NYT scorches Auburn on academics

Nice work here by Thamel. This may not be anything leading to sanctions, but it definitely puts some more mud on a less than pristine school reputation...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/13/sports/13cnd-auburn.html?hp&ex=1152849600&en=c25d9c5a7d313bfc&ei=5094&partner=homepage

 

People down in Bama are laying a turd (either in excitement or warning).. I've seen three news reports and all prominently mention that it must be a big deal if the New York Tymes isa comin

 

I really wish I could hear Finebaum's show tomorrow.

 

Phyllis in Mulga's gonna orgasm like she's riding Howard Stern's Sybian on-air in the second hour when Slimebaum discusses this one.

 

Is it journalistically responsible to use "Auburn" and "academics" in the same hed?

 

Wow. Nice work. But who cares as long as them boys are winning and they beat 'Bama?

 

I'm seriously having trouble understanding exactly why the NY Times is wasting time on this piddly ass story. And it is a piddly-ass story.

Look at what is being alleged here -- that a guy taught too many classes and there wasn't much work involved.

It's presented as this athletes-getting-a-pass story, when that's clearly not the case. The guy taught 250 students in 2004-05. Of that, 25% were athletes. Of those, fewer than 10 percent were football players, which is the only damn sport at Auburn anyone would hand out grades for. So, if this is some great "easy grades for athletes" deal, where the hell are all the damned athletes? Then you look at the figures that are used and it's even sketchier. 18 players took 97 hours of Petee's courses in their careers. So, if each class is worth two or three credit hours, that gives you somewhere around 40 classes that were taken. So, in the span of four years, these 18 players appeared in 40 or so of this guy's classes. You're telling me that's outside the norm?

I'll give Thamel credit for obviously doing a lot of work, but I gotta take points away for trying to create a sensational story when there clearly isn't one, at least not a national story, which it would have to be for the damn Times to spend this amount of time and effort in Auburn. Maybe some local paper does a story on the professor teaching all these classes, but the Times?

Seems like not too much.

 

My guess? The Times knows there's more to this story, and this is the first of several chapters.

 

Man, dog, I know you're an Auburn guy and all, but having a system break down to the extent that a professor can be a virtually work-free grade mill is a big fricking deal. It may not be a slush fund, but dammit, Auburn is still supposed to be a university, not a farm system.

 

Hold up now. I never questioned whether or not this was a story. I questioned two things: 1) The way it's presented in the Times, as a grade-fixing scandal revolving around athletes, and 2) That it's a national story, warranting the NY Times to spend this amount of time and effort.

Certainly something is screwed up. Ain't no doubt. The guy had 150 of these classes in a semester. Nobody else had 20, from what I can tell. There's something amiss there. But if we're talking about classes in which far more everyday students were involved -- and 3 to 1 is far more -- then it's not an athletics scandal.

And for the record, I'm not an Auburn fan. I just simply thought they were hosed out of the Nat'l title game a few years back. And I think this story has been made into something it's not. That is all.

 

Well, they regularly have staff stories from Kenya and Iceland and Uruguay. So I guess Auburn, Ala., is probably within their travel budget. I mean, a story about a fraudulent academy or two in Chicago and Philly has spurred the NCAA into reform measures. Perhaps, as someone suggested, this isn't a one-off.

 

Hey, if they want to do it, that's up to them. It just appeared to me as if maybe there were a lot of accusations made and then when they got there and started digging through the shit, things didn't really pan out. But then they stuck to the original thought -- an athletic grades fixing deal. You know what I mean? Am I completely off there, you think?

Because you would agree that it's somewhat of stretch, given the limited number of athletes involved, to say this guy's classes were a "ticket" to eligibility, right?

I don't know, maybe I'm off here and JD's right, but when I first started reading it I was like, Holy shit. But then the longer I read the more it unraveled and then kinda fell apart.