On Tue, 17 May 1994, Michael L. Cavanaugh wrote:
 
>          This morning I read Tony Biscardi's piece on Eastern Recruits.  In
> that column he made a comment that Andy Powers, from Arlington High School,
> is rumored to be "someone who would have trouble spelling S.A.T.".  Tony, I
> was just curious to know how much time you spent looking into this rumor
> before you decided to print it on the Hockey-L network?  If you'd care to
> know for your own records, Andy Powers scored a 1000 combined on the S.A.T..
> That is hardly a score that justifies the label of "someone who would have
> trouble spelling  S.A.T.".  I can't say for sure, but I believe his score is
> higher than the national average for all collegiate athletes.
 
Perhaps so. That would, however, be a sobering thought in itself. A
combined score of 1000 (if one speculated an even split between the
verbal and quantitative test sections) translate to a score of 500 each.
The scale of each section is from 400 to 800. You receive 400 points,
basically, for filling your name in correctly. The minimum combined
score, then, is 800-- for which one needs only to show up and take the
test. A student who scores 1000, then, has scored in the bottom 25% of
all possible scores (note this is not a comparison to other students,
just an indication of the possible combined score range, from 800-1600.
 
 
>         My point in writing this article is not to chastise Tony Biscardi or
> the rest of the Hockey-L network.  I just don't believe it is fair to falsely
> rumor something about an 18 year old kid and then send it to numerous people
> across the country.  I hope when writing future articles, we all spend more
> time in finding out the facts.
 
I would agree that such rumors are of little value. However, it is no
fairer to say that Tony "falsely rumor[ed]" Andy's scores-- they may or
may not be true, we don't know.
 
While there is plenty of room on hockey-l, IMHO, for speculation,
criticism, and personal judgments, I'm not sure that rumors of players'
test scores are fair game for this treatment.
 
Just waiting for that first game... sigh...
 
_Dave_
 
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