> This would be a great observation except that Welch is not like other
> undergraduate students-he had special admission standards and a concomitant
> obligation to put his entire college experience at the beck and call of his
> would be academic Svengali- Lucia. How many "student athletes" are there in
> D1? The hypocrisy is expecting hockey players who are brought in to play
> hockey to be students and practice 20 hours a week and travel every
> weekend.

And in return for sacrificing some of the freedom of the college experience, he
was able to attend school for free. Plus he is able to play a sport in front of
thousands of screaming fans, an experience that only a minute fraction of the
population gets to experience.

And if you're going to rant, at least get the details correct. Given that teams
play half of their games at home, they are only travelling every other weekend.
And I'm not sure what your college experience was like, but I usually try to
get away from campus a few weekends per term myself. So they really aren't
missing that much more class than anyone else.

As far as how many "student athletes" there really are in D1, I'd say outside
of  D1A college football and basketball, a lot. In fact I would say the
majority of NCAA athletes live up to the student part of student athlete.