How To Reform College Sports: Best-Selling Author John U. Bacon Makes His Case

[KevFu]

Sure they deserve it. They're the product. Without the elite level (the best football available in the world before you get to the NFL) players locked into the system, would you get multimillion dollar contracts from NATIONAL broadcasters? I think the level of the play has something to do with it.

It's not true and basketball proves it.

The D-League players are better than college players. They WERE among the BEST college players 1-3 years ago. But D-League attendance is laughable compared to college Because it's the BRAND that sells.

The Little League World Series is on national TV, and the Triple A world series isn't. If it's really the "best available" talent outside of the [top professional league] that sells, why is that the case? I'm pretty sure the Triple A team is better than a bunch of 12 year olds.

Without the elite athletes in the big, money-making sports, there would be much less money. So again, yes, they ARE making money off the kids' backs. And their images.

Again, basketball proves that incorrect. The best 18-22 year olds have been in the NBA for the last 15 years. It hasn't cost NCAA hoops from getting TV deals.

The University of Dayton men's hoops team has averaged 12,000 for 33 straight seasons.
Dayton hasn't had an NBA Draft pick in 22 years.
They had two players good enough to play in the NBA D-League. Now they play in front of 3,427 (the D-League average).

The point (again) - It's the BRAND people are coming to see. Not the players. Not the talent. It could literally be the special olympics out there, and people just want THEIR special kids to beat their rivals kids.

Not at all. The schools' general funds are subsidizing the system. The infrastructure is there to offer the "education" to the athletes.

But the opposite is true: The BCS schools in general, are getting lower (or no) subsidies from universities. It's the SMALL FOOTBALL SCHOOLS pouring subsidies into athletics for publicity on the sports pages.

I don't mind that the best coaches can make that kind of money, but I don't like the hypocrisy of the system, the tax-exempt status (which I guess cheats the rest of society of that money going to taxes). If they can run efficiently and pay the best coaches $5 MM, so be it.

The hypocrisy of the system is that players can't transfer freely when their coach leaves. But the market is setting the compensation. There is literally no one else offering to pay these athletes a compensation package remotely as valuable as the NCAA. If any of them are special enough to warrant such compensation (Brandon Jennings; MLB Draft picks, men's soccer players who can go to foreign leagues), they don't go to college.

Oh please. The market is an artificial one with all sorts of barriers and subsidies. Please!

Yes, 18 yr olds playing basketball in Detroit, Louisiana, or Carmel, IN, have a wonderful grasp of their options in a FOREIGN country, and know that the NBA scouts would be there to watch them play. Never mind the language and cultural issues. KevFu, this is one of your most ridiculous proposals/solutions ever on this board.

You think this is a proposal? That's what Brandon Jennings DID.

But that doesn't matter. If college sports ceased to exist (no teams, no scholarships, no nothing), the options for these kids coming out of high school would be what exactly? A tiny percentage would go play pro soccer in Europe, minor league baseball and hockey. Everyone else has to pay for college on their own dime. The lack of domestic options to play the American Tackle Football, and professional basketball the first year out of high school has nothing to do with the NCAA.

 

[KevFu]

Except that isn't true, FGCU's new-found success has nothing to do with the brand, which is worth peanuts, and has everything to do with the players.

You think this makes your point, but it makes mine. Who paid to go watch FLORIDA GULF COAST basketball?

Only 2,291 per game bought FGCU tickets. (That's less than $750,000 in sales). THOSE KIDS didn't bring in the fans.

People know who FGCU is because of the March Madness BRAND. The stage is just as important as who's on it.

No talent no brand.

The brand is built by a tradition of HAVING talent, not WHO that talent is. They players themselves are interchangeable.

The 23rd best player on the Toronto Maple Leafs is not worth over $8 million just because the team generates $200 million in revenue.

 

[Fourier]

http://www.stanford.edu/group/ughb/cgi-bin/handbook/index.php/Architectural_Design_Program

Relevant quote: This undergraduate major grants a degree of Bachelor of Science in Engineering with a specialization in Architectural Design.

It's very clearly "intended to be an engineering degree", at least it's very clearly masquerading as one.



I didn't say it's a "bird program for athletes", but the first year is clearly designed for part-time students. Did you just not look at the course track I linked? The freshman year, the entire academic YEAR, is three intro math courses. And you just said,



Three mickey-mouse math courses sounds awfully easy on a student-athlete.



Absolutely it does mean it's a dead-end in structural and building services engineering. You couldn't even register with the professional association here as a member-in-training with this degree. You'd have to go back and get another bachelor's degree in a 'real' engineering program. You'd probably get credit for a few of the courses in the Stanford program, so it might only take you another three years of full-time studies to get that other undergrad degree that would directly lead into practice as an engineer.



I'm well aware of that but this undergrad degree doesn't lead directly to a two-year graduate degree program in architecture either. No more so than any other bachelor's degree.

You have no case here. This is not a traditional Engineering degree and it is not intended to be. The fact that the degree says BSc Eng is a by product of where it is housed. My university use to give only BMATH degrees to CS students. That did not make them mathematics majors.

The degree in question is almost identical to the architectural design degree offered by MIT. That degree is housed in their school of planning. It is also a core degree in a school that is considered to be one of the top schools for architecture in the world. And guess what the MIT degree is not ABET approved, nor is the Harvard Master's degree in Architecture or virtually any other significant degree in architecture from any school in the US.

If you want a Canadian example take a look here:

http://uwaterloo.ca/find-out-more/programs/architecture

This is the best program for architecture in Canada. Its students and grads have won dozens of significant awards. And guess what...it looks just like the Stanford degree with even less mathematics.

By the way Stanford specifically says that this degree is designed to be followed by a Master's in Architecture. Go look up the suggested requirements for admission to such a program and you may be shocked to find out that the Stanford program, and the MIT program fit the bill to a tee.

Bottom line here is that this discussion started because you were critical of a student athlete taking a program which you thought was a joke. My claim is that this statement was made out of ignorance, and you have done little to dissuade me of that belief.

What would you say about a student athlete studying hotel management at Cornell...Another joke program for people who cannot take real degrees? And yet Oxford University has a very prestigious school in exactly that area.

 

[cutchemist42]

If an AHL player can make the money he does in America's 4th/5th most followed sport, I'm sure an NFL minor league player would be wroth more then the scholarship. Especially since many posters have admitted the full cost of tuition is only paid by richer families who don't qualify for the various aid programs of university.

I do agree too that the value of a developmental player is very hard to determine in America based off what happened with NCAA basketball, too many barriers and rules.

 

[Fourier]

I think I have to quibble with you here. My daughter is an engineering major at U of Michigan. She had AP Calc in high school, and went directly into the Engineering program (UM btw has one of the more highly regarded Engineering schools in the country). She was taking the 'honors' math track-- Calc II and then Differential Equations. I forget what's next in the sequence. These are not blow off math courses, and the only kids in them are math, science and engineering majors. Or someone wanting to go in an Applied Math/Econ route, for example.

You also forget that engineering majors have to take some 'engineering' courses that are physics/mathy courses in disguise-- like Thermodynamics. A course that weeds out probably half the students that survive the math prerequisites. A bit like Organic Chemistry weeding out the pre-meds. (Oh wait! Some engineering majors require Organic Chem as well!)

It's probably the toughest undergrad track to take since you have to take math, physics, chemistry, computer science and what we call generic engineering course. Any study you can find will show that engineering students have to spend more time than any other undergrad track on study time outside the classroom.

I strongly suspect that your daughter is not a typical engineer!

I actually know the U of M mathematics Calculus curriculum quite well for reasons I will not go into. If she is in the MATH 185/186 sequence then these courses are similar, though at a modestly lower level than what I was taking about. If it is MATH 156 then that is a much lower level. Even so the MATH 156 class would be would be very rare and difficult course for engineers, comparable to the course we offer as a core calculus class to 85% of my faculty's students.

I would estimate 5-10% at most of my university’s engineering class would be able to pass our equivalent of MATH 185/186 and we have one of the best engineering schools in the country. This is borne out by experience since we often get a few of the Engineering School's best students in our advanced courses. I have also taught engineers in three of the top 5 engineering schools in Canada. In my first term I took three courses at this level in mathematics, a physics course aimed at the top 15% of the incoming physics class, as well as an honours course in micro economics. Many of my friends were in engineering. I could help them with all their home-work. None of them could do any of mine outside of the odd physics question and possibly the econ stuff.

You need to read the rest of my post. While I stand by my assessment of the relative difficulty of an engineering degree, especially if you are to measure it by the % of a school’s incoming class who might successfully complete the degree, I also said that such a claim has little value in assessing that quality of a degree relative to another. As you point out an engineering degree is a generalist degree requiring competency in a wide range of subject areas rather than depth in a couple. This makes for an apples and oranges comparison, as the goals of the various programs are quite different. The program I took had one goal: to prepare me for a PH.D. program in my subject. That is certainly not the intent of a typical engineering degree. Similarly, the program that started this whole debate is not an engineering degree in the typical sense and as such should not be measured in that way.

I think we are too quick to dismiss that education that many student athletes receive. They may not all be top scholars, some actually are, but the vast majority compete very well with their non-athlete peers. Unfortunately there are a small few who are either abused by the system or who are themselves the abusers. I am all for cracking down on this aspect of the system.

 

[Fugu]

But that doesn't matter. If college sports ceased to exist (no teams, no scholarships, no nothing), the options for these kids coming out of high school would be what exactly? A tiny percentage would go play pro soccer in Europe, minor league baseball and hockey. Everyone else has to pay for college on their own dime. The lack of domestic options to play the American Tackle Football, and professional basketball the first year out of high school has nothing to do with the NCAA.

There's nothing wrong with this happening, in my opinion. Everyone else already has to pay for college on their own dime, so welcome to the real world. (Noting that grants and work study programs are available to kids with lesser means.)

I think we are too quick to dismiss that education that many student athletes receive. They may not all be top scholars, some actually are, but the vast majority compete very well with their non-athlete peers. Unfortunately there are a small few who are either abused by the system or who are themselves the abusers. I am all for cracking down on this aspect of the system.

Noted on the other items, and thank you for the thesis.

I think the key distinction appears to be Theoretical vs Applied math, and that it makes little sense for engineering students to take the former.

As to the point above, I guess I'm opposed to any system that discriminates against other classes of students, non-athletes in this case. There are virtually no scholarships based on merit alone these days for other students. Most support is based on financial need. The question that remains unanswered is why do we believe participation in sports or athleticism warrants special treatment in academic entrance/support? I do not believe any other modern country has adopted such a reward system, and certainly not to the extent we have in the US.

 

[Brodie]

I mean, people are weird about academics in college football... you often see people call schools like Florida State "glorified diploma mills" when they're better than the vast majority of universities in the country, for example. It's a very uncomfortable subject.

 

[KevFu]

If an AHL player can make the money he does in America's 4th/5th most followed sport, I'm sure an NFL minor league player would be wroth more then the scholarship. Especially since many posters have admitted the full cost of tuition is only paid by richer families who don't qualify for the various aid programs of university.

I do agree too that the value of a developmental player is very hard to determine in America based off what happened with NCAA basketball, too many barriers and rules.

I don't understand your logic. You know the average AHL salary is $39,000 a year, right?

You have to realize that it's basically the top 2% who move on to the next level.
The top 2% of high school players play Division I.
The top 2% of Division I players play professionally
The top 2% of professionals are in the highest league (in NBA, NHL, MLB; not a lot of American Tackle Football leagues)
The top 2% of big leaguers are making ridiculously high salaries.

If the minimum salary for the CFL is $30,000 and 98% of college football players on scholarship are not good enough for that salary, how much are they worth?

Same with the D-League. If the minimum D-League salary is $13,500, and 98% of college basketball players on scholarship aren't good enough for that salary, how much are they worth?

There's nothing wrong with this happening, in my opinion. Everyone else already has to pay for college on their own dime, so welcome to the real world. (Noting that grants and work study programs are available to kids with lesser means.)

I agree there's nothing wrong with it. But just because something is acceptable doesn't mean we automatically change to it.

 

[Hoser]

You have no case here. This is not a traditional Engineering degree and it is not intended to be.

I had been quite clearly saying that it's not a 'real' engineering degree all along. As such I don't think you even know what my 'case' is. I certainly don't know what yours is anymore. First you say:

Someone who may in the past have gone into a traditional Fine Arts program can now use their creative skills to find a niche that might lead to employment in a specific industry. But to do so they also have to take a bunch of courses that most fine arts students would not be able to pass. (Please find me a community college program that would require this level of mathematics.)

You imply that the mathematics courses in this program are far and away more difficult than a fine arts student could manage, then you turn around and say:

... there is an extremely high probability that the math courses you took as an engineer were mickey-mouse.

So which is it? Is the program he's in very difficult or "mickey-mouse"?

Bottom line here is that this discussion started because you were critical of a student athlete taking a program which you thought was a joke.

No. This discussion started because Andrew Luck has been held up as an example of an accomplished student-athlete, specifically as an 'engineer'. I found it very difficult to believe that he studied 'real' engineering, and a little digging confirmed my suspicions. This is not an actual engineering degree. It doesn't lead to a career in engineering, other than some of the credits may transfer over to another degree program altogether.

I didn't say it's a 'joke' just that it's not comparable to a bachelor's degree in, say, civil engineering. And I'll come right out and say it: it's not a rigorous program. Like I said the entire freshman year is three so-called (your words!) "mickey-mouse" math courses. That's a hell of a light course load.

So no, it may not be a "bird program" that is specifically designed to push athletes through but I don't think Andrew Luck should be made out to be some wunderkind who studied 'engineering' when frankly he didn't take a very difficult program.



And 18-19 out of 20 engineering students at your university can't pass Calc I? That's either BS or the admissions bar is set awfully low.

 

[cutchemist42]

I don't understand your logic. You know the average AHL salary is $39,000 a year, right?

You have to realize that it's basically the top 2% who move on to the next level.
The top 2% of high school players play Division I.
The top 2% of Division I players play professionally
The top 2% of professionals are in the highest league (in NBA, NHL, MLB; not a lot of American Tackle Football leagues)
The top 2% of big leaguers are making ridiculously high salaries.

If the minimum salary for the CFL is $30,000 and 98% of college football players on scholarship are not good enough for that salary, how much are they worth?

Same with the D-League. If the minimum D-League salary is $13,500, and 98% of college basketball players on scholarship aren't good enough for that salary, how much are they worth?



I agree there's nothing wrong with it. But just because something is acceptable doesn't mean we automatically change to it.

Average AHL contract of $39,000 for a sport that is number 4 in the USA is my point. With the amoutn of subsidies and in-state costs available to students, I'm not really buying the notion that alot of these degrees have the $40,000 value across all of D1. If a minor league player of hockey can make $39,000, the NFL should be able to pull a league with similar salaries if it was forced to someday.

CFL average salary in 2013 is around $80,000 too for a league that does not even function as a developmental league as its purpose. With the new tv contract the CFL signed that number is likely rising too.

 

[Fourier]

Noted on the other items, and thank you for the thesis.

I think the key distinction appears to be Theoretical vs Applied math, and that it makes little sense for engineering students to take the former.

I am going to quote Sheldon here from The Big Bang. Applied Mathematician!!! You may as well have called me a toll booth attendant.

In all seriousness there is actually a big difference between pure and applied mathematics. Far fewer people can master the pure side at passable levels. However, to be truly great at Applied Math is every bit as difficult if not more so than it is for Pure Math.

As to the need for an engineer to know pure math, it actually depends on the branch of engineering and the goals of the individual as to how valuable pure math can be. It makes little sense for a civil engineer to take such courses. However, it can be very valuable for people in branches like electrical engineering who want to do research. Biomedical engineers may also benefit a great deal from theoretical courses such as differential geometry or even functional or harmonic analysis. Financial engineers, a very popular modern branch, also need some fairly sophisticated pure mathematics.

That said the vast majority of engineers take courses at a level consistent with their needs. And I am absolutely fine with that.

There's nothing wrong with this happening, in my opinion. Everyone else already has to pay for college on their own dime, so welcome to the real world. (Noting that grants and work study programs are available to kids with lesser means.) .....

As to the point above, I guess I'm opposed to any system that discriminates against other classes of students, non-athletes in this case. There are virtually no scholarships based on merit alone these days for other students. Most support is based on financial need. The question that remains unanswered is why do we believe participation in sports or athleticism warrants special treatment in academic entrance/support? I do not believe any other modern country has adopted such a reward system, and certainly not to the extent we have in the US.

I sympathise with your position here. In Canada, athletic scholarships tend to be fairly nominal. My nephew is both a top student and an outstanding athlete. He has both academic scholarships and athletic scholarships. The athletic scholarship does not really compensate for the time he loses from work because of training or practice. In his case, his participation in athletics actually costs him a fair bit of money because his schedule also makes it impossible for him to live at home, which he could otherwise.

The US system has a lot of flaws and it can be quite cut-throat in its treatment of athletes.

 

[KevFu]

Average AHL contract of $39,000 for a sport that is number 4 in the USA is my point. With the amoutn of subsidies and in-state costs available to students, I'm not really buying the notion that alot of these degrees have the $40,000 value across all of D1. If a minor league player of hockey can make $39,000, the NFL should be able to pull a league with similar salaries if it was forced to someday.

CFL average salary in 2013 is around $80,000 too for a league that does not even function as a developmental league as its purpose. With the new tv contract the CFL signed that number is likely rising too.

But it's true across the board that minor league salaries are tiny compared to the top league salary.

"Which sport is the favorite" doesn't matter. The NBA minor league (D-League) has an average salary of $17,500, far less than the average AHL salary of $39,000.

And the AVERAGE salary doesn't even matter here. The average salary is for the league average player. 98% of college athletes are replacement level players for those leagues, at best. Which means their value is BELOW THE MINIMUM.

The salary and attendence numbers for minor league sports shows it very clearly:
No one CARES about minor league sports. People CARE about college sports.

This is why the market value of the players' TALENT is basically nothing. People are forking over millions of dollars to see who's the best college (aka because of the BRAND, and NOT the talent). When players of better talent than the college kids play in a minor league, no one watches or cares.

If the NFL created a minor league system of 32 teams, only for 18-22 year olds, and stole the BEST 2000 players from the NCAA because they offered an average salary of $120,000... college football would not lose one single dime.

Less talented playrs would take their place, fans would still show up, and the TV gravy train would roll on.

This isn't that complicated.

 

[Fourier]

I had been quite clearly saying that it's not a 'real' engineering degree all along. As such I don't think you even know what my 'case' is. I certainly don't know what yours is anymore. First you say:



You imply that the mathematics courses in this program are far and away more difficult than a fine arts student could manage, then you turn around and say:



So which is it? Is the program he's in very difficult or "mickey-mouse"?



No. This discussion started because Andrew Luck has been held up as an example of an accomplished student-athlete, specifically as an 'engineer'. I found it very difficult to believe that he studied 'real' engineering, and a little digging confirmed my suspicions. This is not an actual engineering degree. It doesn't lead to a career in engineering, other than some of the credits may transfer over to another degree program altogether.

I didn't say it's a 'joke' just that it's not comparable to a bachelor's degree in, say, civil engineering. And I'll come right out and say it: it's not a rigorous program. Like I said the entire freshman year is three so-called (your words!) "mickey-mouse" math courses. That's a hell of a light course load.

So no, it may not be a "bird program" that is specifically designed to push athletes through but I don't think Andrew Luck should be made out to be some wunderkind who studied 'engineering' when frankly he didn't take a very difficult program.



And 18-19 out of 20 engineering students at your university can't pass Calc I? That's either BS or the admissions bar is set awfully low.

Take a look at what I wrote. I never said that these courses were mickey mouse within the context of the program. They actually cover the same material as all Stanford engineers take. My point was that if you assess a program from only your own perspective without understanding the context of the degree, you can be a victim of your own prejudices. In my world engineering math course are "mickey mouse". Let me put this in perspective. I teach a group of approximately 80 first year students in the class I am talking about. If I gave them the final exam for our first year Engineering Calculus the class average would be over 95% and every single one would be capable of getting 100% if they did not make a stupid mistake. But there is no reason why an engineer needs the level of proficiency in mathematics that my students do. For a typical engineer, their courses are challenging enough and serve the appropriate purpose. Some, like Fugu's daughter take more advanced course because they have the talent to do so. That is their choice. On the other hand for a typical student in fine arts these calculus courses may be very difficult. In contrast though, many engineers may find the type of design courses, or even a course in art history, to be much more challenging than the fine art students. Each group brings a different skill set to the table.

You are now changing your tune about your assessment of the degree. I have no problem agreeing with you that Andrew Luck is not an engineer. Einstein was not a mathematician either despite what people think. That does not mean he was not accomplished. You are the one who compared Lucks degree to a community college diploma which shows your ignorance of the discipline. Programs such as these tend to attract very talented and highly skilled people. They are as competitive to get into or even more so than something like a civil engineering degree. They are also specifically designed to lead to graduate studies in the discipline. So while Luck may not be an engineer, you have no evidence to suggest that his academic success does not merit recognition

As to you last point, I think the point might be that it depends on which Calc1 you are talking about. My guess is that you would have no idea what type of course I am speaking about since it is almost surely not the one you took. I can also assure you that if you graduated from a Canadian engineering program then what I say would be almost certainly be true of your classmates as well. If you are a Canadian engineer you may know from the location I have on my profile what school I speak of. And if you do you will also know that our entrance standards are as high as any school in the country. So once again, maybe you should give this a little thought before you go off on something you obviously do not know anything about.

 

[kdb209]

I actually know the U of M mathematics Calculus curriculum quite well for reasons I will not go into. If she is in the MATH 185/186 sequence then these courses are similar, though at a modestly lower level than what I was taking about. If it is MATH 156 then that is a much lower level. Even so the MATH 156 class would be would be very rare and difficult course for engineers, comparable to the course we offer as a core calculus class to 85% of my faculty's students.

Out of curiousity, do you have a link to course descriptions/syllabi of your equivalent to these classes? And the intro clases for a math major.

It's been a while since I've had reason/interest to look at undergrad math classes.

Obligatory disclosure - I have an EE degree from an engineering school of some repute and went through the Calculus II, Differential Equations, and Complex Variables with Applications sequence.

I would estimate 5-10% at most of my university’s engineering class would be able to pass our equivalent of MATH 185/186 and we have one of the best engineering schools in the country. This is borne out by experience since we often get a few of the Engineering School's best students in our advanced courses. I have also taught engineers in three of the top 5 engineering schools in Canada. In my first term I took three courses at this level in mathematics, a physics course aimed at the top 15% of the incoming physics class, as well as an honours course in micro economics. Many of my friends were in engineering. I could help them with all their home-work. None of them could do any of mine outside of the odd physics question and possibly the econ stuff.

You need to read the rest of my post. While I stand by my assessment of the relative difficulty of an engineering degree, especially if you are to measure it by the % of a school’s incoming class who might successfully complete the degree, I also said that such a claim has little value in assessing that quality of a degree relative to another. As you point out an engineering degree is a generalist degree requiring competency in a wide range of subject areas rather than depth in a couple. This makes for an apples and oranges comparison, as the goals of the various programs are quite different. The program I took had one goal: to prepare me for a PH.D. program in my subject. That is certainly not the intent of a typical engineering degree. Similarly, the program that started this whole debate is not an engineering degree in the typical sense and as such should not be measured in that way.

Having known too many math majors - I have no qualms with your assessments.

 

[Fourier]

So if given a halfway viable option for further development, a lot of athletes could make a go of it without the "free" education.

Actually they can still have a mostly free education if they go the CHL route. Many do go on to Canadian universities on money provided by the CHL team. As such by playing in the CHL they can get the best of both worlds should they desire it.

 

[Fourier]

Out of curiousity, do you have a link to course descriptions/syllabi of your equivalent to these classes? And the intro clases for a math major.

It's been a while since I've had reason/interest to look at undergrad math classes.

Obligatory disclosure - I have an EE degree from an engineering school of some repute and went through the Calculus II, Differential Equations, and Complex Variables with Applications sequence.



Having known too many math majors - I have no qualms with your assessments.

I can provide the link but it might not help that much. The topics look very similar to those of a standard Calculus class but we prove every result and go much deeper. For example, I would prove the Banach Contractive Mapping Theorem in our second term class and use it to establish Picard's Theorem on the existence and uniqueness of solutions for a certain class of ODE's. To do this I need the fact that the space of continuous functions on [a,b] is complete in the sup norm.

In the syllabus this would just say, an introduction to DE's.

I would also give a detailed and fully rigorous construction of a continuous nowhere differentiable function to contrast the fact that functions derived from power series are infinitely differentiable, and that their derivatives can be obtained term by term. This we would also prove in detail.

In the syllabus this would appear as "power series".

You also have to be a little careful what a Math major is at my school though. We have a Faculty of Mathematics with close to 6000 students. Roughly 5% of those students would take this class. Maybe 8% could pass it. And I can say that in the 92% who would not make it are some spectacular students. It is more an aptitude issue than one of pure talent or intelligence. I should also say that I have taught a lot of extraordinarlity talented engineers in the classes I speak of above and throughout the program. In fact, starting in January I will have a new Ph.D. student who himself has a Ph.D. in EE. He could write his own ticket in electrical engineering but his first love is mathematics.

 

[VOB]

I don't understand your logic. You know the average AHL salary is $39,000 a year, right?
.

Not quite, the average AHL salary is closer to 60k http://nhlnumbers.com/2012/10/20/ahl-salaries-2012-13-opening-night-rosters

 

[Hoser]

As to you last point, I think the point might be that it depends on which Calc1 you are talking about. My guess is that you would have no idea what type of course I am speaking about since it is almost surely not the one you took. I can also assure you that if you graduated from a Canadian engineering program then what I say would be almost certainly be true of your classmates as well. If you are a Canadian engineer you may know from the location I have on my profile what school I speak of. And if you do you will also know that our entrance standards are as high as any school in the country. So once again, maybe you should give this a little thought before you go off on something you obviously do not know anything about.

Oh I figured out which institution you work for, and I find your estimation of the first-year engineering students' mathematical abilities terrrrrrribly amusing. In my experience I would have thought the proportion of students who'd have trouble with honours Calc I and II closer to 2/3 than 19/20.

If they transferred to the institution I earned my undergrad degree from they wouldn't even get credit for MATH 116/117/118/119.

 

[KevFu]

Not quite, the average AHL salary is closer to 60k http://nhlnumbers.com/2012/10/20/ahl-salaries-2012-13-opening-night-rosters

I did a google search, the 39K was what came up first.

I'm sure there's all kinds of methodology (average salary of all the players in the AHL vs the average salary of players who've signed an AHL/ECHL contract, i.e. the highest paid guys are removed).

But it's not relevant to anything either way:

At 39K or 60K, AHL guys are making more than the D-League guys (blowing the whole "football's more popular, so minor league football players could get more" argument out of the water)

And the players were talking about in the NCAA are BELOW average, they are REPLACEMENT level players.

 

[Killion]

The brand is built by a tradition of HAVING talent, not WHO that talent is. They players themselves are interchangeable.

Precisely my point. Brands can find themselves getting tarnished, losing value quickly and for a wide range of reasons including the abuse of talent or icing/fielding sub-par talent/teams. You use the Leafs as an example, an anomaly to the norm, but essentially what theyve managed to do is to re-package the past & sell that. About all you can do when your perennial losers & the future aint lookin too bright. Thats if you can get away it of course. Leafs have had just enough peaks, shown just enough promise to do so.

 

[KevFu]

Precisely my point. Brands can find themselves getting tarnished, losing value quickly and for a wide range of reasons including the abuse of talent or icing/fielding sub-par talent/teams. You use the Leafs as an example, an anomaly to the norm, but essentially what theyve managed to do is to re-package the past & sell that. About all you can do when your perennial losers & the future aint lookin too bright. Thats if you can get away it of course. Leafs have had just enough peaks, shown just enough promise to do so.

These programs in the BCS conferences have what the Leafs have. It's not a house of cards for them because of how college football operates:

The BCS pays the poor, bad teams to come get whooped in non-conference play (and ticket sales make them more money)
Then if they have bad conference seasons, most are still going to a bowl (reputation and a "winning tradition")
Bowls and tradition keeps the fans and booster shelling out money.
Lather, Rinse Repeat

Because those schools have had money for decades and built large, nice facilities (that the small schools don't have) they get enough of the recruits they need to keep they cycle going (and THIS is the aspect of college sports that SHOULD BE DESTROYED).

Saying "There's no money without the players talent" is over-simplifying. The idea that "the stars' talent brings in the money and therefore those stars deserve a lot of it" is false

The best way to illustrate this is using EA Sports games rating system as an example.
-- Think of the players that the media is talking about as "bringing in all the money" as guys rated 90+.

But the fans & TV are really paying money to see the teams who always get THE MOST 90+ players.

They wouldn't lose a single dollar if the pros took all the 90+ players away from the NCAA (expansion, larger draft, minor football league).
Because the fans & TV would pay the same amount of money to see the teams who always get THE MOST 80+ players!

(Again, college basketball PROVES THIS POINT. The NBA expanded and most "the 90+ players" started skipping college, or leaving after a year. Hasn't hurt college hoops financially at all).

The fans don't care what the actual talent level of the best teams are. They could be 90 overall or 70 overall. It's a bell curve: regardless of how good the teams actually are The Top 25 is always the Top 25 and people will always want to know who the best college team is.

They care more about "who's the best college team" than the TALENT on the field. The fact that minor league teams all have better talent than college teams and they don't get on TV, while college sports are on TV with lesser talent proves it.

 

[Fourier]

Oh I figured out which institution you work for, and I find your estimation of the first-year engineering students' mathematical abilities terrrrrrribly amusing. In my experience I would have thought the proportion of students who'd have trouble with honours Calc I and II closer to 2/3 than 19/20.

If they transferred to the institution I earned my undergrad degree from they wouldn't even get credit for MATH 116/117/118/119.

Then you did not do your degree in Canada since there is no school in Canada for which what you say is true. The more you make claims like this the weaker your case becomes.

 

[Roughneck]

In an effort to link this back to hockey in some way, I know that the NCAA route is not the primary choice for hockey players trying to get to the NHL. The highest probability for them still appears to be the Canadian junior leagues, then the AHL. If I recall, when Paul Kelley left the NHLPA, he was working on trying to promote the NCAA option-- the offer of free education being one selling point.

So why isn't the offer of a college degree something that grabs a large core of the best junior talent available in North America?

Because the CHL has constantly been improving their scholarship program to make free education a non-issue. For a large number of CHL players they're merely delaying when they get the free school a couple years. I know a couple guys who are not only having the CHL money covering the cost of school, but their CIS program is matching it (so they're actually getting paid to play college hockey).

While there are issues with the scholarship when it comes to how players can make themselves ineligible (being a "pro" in the ECHL for a year for example), the system is constantly getting better.

Had the CHL sat on its laurels for a while they would have lost a lot more players to the NCAA IMO, but they've been good at seeing what their competition is offering and essentially taken it off the table.

 

[cutchemist42]

Because the CHL has constantly been improving their scholarship program to make free education a non-issue. For a large number of CHL players they're merely delaying when they get the free school a couple years. I know a couple guys who are not only having the CHL money covering the cost of school, but their CIS program is matching it (so they're actually getting paid to play college hockey).

While there are issues with the scholarship when it comes to how players can make themselves ineligible (being a "pro" in the ECHL for a year for example), the system is constantly getting better.

Had the CHL sat on its laurels for a while they would have lost a lot more players to the NCAA IMO, but they've been good at seeing what their competition is offering and essentially taken it off the table.

Yeah, like you mentioned, I've heard personally a few times though that some players truly felt choked by the limitations of the CHL CIS scholarship.These players wish they had more years to pursue the professional path before losing the scholarship.

Also remember seeing the stats a few years ago that with the rigorous CHL schedule, lots of kids find it hard on some teams to even get good enough grades to get into university. The CHL university expense is not as big as some might think it is for these reasons.

I do hope the pro limitation is loosened in future years, but that might actually make the CHL pay more.

 

[PCSPounder]

These programs in the BCS conferences have what the Leafs have. It's not a house of cards for them because of how college football operates:

The BCS pays the poor, bad teams to come get whooped in non-conference play (and ticket sales make them more money)
Then if they have bad conference seasons, most are still going to a bowl (reputation and a "winning tradition")
Bowls and tradition keeps the fans and booster shelling out money.
Lather, Rinse Repeat

Because those schools have had money for decades and built large, nice facilities (that the small schools don't have) they get enough of the recruits they need to keep they cycle going (and THIS is the aspect of college sports that SHOULD BE DESTROYED).

Saying "There's no money without the players talent" is over-simplifying. The idea that "the stars' talent brings in the money and therefore those stars deserve a lot of it" is false

The best way to illustrate this is using EA Sports games rating system as an example.
-- Think of the players that the media is talking about as "bringing in all the money" as guys rated 90+.

But the fans & TV are really paying money to see the teams who always get THE MOST 90+ players.

They wouldn't lose a single dollar if the pros took all the 90+ players away from the NCAA (expansion, larger draft, minor football league).
Because the fans & TV would pay the same amount of money to see the teams who always get THE MOST 80+ players!

(Again, college basketball PROVES THIS POINT. The NBA expanded and most "the 90+ players" started skipping college, or leaving after a year. Hasn't hurt college hoops financially at all).

The fans don't care what the actual talent level of the best teams are. They could be 90 overall or 70 overall. It's a bell curve: regardless of how good the teams actually are The Top 25 is always the Top 25 and people will always want to know who the best college team is.

They care more about "who's the best college team" than the TALENT on the field. The fact that minor league teams all have better talent than college teams and they don't get on TV, while college sports are on TV with lesser talent proves it.

If you go to the NCAA website and go back through the "Basketball Study" they conducted...

...while there's a few programs still selling out every game, most schools are FAR from it. I think you're taking the Research Triangle and doing too much extrapolation. The whole point- 10 years ago- was that schools were having trouble selling basketball to students and fans outside the major programs. Even some of them show cracks in the armor.

I think you're generally right about how "the brand" can overwhelm other factors... but I think there's a limit.

I also recognize the key issue when it comes to college... that football coach IS going after the hockey money. And the gymnastics money. And so on. The AD usually finds a way, but outside those signature schools (a PERCENTAGE of the BCS, not their whole), it's not long-term sustainable. That's partly because the TV contracts aren't long-term sustainable.

Before the "Bowl Coalition" eventually led to the BCS, the talk was always of the "Superconference." That's the schools I'm talking about being the "percentage" of the BCS. The endgame of this greed is really that.