Attendance facts

[Pony_Fan]

"Athlete-friendly" majors are overrated, IMO.

Overrated? Hmm..please elaborate why.

[SMU Football Blog]

I don't personally think a HS football recruit makes his college decision based on whether he can major in sports management or kineseology or whatever. I think a kid that wants to go into coaching can go just as far with any other degree at SMU and a solid college career; I believe the SMU coaches can effectively communicate that to HS students. I don't think there that many A&M athletes in the early 90's from the South Ward in Houston that were really that excited to major in Ag Sciences. I don't personally think an athlete-friendly major is much of a recruiting tool.

I do think the lack of such a major has impacted the ability to recruit certain transfers, including junior college players. But SMU has a new policy regarding the transferrability of courses and that may not be a factor or much of a factor any more.

I believe the lack of an athlete-friendly major has not significanlty hurt our ability to keep athletes on the rosters. I disagree with the assumption that these kids are stupid. I disagree with the assumption that these kids are any dumber than the Paris Hilton-wannabe's that permeate SMU and pay full tuition and somehow manage to graduate with a degree in advertising or marketing while taking enough ecstacy, Zoloft and Adderol to kill a small dog.

I believe that to the extent that SMU has had a problem keeping at risk athletes in school, the lack of an athlete-friendly major has been used to cover up for the fact that the learning enhancement staff at SMU is not particularly well run or well organized. My hope is that Orsini will look seriously at this and demand the necessary changes in that regard.

[Phi Delt]

I believe the lack of an athlete-friendly major has not significanlty hurt our ability to keep athletes on the rosters. I disagree with the assumption that these kids are stupid. I disagree with the assumption that these kids are any dumber than the Paris Hilton-wannabe's that permeate SMU and pay full tuition and somehow manage to graduate with a degree in advertising or marketing while taking enough ecstacy, Zoloft and Adderol to kill a small dog.

I think that the assumption that athletes are "dumber" than regular students is patently unfair, since on top of attending class and studying they have to watch film, lift weights, practice, etc. I'm not a college athlete, but I have many friends who are and their day-to-day schedule is unbelievable compared to mine. However, I would wager a lot of money that the average SAT/ACT for incoming athletes is considerably lower than that of the regular student body at SMU. And while sports-oriented majors may not put us in the Sugar Bowl overnight, they certainly couldn't hurt the growth of our program in the long run. And I'm pretty sure that ecstacy would kill a dog of any size.

[SMU Football Blog]

I originally typed marijuana, then coke, but I decided ecstasy was funnier in this context.

Also, there are already majors where you see the student-athletes "clustering," meaning large groups of student-athletes majoring in the same thing. I don't think the "clustering" is entirely coincidental, if you catch my drift.

I think the measurable benefits of a ahtlete-friendly major will not be significant in relation to the costs, but that is just me. If you create something completely new like sports management, there would be a cost involved. I would rather spend the money on coach's salaries, recruiting budgets or a PA system that reached the student section at Ford. But that is just me.

[Phi Delt]

I think the measurable benefits of a ahtlete-friendly major will not be significant in relation to the costs, but that is just me. If you create something completely new like sports management, there would be a cost involved. I would rather spend the money on coach's salaries, recruiting budgets or a PA system that reached the student section at Ford. But that is just me.

I see your point, but money isn't really an issue around here, if you haven't noticed. And a field like sports management would definitley be appealing not only to new recruits, but to regular students as well. There's a lot of people who want to careers in the business and marketing spectrum of sports, and they're not all athletes. And a school in the heart of Dallas would be a great place to do this, since students could do internships with the Cowboys/ Mavs/Stars/etc. Maybe someone like a Jerry Jones or Mark Cuban would pitch in to start such a school and get their name on it. But in the big picture, if we can start fielding competitive football teams again, and high school students across America are watching an SMU-TCU game on ESPN between two ranked teams, (far fetched I know) and they see a nice campus with the Dallas skyline in the background (not to mention a lot of "Paris Hilton wannabes" in the stands) they may be intrigued enough to send in an application...and the more competitive we can get and the better student body we can bring in, the more value an SMU diploma will have in the long run, and we can all agree that's a good thing.

[CalallenStang]

I would major in Sports Management in a heartbeat.

[smu diamond m]

You say money isn't a problem around the Hilltop, but the truth of the matter is, it still doesn't grow on trees. The practice facility wasn't paid out of pocket by the university, they had to go get money for it. The Phi Delts may have a fat bankroll, but the University still relies on outside sources, not internal funding for it's large projects.

Athlete friendly majors don't need to be looked down upon either. If you play sports at the collegiate level, you are obviously pretty good at it. You probably like sports. You probably watch sports on TV. You probably eat, drink and sleep sports. Just because an athlete would excel in an athlete-friendly major doesn't mean it's easy -- it just means he's good at it. Athlete friendly should just mean "stuff an athlete is probably good at", not "dumbed down majors for jocks".

[GoRedGoBlue]

I believe the lack of an athlete-friendly major has not significanlty hurt our ability to keep athletes on the rosters. I disagree with the assumption that these kids are stupid. I disagree with the assumption that these kids are any dumber than the Paris Hilton-wannabe's that permeate SMU and pay full tuition and somehow manage to graduate with a degree in advertising or marketing while taking enough ecstacy, Zoloft and Adderol to kill a small dog.

I think that the assumption that athletes are "dumber" than regular students is patently unfair, since on top of attending class and studying they have to watch film, lift weights, practice, etc. I'm not a college athlete, but I have many friends who are and their day-to-day schedule is unbelievable compared to mine. However, I would wager a lot of money that the average SAT/ACT for incoming athletes is considerably lower than that of the regular student body at SMU. And while sports-oriented majors may not put us in the Sugar Bowl overnight, they certainly couldn't hurt the growth of our program in the long run. And I'm pretty sure that ecstacy would kill a dog of any size.

Let's just go over the facts:

Less than 35% of the US goes to college.

The highschool graduation rate is around 60% overall right now (<60% for Hispanics and Blacks, around 70-80% for Whites).

Moveover, for Minority males (>50% of FB teams in Div-1A) the rate is less than 45%.

Noteable, only 4% of college-degreed Americans are Black, yet account for 13% of the total population. Of those 4%, there are two times as many FEMALE Black college graduates than MALE.

Amazingly, nearly 100% the football players, all MALE, seem to not only graduate high school, but get into college. Even further, around 50% graduate from college.

You still think football players aren't given special treatment?

[Phi Delt]

You say money isn't a problem around the Hilltop, but the truth of the matter is, it still doesn't grow on trees. The practice facility wasn't paid out of pocket by the university, they had to go get money for it.

Naturally, but when we go get money for something, it's a lot easier than for us than it would be for say, North Texas or Houston. I mean, we have a $1 billion endowment, and while I understand that endowment money isn't typically used for new building projects, there's plenty more where that came from. Back when they did the fundraising project a couple years ago, $550 million was raised fairly quickly.

The Phi Delts may have a fat bankroll

That's a pretty unfair generalization. Actually, we rely on dues from our members just like every other fraternity, and our dues aren't much different than other IFC chapters. It's not like the alumni just cut us a fat check every year. And the extra money we do have actually goes back to the school and charitable organizations, something like $100,000 over five years to SMU through the proceeds from our Casino Night, in addition to about $50,000 to the M.D. Anderson cancer research center each year.

Athlete friendly majors don't need to be looked down upon either. If you play sports at the collegiate level, you are obviously pretty good at it. You probably like sports. You probably watch sports on TV. You probably eat, drink and sleep sports. Just because an athlete would excel in an athlete-friendly major doesn't mean it's easy -- it just means he's good at it. Athlete friendly should just mean "stuff an athlete is probably good at", not "dumbed down majors for jocks".

This is exactly my point, that a sports management program would be great for the school and would be utilized by many non-athletes. And what better place to start a school for sports management than Dallas?

[KnuckleStang]

Again, I call for a major called "Football". You would get classes in coaching theory, leadership and management, speaking, etc for coaching skills, some finance classes to know how to understand your contract negotiations, some advertisement classes to learn about how your public image will affect you, some classes about anatomy, diet, kinesiology, etc etc etc.

It doesn't have to be a complete joke. But it can be a great recruiting tool.

I have a BFA in Theatre from SMU. I'm not saying this was an easy workload (it definitely was not), but I have always felt that if you're going to offer the Theatre degree, you might as well offer a Football degree. When you get out, they have about the same degree of usefulness.

[LegalPony]

The Athletic Department budget is small. Having worked in the athletic department as an undergrad, I can say that the average Phi Delt Pledge class could bankroll the department with their trust fund money.

[Phi Delt]

Let's just go over the facts:

Less than 35% of the US goes to college.

The highschool graduation rate is around 60% overall right now (<60% for Hispanics and Blacks, around 70-80% for Whites).

Moveover, for Minority males (>50% of FB teams in Div-1A) the rate is less than 45%.

Noteable, only 4% of college-degreed Americans are Black, yet account for 13% of the total population. Of those 4%, there are two times as many FEMALE Black college graduates than MALE.

Amazingly, nearly 100% the football players, all MALE, seem to not only graduate high school, but get into college. Even further, around 50% graduate from college.

You still think football players aren't given special treatment?

I don't know if you were disagreeing with what I said or not, but of course college athletes are given special treatment, but I think they should get some special treatment compared to regular students considering they have a much more difficult workload than regular students.

[Phi Delt]

The Athletic Department budget is small. Having worked in the athletic department as an undergrad, I can say that the average Phi Delt Pledge class could bankroll the department with their trust fund money.

My point throughout this thread is that increasing funding for athletics to field more competitive teams will only help the university's prestige in the long run. I think we're taking the right steps with the Doherty hiring and the new bball facility, but we could certainly do more. I don't have a trust fund, and I one hand the number of people from my pledge class who did. Face it, everyone in the Greek system at SMU is somewhat well off, and there's just as many Range Rovers or BMWs outside the Pike house or the Fiji house as there are at the Phi Delt house, so that argument is baseless and old.

[smu diamond m]

The Phi Delts may have a fat bankroll

That's a pretty unfair generalization. Actually, we rely on dues from our members just like every other fraternity, and our dues aren't much different than other IFC chapters. It's not like the alumni just cut us a fat check every year. And the extra money we do have actually goes back to the school and charitable organizations, something like $100,000 over five years to SMU through the proceeds from our Casino Night, in addition to about $50,000 to the M.D. Anderson cancer research center each year.

I was referencing the members of Phi Delt, not the actual organization (although $2k/brother/semester isn't a small income), who are known for having a fair bit of change in their pockets.

[Phi Delt]

The Phi Delts may have a fat bankroll

That's a pretty unfair generalization. Actually, we rely on dues from our members just like every other fraternity, and our dues aren't much different than other IFC chapters. It's not like the alumni just cut us a fat check every year. And the extra money we do have actually goes back to the school and charitable organizations, something like $100,000 over five years to SMU through the proceeds from our Casino Night, in addition to about $50,000 to the M.D. Anderson cancer research center each year.

I was referencing the members of Phi Delt, not the actual organization (although $2k/brother/semester isn't a small income), who are known for having a fair bit of change in their pockets.

See my above post, I cant think of too many guys in the SMU Greek system (regardless of fraternity) who are hurting for money.