-----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