-----Original Message-----
From: Benjamin J. Flickinger
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.




I enjoy listening in on Hockey-L discussions, and haven't posted anything in
years.  However, the recent bantering reminded me of an article on ESPN.com
from the fall.  The entire article is at
http://espn.go.com/ncaa/news/2002/0926/1437078.html.  I'll copy-and-paste
the paragraph which struck me:


"The NCAA's survey covered on-scholarship athletes who entered college in
1995 and graduated within six years. The graduation rate among athletes
remained 2 percentage points higher than the rate for the general student
population."


I don't profess to know the nuances of how the data were tabulated, and no
doubt some college athletes may have access to tutors, etc... for additional
assistance.  I also don't know if the six year span for graduation is an
appropriate yardstick to use for everyone, and if we should be skeptical of
these (favorable to the NCAA) results simply because they are being
generated by the NCAA.  However, at least on the surface, it does appear
that, overall, the students on athletic scholarships ARE pulling their
weight.  Perhaps the athletes' graduation rate percentages would increase
even more if the athletes who were NOT on athletic scholarships were
factored in, too?

---Sean Keller