EA

Thanks for the kind words.

College athletes playing five years of post-secondary sports is a very touchy subject with NCAA. The prep schools must walk a very thin line in order to avoid any sense whatsoever of impropriety. There are actually recruited athletes who attend prep school and do not play sports. These prep schools are not like the private ones in that you and I are paying for them so they have a double standard by which they must abide. We have to remain skeptical but trust that they are doing the correct thing. All indications that I can see is that they are.

Cleaning up all the misconceptions of a very complex and varied selection process? Surely you jest. That is the main reason I stay off the other "SA" site. I do try to keep this forum as knowledgable as I am able with my limited expertise.

Good luck to your son. I am sure he is very happy and that you are very proud. You both should be.
 
Thank you very much, USNA69.:thumb:

He could hardly be any more joyful, nor his CO any prouder. Smiles are the uniform of the day ... month ... year ... lifetime. :beer1:

Or at least until June 27th, at which time, as his BGO noted ...

"Your A** belongs to someone else!" :spacecraft:

At least he didn't call him "maggot." :rant2: :hammer:
 
Whistle Pig said:
the person who told me of the AF situation is a 30 year AF retiree with 2 sons @ USAFA. So I was inclined to believe he was informed.
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There seems to be an insidious undercurrent at all the academies that athletes (read football players) get undeserved special treatment. I read somewhere recently that it is particularly bad at USAFA this year.

What people should realize, in no particular order, is:
-Football is the revenue-producing sport that allows all the other sports to exist. Athletics cannot, in any way, shape, or form, come from federal funding. Football pays for the rowing shells, the volleyball road trip hotels, wrestling, baseball, fencing, squash, and all the other sports, even including basketball.

-The same reasons that candidates list sports on their applications as examples of teamwork and leadership also applies once they get to the academy. A healthy intercollegiate sports program further promotes leadership and teamwork which will be beneficial once they graduate and become officers.

-Football success is free public advertising for the academies.

-Football success increases alumni donations to the academies.

-Football players receive absolutely no additional benefits as they would at other colleges. At any time they may quit with no penalties and have a much easier life at the academy.

-Football players graduate and become officers. They get orders to Iraq and Afghanistan and fly on and off carriers just like the rest.

Instead of looking for misconceived examples of how athletes degrade from the missions of the academies, they should be thanked for the extra efforts they make in order to increase the overall success of the academies as a whole.
 
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USNA69 said:
I read somewhere recently that it is particularly bad at USAFA this year.
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Not to completely disagree with the rest of your comment or completely hijack the thread but I read the same about USNA.
 
Just_A_Mom said:
Not to completely disagree with the rest of your comment or completely hijack the thread but I read the same about USNA.
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I wouldn't doubt it. Where did you read it?
 
Well If you show me your sources I will show you mine.

Actually, there were a couple of articles last fall during football season. At a time when the team was winning and a couple of former football players found themselves in serious legal trouble.
However, my point is those types of "insidious undercurrents" occur at every school at every level at one time or another. Kind of unfair of you to pick on USAFA.
 
One of the major reasons not to use the prep schools as a place to "red shirt":
Linebacker, Jacob Biddle, NAPS leading tackler last season, is leaving for Colorado State with four years of eligibility remaining.
 
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He's obviously forgotten that USNA whooped up on CSU a few years back.

Oh well, his loss. Wisdom is not wasted on youth.

And not to debate (too much) your clearly made points, but I don't buy several of them, some based upon personal experience. Athletes do seem to get some preference, beginning in the appointment, nomination processes. Favor is given. While ancient history, I can personally speak to that.

Also re: the revenue issue ... mostly that's conventional wisdom gone awry/urban mythology ... and is made at many places to defend the extraordinary expense and is accurate in but a few institutions like PSU, Tennessee, Michigan. Nearly all NCAA Div I progams are revenue dranes ... UNLESS ... they get a significant bowl game. And I'll guanantee it's a money loser at USMMA, USCGA countering the notion that in the absence of football, there'd be no more athletics at USNA. The football program has lost $$ for decades there. And even now I'll bet it's closer to break even @ a USNA than it is to being a revenue windfall. Of course really knowing would require accurate accounting of allocation of people time. And facilities. Rarely done. Coaches become part of staff. Stadiums built for football become part of the physical plant. Equipment becomes part of phys ed program budgets.

Urban mythology, 69 on the football thing, at least re: it being a great investment. That said, Go Goats! I love 'em!!

With exceptions like those noted above, I don't buy the revenue argumentation aside from the alumni interest/donations. No doubt winners attract $$.

I fully agree that the vast majority of athletes are contributors ... and that they'd have life easier were they to bag the ball games.
 
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Whistle Pig said:
. Athletes do seem to get some preference, beginning in the appointment, nomination processes. Favor is given.
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Favor? Preference? I am not sure those are the appropriate terms. They are all triple qualified. And I am sure, by now , we all realize that the 1200 appointments each year do not go to the top 1200 whole person point gatherers in the nation. One would be surprised how few true blue-chip athletes there are. The most come in under the normal nomination process.


Whistle Pig said:
. Also re: the revenue issue ... mostly that's conventional wisdom gone awry/urban mythology ... .
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Did not mean to imply that football was a money maker, only that it was the primary revenue producer. Again, we taxpayers pay for the academies. They are under extra scrutiny. Accounting and complex time cards aside, a successful football program, combined with sponsorships and alumni donations, is what makes all the various athletic teams possible.
 
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Who cares if you think football is a money drain Whistle Pig. Football been a big part of the academies for more years then you been around. Go hijack someone elses thread.
 
Ohio State's operating profit margin is a bit less than 47 percent of revenue, which is pretty much equal to the average for the 63 teams reporting results. (Navy and the other military academies are not required to report.) Georgia and Ohio State's rival Michigan are the profit margin kings, according to the reports, as they pocket $3 out of every $4 of revenue. Florida, which has a 67 percent profit margin, is No. 5 in that measure.

On the other end of the financial spectrum from Ohio State and Florida, there are 15 schools that went to a bowl this year that reported losses on their football program last season.

The biggest loss among this year's bowl participants was at San Jose State, with expenses of $4.6 million against revenue of only $949,214. Of the 15 money-losing football programs, only three came out of a BCS conference - the ACC's Maryland and Wake Forest, which both reported narrow losses of 3 percent or less, and Cincinnati, the Big East school that had expenses exceed revenue by 61 percent. Another Big East school, Rutgers, broke even on its football program.

The other money-losing schools come from conferences like the WAC, MAC, Conference USA and Sun Belt, which don't have a way to tap into the big television dollars, either through regular-season game broadcast deals or by receiving automatic bids to the big-dollar BCS bowls, which spread the $17 million payout to each team between the members of the school's conference.


I wonder if this CNN snipit today suggests that Navy has LESS public scrutiny of its football program?

Any insight as to why this would be?

I understand the major revenue issue, but if the program loses $$$ it does not fund other sports and it seems most are money-losing propositions aside from a handful of biggies.
 
Whistle Pig said:
I wonder if this CNN snipit today suggests that Navy has LESS public scrutiny of its football program?

Any insight as to why this would be?
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Like many things with other colleges, the SAs cannot do an apples-to-apples comaparison. For example, scholarship dollars are not an issue. Makes a different ball game.

The entire Academy structure is under federal law. Should Papa Joe at Penn State do some creative bookkeeping, they would probably reduce his halo polishing schedule to bimonthly instead of monthly. Should CG do the same at USNA, he might find himself "promoted" to another federal institution learning first hand the intracies of the hammer toss (into a pile of rocks). The Acaemies are under very close scrutiny, from Congress to GAO.

The entire athletic budget is public record. I am sure you can find it on the internet if you search hard enough.
 
Quick question about sports. athletes are not recruited for scholarships to the sevice academies right ..Its just on how good of a player they are...Like USCGA . I want to do crew and I know they are loosing a lot of members this year because they are graduating this year.
 
Whistle Pig said:
I understand the major revenue issue, but if the program loses $$$ it does not fund other sports and it seems most are money-losing propositions aside from a handful of biggies.
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I think I expressed myself poorly on the above post. Money for athletics comes from three primary sources: sponsorships, ticket and TV revenue, and alumni support. All expenses come from this pot of money. The larger it is, the less the teams have to scrimp, the better the holiday tournaments they can attend, the better (and further) they can travel, the nicer and newer the eight-oared shells they can buy, etc. etc.

Bottom line: Since the expenses of football will always be there, the better the team does, the more money for athletics at the SAs. This not only includes revenue but donations. In the past, I have been able to get good A/N and post season tickets with an annual $50 contribution. It just went to $1000.
 
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Lesya a lot of kids are recruited for sports to the Academies...not scholarships per se as everybody's on scholarship. But many kids are also "walk-ons," that is kids who weren't specifically recruited but try out for the team anyway. Many are very successful, especially in sports like crew where many of them never did it before. WE NEED COXSWAINS DESPERATELY!:thumb:
 
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