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Stanford Scholar-Athletes A Little Less Scholarly This MorningStanford is often lauded for graduating their players, and rightly so. But their record is a little less impressive after today's story in the Stanford Daily, which reveals that a semi-secret list of "easy classes" has been distributed to student-athletes for at least a decade. And there are some good ones.

http://deadspin.com/#!5780180/stanford- ... is-morning

Duke does the same, and more, and has for decades. That's one of the ironies of Ken Pye; he was imposing a level of expectations at SMU that he knew perfectly well had never been imposed at Duke.

I want to take the Dream and Sleeping class.

When I worked for Stanford in our office we had guy who was a clerical employee who was a Phd candidate ( had not completed his thesis ) and he taught a course and I saw his class list all athletes and I said you must be teaching rocks for jocks. He was clueless as he was an Ethiopian and thought that they were taking his course because it was night class and thus did not compete with practice.

The big difference is Stanford recruits athletes who can do the work while SMU is gambling on some guys who may be just eligible by a whisker. Too many of those kids are gone in a year or two. Just look at the recruits in JJs first class and how many are still here. Same at a lot of places. I still say you can recruit smart athletes who can do the work and help you win. That is if your coaches project that image too.

Disagree....Maybe Stanford has more brains, but the certainly have their fill of kids that can't cut it there....They just do a better job of managing...

Saw stats recently in some media account comparing college SAT/ACT scores for football and basketball and Stanford was at the top of the list by far. My failing memory has the SAT average slightly over 1000.

My sophomore year, I won the registration lottery with the #1 slot which meant I followed the football team into registration. So I literally followed them to the required humanities classes to see who they signed up for. I registered and it would have been the easiest class I ever had at SMU, had the professor not died during the semester. I also signed up for a section of history class that had Louie Kelcher in the class. It was the start of a great increase in my GPA. After that I made sure to ask my football friends what classes they were signing up for. So, unless things have changed, there are probably still some courses at SMU that cut student athletes a break.

I have a couple of questions. Is anyone taking the position that the present day athletic department does not formally or informally give SMU athletes similar lists? And the names of instructors who are player friendly?

I have to tell a story also.

I was a freshman at SMU over fifty years ago and at the end of the year was sitting in the Student Center before finals one day. I happened to see the study notes my Chemistry Lab partner was using for his his last minute review of the English final. He was a walk-on BB player who played some in what was a thin recruiting year for Doc Hayes, except for the big center who flunked. The notes were the athletic department hand out for players for freshman English and they were comprehensive, covered just about every topic, essay, and poem in the text books we used. I believe I could have read the notes the night before finals and passed the final in any section of freshman English that year.

Oh, and my lab partner didn't really need them either although he was a good student who I am sure used them well. He was from NYC and grew up playing street ball. I'm not sure he even played his last year or so in HS - I think he was working afternoons in a family business.

I doubt the BB players or football players are getting any less help today so far as study notes are concerned.

I am sure that being able to attract and recruit athletes with good SATs is the key. Been some years since I saw the numbers but in my part of the country Vandy football players used to have a higher average than those at Georgia Tech. Probably still do.

Stanford is likely recruiting today under about the same restrictions as SMU did in 1989(but they can provisionally offer early now-also the test was recentered in the interim making it about 100 points easier today). They can survive though because they are considered by some as the elite university in the Country with attracts athletes from across the Country. I'd bet average SAT for football players is in the 1100-1150 range-they probably get a few like Andrew Luck who help the grade scale. SMU's average SAT today would be much much much lower by hundreds of points especially if you threw in all the non-qualifiers getting into SMU via JUCOs

As we established in the attached thread we know that in the 1997 in a comprehensive report showed Stanford had the highest SATs in the country with an average of 1051-but the test is about 100 points easier today. A comprehensive study in 2004 by the Atlanta Constitution Journal of state schools did not include Stanford because it is private. Otherwise, those are about the only studies that you will ever see published on the subject

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NickSMU17: "Stanford Scholar-Athletes A Little Less Scholarly This MorningStanford is often lauded for graduating their players, and rightly so. But their record is a little less impressive after today's story in the Stanford Daily, which reveals that a semi-secret list of "easy classes" has been distributed to student-athletes for at least a decade. And there are some good ones."

For us who live here on the left coast, we've known this for years. I mean real years. Glad it was brought out, though. Good Job!

I thought classes/professors for athletes was the norm---I'm pretty sure some high schools take care of their star athletes, too. I will even bet that ut has a list of approved government summer jobs for their football players!

I want to take Social Dances of North America III. 11 am T/TH. Nice.

But seriously though, there are classes like this at SMU that athletes are funneled to. I took a public speaking class that was filled w/athletes. Basketball, football, soccer, equestrian. All in there. It was a lot of fun, actually.

"athlete friendly" classes have been around longer than any of us. I know I certainly appreciated my football buddies and their tips for "filler" classes in those semesters I knew I was going to have 2-3 very challenging classes that would occupy most of my time.