Eric Rickin writes:
>I wasn't aware that the level of credits for graad and undergrad are
>different,so I'll say that before every U-maine person reading this jumps
>on my throat, but wouldn't you think that someone at U-maine would
>CHECK this out to see what the requirements are?  Perhaps even the PLAYER
>should have known?
 
Someone did check it out (supposedly) - the compliance officer.  That's
his job.  He didn't do it correctly.  If the players should have known,
then there is no need for a compliance officer - right?  The officer is
supposed to KNOW.  If he tells the kid only 6 credits are needed, then
what is the kid supposed to think?  Everything the officer tells him is a
lie and he had better check it out on his own?  Even the president of the
school said the players were not at fault.
 
NC$$ rules are so complex, even the NC$$ itself has conceded that
there is no way student-athletes can know them all.  That is a chief
reason for a compliance officer.
 
>Secondly, what's this with Maine having grad students on the team?  I
>thought red shirting is common in football and basketball, but not
>hockey.  I beleive that at michigan no one on the team is red shirted.
 
I don't think this was redshirting.  I *think* Tardif may have come in
as a sophomore because of all the credits he transferred.  That meant that
after his third year of hockey, he got his degree, so to play one more
year, he enrolled in graduate school.  That is exactly what Joe Juneau
did at RPI.
 
It is also possible Tardif DID redshirt, but either way, there's
nothing wrong here.  Many schools and players have done this before.
 
>And, what I saaid about Tardiff can go for a lot of the atheletes, if you
>want to look at it in the bigger picture.
 
Isn't Tardif one of the better students not only at Maine but also in
all of HE?  I think he may have made the HE Academic Honor Roll.  That
would make him a poor choice for comparison.  He did not have to remain at
Maine and go to grad school.
 
Also, I think it is wrong to lump hockey players in with football and
basketball players.  My experience at 3 different schools has been
that hockey players seem to be more interested in getting their
education than people I knew in other sports.  In fact, take Merrimack
as an example.  Merrimack has had the player with the highest GPA in HE
each of the last 3 seasons.  Last year, 9 players made the Academic
Honor Roll - that is half the team that dresses each night!  They were
not as good as Maine, but heck, they gave Maine two tough games down
here last season.
 
>I went through the U-M student
>directory, and I looked up a lot of the players (football, basketball,
>and especially hockey), and a lot of players are in schools considered
>much easier than the normal college of Literature, science, and the
>arts.
 
Like what - business or management?  Who says that's easier than
literature, science or the arts?  Sounds pretty provincial to me.  I
know a lot of people who could prove to you otherwise.  I had
roommates at RPI who were in management and worked nightly till
midnight on 20-page case studies, reports, heavy reading loads, etc.
Try telling them their schools were easy.
 
It seems that every so often, I have to repeat this again and again
here.  There are athletes who are good students and athletes who are
bad students.  There are students who are good students and students
who are bad students.  There are athletes who are there with no real
aim towards getting an education, and there are students in the same
boat.  For every athlete you show me who is drifting through school,
I'll show you a non-athlete doing the same thing.
---                                                                 ---
Mike Machnik                                          [log in to unmask]
Cabletron Systems, Inc.                                  *HMM* 11/13/93
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