as most schools in the country, after all.
The graduation rate for all students at Division I schools is 56 percent, according to recent statistics. Among student-athletes, that rate jumped to 58 percent. UT, as we’ve seen, graduates 59 percent of its ball players, and sticks with the national average of 56 percent for its student body as a whole.
Pretty darn patriotic, I’d say, sticking with the rest of the nation like that.
Now up at “VAHN-der-bilt” (which can only be pronounced correctly by looking down one’s nose and locking one’s jaw into a stern, holier-than-thou, Ivy-league position), the grad rate is a whopping 84 percent for students, and 74 percent for student-athletes.
Now that we’ve got the numbers, let’s crunch them. Nationally, most kids that start college, finish college. It’s a slim majority, but a majority nonetheless. And whether or not those kids play a sport doesn’t seem to matter that much. The percentages are fairly even, with the athletes holding a slight edge.
If you’re a Division I team, you get the same number of scholarships as every other Division I team, meaning you have just as good a chance to bring in a quality athlete as the school next door.
But if Vandy’s proposal to the Southeastern Conference should by some miracle pass, Vandy would get a much higher number of scholarships, since a higher percentage of their athletes graduate.
“We will change college athletics fundamentally,” Gee said. “Fans will hate it. Football coaches will hate it. But we’ve got to do it.”
That leads me to point No. 2 about this whole proposal. Why have they “got to do it?”
Could it be because Vandy is the doormat of the SEC? Might the fact that Tennessee has a 20-year winning streak over the Commodores on the football field have something to do with this? What about the Lady Vols’ 38-6 record over the Commodore women on the basketball court? Think that might sting a bit, and get those highly educated gears grinding in some Vanderbilt administrators’ noggins?
Could this be the key to Vanderbilt becoming not only the finest academic institution in the south (at least, that’s what Vandy people say), but an athletic power as well? If Vandy gets 74 scholarships, let’s say, while UT gets just 59, you’d think the ‘Dores might have a shot of getting a few good ballplayers. Could that be the impetus behind this whole idea?
Makes you think, doesn’t it?
Well, at least it might make 56 percent of you think.
(By the way, I knew the word “impetus” despite not having attended Vanderbilt.)