Bachelor of Sports?

[Ralph Turner]

However, I consider Ithaca a "D1 School of Music". You go to Ithaca if you "wanna play Pro" music.
If not, get your music degree from somewhere else.
 

Not preachin' to the choir here but D3 is for balance and setting priorities. That is an important life lesson.

[Kuiper]

My son got a couple offers at D3 schools for basketball.  He accepted one, enrolled and majored in engineering.  He ended up failing out after a semester. The time demands of the sport and the major were too much for him at 18 years old.  I'm sure he's one of many young people that has happened to. His coach told us that most of these kids major in business or sports management so they have easier workloads while they were on the teams. He hated it but said it had been that way for years.  I remember him telling us a story of asking a senior what he wanted to do after college.  He told him with a straight face "the NBA".  Some of these young people go into college with no grasp of reality.

I disagree with the idea of majoring in the sport.  I think you keep it as is and let kids decide for themselves and then face reality when they are 23 and have a degree that is marginal.

This is an interesting set of new posts on this thread, but to go back to the post that spurred these posts, the practical advice I give kids who are considering playing a sport while pursuing a difficult major is to check if there are a bunch of other people in this major who are currently on the team and ask them if the workload is manageable and how they structure their days to do it.  With engineering, it's one of the reasons it really makes more sense to try to play your sport at a school that is known for engineering.  For example, there are 13 players on the 2024 men's soccer roster at Rochester Institute of Technology who are majoring in a subject that has engineering in the title and there are 11 on the 2024 men's soccer roster at Stevens Institute of Technology listed as majoring in an engineering field.  That's going to affect how a coach/school schedules practices and how much support your going to find on the team from upperclassmen when you need it.

[IC798891]

However, I consider Ithaca a "D1 School of Music". You go to Ithaca if you "wanna play Pro" music.
If not, get your music degree from somewhere else.
 

This is almost intentionally missing the point. It doesn't matter if it's Ithaca's arguably best-in-the-country music program or not — I merely used Ithaca so I could speak first-hand about an institution's realities.

Even if you put aside the extra hours if a major requires rehearsal spaces, labs, or training rooms, it's simply going to be more difficult to complete that work if you have to be off campus for extended periods of time — like you do when you're an athlete.

It's not about "we're focusing too much on athletics", it's "Every hour you're on a bus is an hour you're not in a soundproof room playing your instrument like your classmates" but a journalism major can type up their story from anywhere

[Gregory Sager]

But if a D3 school ever gets to the point where the demands of an athletic program (and not just football or men's basketball, mind you; it could be any sport) make it impossible for a motivated and diligent student-athlete to succeed in pre-med or engineering or nursing, or any other rigorous and time-consuming academic path, then it isn't time for that D3 school to re-think its priorities. Rather, it's time to re-think its expectations for that particular sport.

I agree with you on a lot of this, but there is also no escaping the finite amount of time in the day and week, and that athletics, regardless of how dedicated you are to your studies, how supportive your coach is, is going to take up a huge chunk of that time. That there may be a fundamental incompatibility between athletic participation and a time intensive major that features work that can't be done on a bus or a hotel room does not necessarily point to a misplaced focus on athletics, but merely the realities of the limits of time.

This is true in and of itself -- and North Park has had the same issues in terms of music majors never being able to play sports (and I'm pretty sure that Wheaton's never had a student-athlete who studied in that school's Conservatory of Music). But I'm talking about the evolution of a sports program's demands, not about a status quo that's existed since time immemorial. Typically, the competitive improvement in a program in part involves students independently devoting more and more of their time to self-development of their bodies and skills (more time in the weight room, more time spent in the gym or on the field doing workouts, etc.), which is pushed by the coaches. They're not allowed to require it, but they typically spell out what they expect of their players with language that, in no uncertain terms, makes it plain that those who are working the hardest on their own time are going to be the ones who get the chance to play, because those who put in the extra time to make themselves better will surpass those who aren't.

In short, if it was possible in the past to study pre-med or engineering and still play a sport, and that's now impossible in spite of the fact that the school's academic demands haven't changed, then there is a problem with that sport from an academic (i.e., the paramount objective of being a college student) point of view. If it was never possible in the past to major in music and still play a sport, then we're talking about a non-factor, because there's always been a self-selecting divergence (that I hope was made plain to the student before he or she even arrived on campus as a freshman).

[IC798891]

In short, if it was possible in the past to study pre-med or engineering and still play a sport, and that's now impossible in spite of the fact that the school's academic demands haven't changed, then there is a problem with that sport from an academic (i.e., the paramount objective of being a college student) point of view.

I disagree with the idea that seems to be getting floated here, namely "If every single major a school offers isn't possible for all student-athlete then it proves that the school's emphasis on that sport reflects a fundamental problem that must be fixed."

Not everything is compatible with everything else.

To use an example: many of you know that I use a wheelchair. When it comes to disability advocacy, we talk about the idea of universal access. But universal doesn't mean the dictionary definition "applicable to all cases" (emphasis mine). I've worked on committees to build accessible playgrounds. You can't build one where every element of that playground is usable by people with every possible disability. That's not what universal access means. 

As it relates to our current conversation, I think two things can be true at the same time:

1. Funneling student-athletes to "easier" majors and classes in order to interfere as little as possible with their focus on athletics is bad.

2, Certain majors may be largely incompatible with other time-intensive activities, such as athletics, but that is not, in and of itself, indicative of misguided athletic-centric priorities by the institution.

[Gregory Sager]

In short, if it was possible in the past to study pre-med or engineering and still play a sport, and that's now impossible in spite of the fact that the school's academic demands haven't changed, then there is a problem with that sport from an academic (i.e., the paramount objective of being a college student) point of view.

I disagree with the idea that seems to be getting floated here, namely "If every single major a school offers isn't possible for all student-athlete then it proves that the school's emphasis on that sport reflects a fundamental problem that must be fixed."

That's not what I said, though. I've already stated that some majors (e.g., music) are historically incompatible with athletic participation because of time management and resource inflexibility.

2, Certain majors may be largely incompatible with other time-intensive activities, such as athletics, but that is not, in and of itself, indicative of misguided athletic-centric priorities by the institution.

I guess that we have to agree to disagree, then, because where there's one major that all of a sudden becomes a no-go due to a coach-mandated increased demand upon a student-athlete's time, there's more. Next thing you know, you've got a team filled with business majors and communications majors because the student-athletes ran out of viable options for balancing schoolwork and athletics (and because they're steered into those choices by the coaches and by their older teammates).

[Ralph Turner]

Good post Kuiper.

[IC798891]

In short, if it was possible in the past to study pre-med or engineering and still play a sport, and that's now impossible in spite of the fact that the school's academic demands haven't changed, then there is a problem with that sport from an academic (i.e., the paramount objective of being a college student) point of view.

I disagree with the idea that seems to be getting floated here, namely "If every single major a school offers isn't possible for all student-athlete then it proves that the school's emphasis on that sport reflects a fundamental problem that must be fixed."

That's not what I said, though. I've already stated that some majors (e.g., music) are historically incompatible with athletic participation because of time management and resource inflexibility.

2, Certain majors may be largely incompatible with other time-intensive activities, such as athletics, but that is not, in and of itself, indicative of misguided athletic-centric priorities by the institution.

I guess that we have to agree to disagree, then, because where there's one major that all of a sudden becomes a no-go due to a coach-mandated increased demand upon a student-athlete's time, there's more. Next thing you know, you've got a team filled with business majors and communications majors because the student-athletes ran out of viable options for balancing schoolwork and athletics (and because they're steered into those choices by the coaches and by their older teammates).

This is just slippery slope crap.

If you can't see the difference between someone pointing out that being pre-med may be difficult to pull off because and "The entire team is all business majors because what else could they possibly study?" then you're not discussing the problem in good faith.

If I wanted to engage in such bad faith arguments, I could point out that Myron Rolle completed his pre-med requirements in 2.5 years, earning a Rhodes scholarship in the process, while playing All-American football for Florida State, so prove to me that a backup D3 shortstop not wanting to major in engineering comes down to coach pressure, rather than a personal skill issue with regard to studying inefficiently.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

1) There's no major incompatible with athletics at the D3 level, IF both the professors and the coaches are willing to be flexible.

2) You can't use a one off example for any general argument.  Because one person does something does not mean everyone can do it.

3) This is only an issue if a student changes course during their college experience, otherwise it was a failure of communication during the recruitment process.

[Gregory Sager]

In short, if it was possible in the past to study pre-med or engineering and still play a sport, and that's now impossible in spite of the fact that the school's academic demands haven't changed, then there is a problem with that sport from an academic (i.e., the paramount objective of being a college student) point of view.

I disagree with the idea that seems to be getting floated here, namely "If every single major a school offers isn't possible for all student-athlete then it proves that the school's emphasis on that sport reflects a fundamental problem that must be fixed."

That's not what I said, though. I've already stated that some majors (e.g., music) are historically incompatible with athletic participation because of time management and resource inflexibility.

2, Certain majors may be largely incompatible with other time-intensive activities, such as athletics, but that is not, in and of itself, indicative of misguided athletic-centric priorities by the institution.

I guess that we have to agree to disagree, then, because where there's one major that all of a sudden becomes a no-go due to a coach-mandated increased demand upon a student-athlete's time, there's more. Next thing you know, you've got a team filled with business majors and communications majors because the student-athletes ran out of viable options for balancing schoolwork and athletics (and because they're steered into those choices by the coaches and by their older teammates).

This is just slippery slope crap.

If you can't see the difference between someone pointing out that being pre-med may be difficult to pull off because and "The entire team is all business majors because what else could they possibly study?" then you're not discussing the problem in good faith.

If I wanted to engage in such bad faith arguments, I could point out that Myron Rolle completed his pre-med requirements in 2.5 years, earning a Rhodes scholarship in the process, while playing All-American football for Florida State, so prove to me that a backup D3 shortstop not wanting to major in engineering comes down to coach pressure, rather than a personal skill issue with regard to studying inefficiently.

I resent your insinuations. I don't see why I have to defend my integrity to you. If you can't discuss this politely without impugning my honesty, then this conversation is over.

[Gregory Sager]

1) There's no major incompatible with athletics at the D3 level, IF both the professors and the coaches are willing to be flexible.

2) You can't use a one off example for any general argument.  Because one person does something does not mean everyone can do it.

3) This is only an issue if a student changes course during their college experience, otherwise it was a failure of communication during the recruitment process.

Yes, on all three points!

[mhm0417]

Kuiper

This is an interesting set of new posts on this thread, but to go back to the post that spurred these posts, the practical advice I give kids who are considering playing a sport while pursuing a difficult major is to check if there are a bunch of other people in this major who are currently on the team and ask them if the workload is manageable and how they structure their days to do it.  With engineering, it's one of the reasons it really makes more sense to try to play your sport at a school that is known for engineering.  For example, there are 13 players on the 2024 men's soccer roster at Rochester Institute of Technology who are majoring in a subject that has engineering in the title and there are 11 on the 2024 men's soccer roster at Stevens Institute of Technology listed as majoring in an engineering field.  That's going to affect how a coach/school schedules practices and how much support your going to find on the team from upperclassmen when you need it.

Without naming the school, you make a great point.  This D3 school couldn't have cared less about my kid balancing sports and school. I'd go as far as to say there was zero support.  It's nice to know there are schools that look at this.

The other thing that I think was a factor is the basketball program - both mens and women's - was very weak. 
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