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OK so were were watching him, meeting and talking with him from Oct. The leading edge of when P5 programs started looking at him. MSU, KU etc start getting interested in late March. So yes, they would be considered Johnny come latelys by comparison with us who had been in contact with him for 6 months before they showed any interest.
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But there is no minor league other than the NCAA. Are you suggesting that kids should not have the right to earn a living in the NBA until after they receive a 4 year degree in something that will have nothing to do with playing in the NBA? Does that same standard apply to musicians, artists, golfers, entrepreneurs, inventors, chefs, you name it who recognize that getting a 4 year degree in whatever will not be beneficial to their career? Where's the angst for that golfer who left nu a few years ago to tour (Fitzpatrick?) - isn't that the exact same dynamic, except that I would guess a bigger percentage of kids who leave to go to the NBA come from families with modest income levels (if that)
Aging Boosters position is idealistic and in a perfect world I would agree with him. But for better or worse, NU is now more like OSU and Michigan than the Ivy League schools. NU is just selling its big time sports programs with a twist, academics and a 99% chance you'll get a degree if you stay in school as an integrated part of the program. You can debate all day whether what NU is selling recruits matches up with their experience. NU stopped being a cute academic school with bad sports in 1995 even though some still perceive NU that way. The final nail in the coffin was the day they broke ground on $400 million in athletic upgrades to improve the football and basketball programs. I'm sorry but the facility being built on the lake is insane. How many schools (zero) have 100 yard lakefront glass enclosed practice facilities integrated with athletic support and offices. NU has a big time AD and big time coaches in all sports who are trying to win at the highest levels, not just trying to compete in the BigTen. The NCAA tournament was a big f'n deal. The press on a local and national level was incredible. I just think its time that NU fans recognize that NU has gone all in on big time college athletics, for better or worse.
It is interesting what going big time has down for Gonzaga. They have improved in terms of quantity (applications way up) and the average gpa of applicants way up. I know it is not exactly oranges and oranges but still interesting. www.spokesman.com/stories/2013/nov/24/gonzaga-universitys-basketball-success-fuels/ Gonzaga like Loyola is a Jesuit University and a liberal arts college and in being so believe that a solid well rounded person results in employment. Research is on the side of the liberal arts argument www.fortune.com/2015/11/13/liberal-arts-degrees-critics/
That's not what Aging wrote, though.
Aging stated *not* that "Liberal Arts Education is good", but that "preparing undergrads for the workforce is explicitly bad", and should not be the role of a university.
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Being from the Midwest, I had never heard of Gonzaga before they made the tournament, what was it 10 years ago. I Was 51 , you would think I would have heard of it. I thought the name was a joke. I bet there are over a million people who hadn't heard of or didn't distinguish between NU and some state directional school two months ago that know now that it is in the B1G and Julia Louise Dreyfus went there. They know that the coach is a me student of Coach K and a product of the Storied Duke University BB program.
I think it is a big deal in many parts of the country.
I thought that everyone knew about Gonzaga because it is the alma mater of Bing Crosby.
FYI - gonzaga has made the tournament 19 straight years. Before that though I agree they were that school with the weird name that John Stockton went to.
Frank Sinatra went to gonzaga too?
idaho - exactly. recruiting for 2.5 months, watched games, met family, did diligence on the kid, how he fits in a program, and who he and his family are. other schools who did this in the power 5 were kstate, and old illni staff
once smith started putting up big numbers. other suitors came calling. after he won player if the year - multiple schools offered without building relationships or watching him play, but based on accolades he earned and relying on their reputations to peak his interest. Smith visited in mid Feb and our initial contact was Oct - so 4 months in the making with multiple visits to his games and school. UK and MSU offered once their roster spots opened. to me that who situation is a huge differnce.
if you can't see the difference in those scenarios - then we simply see the world in much different ways
Of course I can see the difference. I can also see the difference between a "normal recruitment" of a top player like Smith and the way NU has recruited him. Normally the relationship would have started long before his senior year, and the coaches would have watched his summer league team and he probably would have been on campus a time or two before his senior season began. NU got in late. Most everybody else got in later.
There was no summer league with him. He was a baseball commit to an SEC program. Baseball was his summers. You're not getting the point that this is not a typical recruitment and we were in fact very early.
After a while all this stuff runs together. 10 years, 19 years, unless it is something important, my memory doesn't lock it down too well. I had no reason to follow March madness back then.
Duke's apparently in the picture now. No, this is definitely NOT a typical recruitment.
Coach K was just selling our program for us.
Elon, Indiana State, Northern Illinois, Oral Roberts, Western Illinois and SIU-Edwardsville. They all offered last summer. NU offered this January.
Wow, guess you can agree that none of those programs are possibilities now. Therefore no one can claim that NU was late to the real recruiting.
I am truly surprised by the antagonism that my comments generated. I have never before had someone totally mischaracterize my sentiments and attempt to attribute his characterization to me through the use of quotation marks. It seems so silly when my actual comments remain posted for any to see.
That said, I am willing to explain myself, though I regret the need to do so. I teach courses in the humanities and write extensively in my own field of study. I perceive my #1 duty to be to advance human knowledge in my chosen field. That can be done through publication(research and writing), attending conferences with my peers, participating in the peer review process, and teaching. My teaching, especially of undergraduates, focuses on the following priorities, listed in descending order of importance. (1) Encourage or instruct students to increase their reasoning abilities, especially deductive reasoning. Reasoning skills are significantly lacking in most undergraduates these days. With the growth of computers, which are entirely inductive instruments, deductive reasoning has really suffered. (2) Instruct students in ways to improve their writing abilities, including a better appreciation of grammar and the need to use the written word as a means of communication rather than artistic self expression. Writing skills among today's undergraduates are even worse than reasoning skills. (3) Encourage students to develop a philosophy of life, and endeavor to live in accordance with it, from an understanding of literature, history, philosophy, and experience. Amazingly, many college-aged students today still accept the values, beliefs, goals, and ideals of their parents, ministers, or second grade teachers. At ages 18-22, it might be time for some reconsideration. (4) Expose my students to the leading literature, understandings, and theories currently relevant in my chosen field. This material is usually of greater interest to majors than to other students, but I feel it my duty to convey it to everyone. I think that most humanities professors share these priorities.
Now, none of these priorities is designed particularly to enhance a student's employability. One might hope that reasoning and writing skills would be desirable to employers - but, perhaps not. They, like the other priorities, are much more likely to produce good citizens able to make solid choices in a democracy, to produce a richness in the texture of one's life that results in greater happiness, and to enable people to make beneficial personal decisions in their 20s, 30s, and later in life. I think my life adds value to my students' lives and my teaching is representative of some of the best that our colleges and universities offer. But, it is not designed to get jobs for my students and I am frankly offended by the suggestion that doing so should be my concern and is even close to being as important as the job I do.
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@Aging Booster apologies for my use of quotations. As a humanities professor, you must know that the medium, context and consumer of a message necessarily influence the formality and tone of a message. I am confident that nobody looked back at your earlier messages to see if you actually wrote those things - it was clear that I was interpreting and summarizing, with the quotes as a frequent rhetorical and punctuatory device to separate my thoughts from the thoughts that are being interpreted.
Now, to get to the anti-quotation in question.
In a previous post, you wrote this (quote marks indicate that this is a copy/paste from said post):
"As a university professor, I can tell you that one of the major problems facing higher education today is the perspective of many parents and taxpayers that universities exist to prepare little Johnnies and Susies to get jobs. That is not my job and not the focus of an undergraduate education." (Emphasis added) (apologies for the font irregularities - the challenges of phone-posting)
May I ask you, is there alternative interpretation to these comments other than, quoting myself, "preparing undergraduates for the workforce is explicitly bad"?
If "prepar(ing) little Johnnies and Susies to get jobs" is "not (your) job" and "not the focus of an undergraduate education", how can that function be anything but bad?
Maybe it's just..someone else's problem?
Now, to get to the anti-quotation in question.
In a previous post, you wrote this (quote marks indicate that this is a copy/paste from said post):
"As a university professor, I can tell you that one of the major problems facing higher education today is the perspective of many parents and taxpayers that universities exist to prepare little Johnnies and Susies to get jobs. That is not my job and not the focus of an undergraduate education." (Emphasis added) (apologies for the font irregularities - the challenges of phone-posting)
May I ask you, is there alternative interpretation to these comments other than, quoting myself, "preparing undergraduates for the workforce is explicitly bad"?
If "prepar(ing) little Johnnies and Susies to get jobs" is "not (your) job" and "not the focus of an undergraduate education", how can that function be anything but bad?
Maybe it's just..someone else's problem?
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My oldest is a freshman at NU. We encouraged him to attend NU over schools that offered more vocational directed degrees. We told him it was a balance of education over training and that people would respect his education. 2 quarters in and we are still fighting this battle with him but he is starting to see the value of his choice as he meets people in the profession he wants to pursue as he has been assured they respect his school choice. He has also found other avenues through his own startup, collaborating in the garage and working with student groups to get exposure to his field. So I support your position 100%. My comments regarding Calipari have more to do with my belief that it's not inherently evil to take one and done kids. A friend of mine dropped out of school to go pro early. School just had nothing left to give him moving forward. So I've seen this on a personnel level. I see your point that building a program around the idea is contrary to the mission of education. i think my point is that once an institution makes the commitment to athletics it needs to accept the game it's chosen to play and that the ideals you support are no longer present in college athletics at the power 5 level. As I said, for better or worse, NU has moved closer to the Kentucky model.
Once we have our first one-and-done, THEN we can say we're moving toward the Kentucky model. Shoot, when was the last time we even had a player intentionally leave early to pursue pro ball? Parker? Lol
Gonzaga was making the tournament a lot earlier than 10 years ago. Not many realize that NBA great PG John Stockton was really the first player that put Gonzaga on the map and that was a long time ago.
TO be fair, he did not say it was explicitly bad. Just that it was not his job and not the focus (job) of a university education. Easy to say from his protected Ivory Tower position. That said, I, like you, take exception to his position and say that at a cost one way or another of $300k (while state schools cost is less for the consumer, it is only because the state taxpayer picks up a large part of the tab) it darn well needs to be a major part of the focus. What else would you, the consumer, spend $300K on and not expect some kind of real return? And isn't it the educational system that keeps on trying to sell the need for their services on the basis of increased lifetime income? Is it worth that $300k plus interest so the graduate can ask "Would you like fries with that?"?
Take a look at the students that come from overseas countries like India and China (I am talking the students that actually come from their and not the kids that have been born and raised here (though even a lot of first gen have similar focus). How many of those students focus on the humanities? They are in Engineering, Medicine and the like all leading to jobs. And the result is those countries have been kicking our butts
So a lot of people graduating from NU aren't getting jobs? If that's true, it's amazing to me that they keep turning away kids in droves who seem to be dying to get into the school and pay their prices. If you don't want to pay that kind of money and actually want to learn a trade, a community college near me will teach you how to handle a long-haul truck for a couple of thousand, and they can basically guarantee you a job if you're at all competent. And I can assure you there are plenty of good colleges available for a quarter the rate of NU. I actually went to one of them. Colleges have always been a good road to a job and continue to be so, but there's the presumption that you might, actually, learn a little history, philosophy, ethics etc. along the way. And based what I'm seeing out of the leadership of this country these days, those are lessons that could be emphasized a little more.
UK is a professional minor league team. They have 3-6 players every year who arrive on campus in August to practice with team and start "school" in a September and leave to go pro at the end of the college basketball season at the end of March. That means they are on campus six months or less if their school starts after Labor Day. How much of an education do these players get in one full semester and maybe one-half semester and does that prepare them for life after basketball? Also, not everyone of those players who declare pro make it in the NBA. NU is far from UK in that they have never had a player leave their school in 1 season and players stay for 4 years and some stay for 5 years (Lumpkin and maybe Law, Falzon and Ivaunauskas) and graduate. Yes, there are some instances of basketball players who have transferred from NU, but those players are not entering the NBA draft like UK after 6 months or less on campus who make the student-athlete ideal a joke.
Why shouldn't those kids leave after 6 months? You wouldn't deny some other student who received a multi-million dollar job offer after just 6 months on campus the right to leave early and pursue their dream, especially one who is quite likely from a lower income family situation and one where one knee injury ruins that dream. Not every kid fits into this outdated notion of what a student athlete should be.
Not every kid that leaves UK after one season makes it in the NBA or gets drafted in the first round. There are players who leave early like the Harrison twins who were not drafted and one of the Harrison twins is not in the NBA and the other one is a backup player who is not taking in the millions. There are other instances of UK players who never made it in the NBA like Marcus Teague and left after 6 months. UK makes a sham out of the collegiate student athlete ideal.
Marquis Teague was a first round pick and made over $3m in the NBA - not to mention what he has made in other leagues. And just because a handful don't pan out to whatever standards you are setting that then means all the other players should be forced into becoming 4 year 'student - athletes' instead of earning millions of dollars? We don't force any other profession to do that (besides the NFL)
Btw one of the Harrison's is ona 3 year $3m deal too
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Your 100% correct. basketball factories like Kentucky, Louisville and UCLA wouldn't exist if the NBA would let H.S. kids enter the pros within having to sit out/play in college for a year. Can't believe that's even legal, even though they have said that the reason is it's that it's part of the leagues collective bargaining agreement.
What struck me was the antipathy from @Aging Booster towards "job preparedness" as part of the academic mission: "that is not my job and is not the focus of an undergraduate mission." ...As if getting a job should be below the interests and needs of properly-molded minds. It strikes me as incredibly arrogant, and also insulting to those who work to support the infrastructure that allows high quality employers access to students, and students the training and skills to impress those high quality employers.
For what it's worth, I would imagine that AB spends very little time counseling students on career needs; it's most likely, actually, *not* his job. That's why career departments and counselors and job placement and recruitment professionals exist.
I don't even know how AB got on this tangent - it's not *really* related to the difference in experience for an NU v. UK hoopster - but the passion is striking.
In my opinion, though, "job preparedness" and "humanities education" are complements in consumption. (That's a theoretical economic term that I would not know but for my NU education, which allows students to only take classes in economics theory, and not in the practice of running profit-making firms.)
Getting back to the original subject, Smith. According to a column in today's SunTimes he has narrowed his school choices down to four, Kentucky, Ohio St, Illinois and a fourth that slips my mind. Next.
Mrs. Brian Musso said that after she landed the lead role in Aida and finished her run, she tried to go back to NU and her professors said no. They said their job was to prepare her for a career in theater and she has that now. I'm all about getting the degree, too, but if you're career is entertainment, which sports is, and you're ready for a career in it, off you go. Just save enough to come back to school if you need to.
As if getting a job should be below the interests and needs of properly-molded minds. It strikes me as incredibly arrogant, and also insulting to those who work to support the infrastructure that allows high quality employers access to students, and students the training and skills to impress those high quality employers.
Sounds as if someone's projecting. AgingBooster never used the word "below". AB sees the college years as a time of learning critical reasoning, opening one's mind to new ideas and new ways of thinking, meeting people from all over the world and getting exposed to their ideas. That concept, prevalent for many years at schools such as NU, has been under attack for a generation. I, for one, am very pleased to see AB defending it.
Sounds as if someone's projecting. AgingBooster never used the word "below". AB sees the college years as a time of learning critical reasoning, opening one's mind to new ideas and new ways of thinking, meeting people from all over the world and getting exposed to their ideas. That concept, prevalent for many years at schools such as NU, has been under attack for a generation. I, for one, am very pleased to see AB defending it.
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