Should we
Consider.The.Source.
All I can say is.....
If an AROTC cadet at my son's school gave one drop of alcohol to a minor, let alone a visiting high school student, they would be disenrolled, lose any scholarships, and most likely have to pay back any scholarship to date, with no chance of ever receiving a commission from any branch of the service. This has happened in the not to distant past.
Some version of the D1 athletics at SAs debate comes up here repeatedly. And often times there are detailed facts shared that debunk many of the standing myths; not "bad behavior" gotcha articles but facts (independent studies, quotes from SA athletic insiders themselves, NCAA's own metrics, etc).
* Prep schools aren't a redshirt factory - refuted
* Recruited athletes graduate at same rate - refuted
* Recruited athletes go into operational AFSCs at same rate - refuted
* Admissions criteria/success expectations are identical for athletes - refuted
* Prepster recruited athletes have same honors/discipline rate - refuted
* D1 athletics at SAs are revenue positive - refuted
So... Are D1 athletics central to the core mission of our SAs? Maybe. The ancillary benefits in terms of public relations, marketing, pride, etc are undoubtedly tremendous. But perhaps the debate should be held on the REAL cost/benefit basis instead of continuing to cling to myths.
All I can say is.....
If an AROTC cadet at my son's school gave one drop of alcohol to a minor, let alone a visiting high school student, they would be disenrolled, lose any scholarships, and most likely have to pay back any scholarship to date, with no chance of ever receiving a commission from any branch of the service. This has happened in the not to distant past.
Should we
Consider.The.Source.
Consider. The. Source.
Keep in mind THIS is the edited version of scoutpilot's reply. For Bruno to edit a fellow Army officer's post....it couldn't have been pretty.Why?
We do with all you offer up.
Personally I don't care which way you lean on this.
Why?
We do with all you offer up.
Personally I don't care which way you lean on this.
Comparing the Academies to other Universities does not hold water. The Academies are funded solely by tax dollars and do not charge tuition. While public Universities receive some funding from the states they also charge tuition. And they also answer to the taxpayers in their state.
While many on here feel the Athletic program is important for the mission of the Academies (and I agree) I'm less comfortable that the rest of the taxpaying public would see it that way. And if there continues to be these type issues coming out we may just get to find out....
On a side note I read the response from USMA. Not sure I get a warm fuzzy on the following line:
This trip resulted in incidents of misconduct, which included underage drinking at a bowling alley within the Mall among members of the team and several recruits, and other questionable behavior.
We can't argue with what could be if don't field D1 sports team, as we have D1 sports teams.
Don't get me wrong as if it was up to me, I would has SAs play each other twice a year and call it a season. But, it's not up to me. Given a mission to have D1 sports programs, each SAs are doing what they can and since I don't a better solution they get my tacit support
Just saying, USCGA is a D-3 School for football (barely) and we seem to do just fine with producing officers. Granted its for a different service and all, but why is it REQUIRED that the other SA be D-1?
Certainly I can say that the CGA hasn't had issues like this with recruiting athletes...
I guess my point is, I don't think the SA's need to be D1 to accomplish their missions.
Pima,
Again just to clarify... The D1 sports program at USAFA (and other SAs) are net losers financially.
There have been lots of posts on this (by self and others) citing multi-year investigative journalism studies, studies by Forbes magazine, NCAA's own reports, and even the numbers (or lack thereof) from the SAs themselves and more. No matter how you slice it, there are only a small handful of college FB programs that return net profit.... USAFA and the others are not on that short list.
When you look at the "all in" costs vs revenues you realize (like all of the investigations have revealed) that these programs are subsidized to tune of 10's of millions of dollars. The fact that these subsidized by various funds and reassigning of costs across non-IC accounts does not change this fact.
So you really do make some awesome points (as usual, btw! ), but just wanted to point out that justifying these programs based on the mistaken assumption (myth) that they generate net profit is probably not the best case to make.
How many people in America know there's a Coast Guard Academy, compared to the other SAs?
That's great anecdotal evidence based on an impossible finite argument.
The reality is that ROTC life is plenty lenient, and a great many underperformers and marginal candidates make it through that system. To hold up what might happen in some AROTC unit, were this scenario to occur, is meaningless. The myth is in the belief that all the facts are in your hands in either case.