I'm confused: Duke is ranked among the top 10 universities in the country and among the top 15 universities in the world. Last year, Duke had the most student-athletes placed on the ACC Honor Roll, which requires a 3.0 GPA. Why are people upset that Duke's basketball players not only win, but also has outstanding grades at one of the top universities in the world?!
Better question to ask: Why aren't people questioning the "student"-athletes at the other schools?! The only other school in the ACC that's ranked among the top 25 universities in the country and top 100 in the world is UVa. It's speaks volumes about the "student"-athletes at these other schools, who can't even earn a 3.0 at a school that's not ranked...
As a tutor for the Athletics department, I can tell you all that dozens of athletes in the past three years (since I've been a graduate student) are pre-medicine or otherwise associated with the Biology major. This includes basically all of Duke's major and Olympic sports teams, with the notable exception of men's basketball.
As someone who was also a Duke biology major as an undergraduate, I can tell you that it definitely serves a challenge. So while the men's basketball team certainly toils away at other majors, my personal experience has been that many Duke scholarship athletes are taking (and thriving in!) tough classes. I must also add that they all seem to be great young adults, as well.
At the ACC Tournament this year they listed the majors for each of the players whenever they were shooting FT's, scored, or were introduced. Among my favorites was the Apparel, Housing, & Resource Management for Va Tech.
Stayed at the same hotel as Feinstein, other obsrure writers and the entire CBS media. Feinstein was at best intraverted, at worst arrogant. I think he is jealous of K's success as a coach and now also a writer. I really think he is bitter he wasn't allowed to write an inside book by shadowwing Coach K. He really is not a very good ambassador of Duke University, imo.
By the way, Duke Basketball players unlike many high profile schools are quite intelligent.
Frankly, this is why I am proud to be a Duke fan. I think it clicked with me after I saw Ed Cota interviewed and he talked about using his penetrating moves on the ho's in the defense (I swear that isn't a joke.) Our least articulate players communicate far better than some schools best.
Who do you think is the best example of basketball star and intelligent, well rounded person? My top 3 would have to be Grant Hill, Shane Battier and Jay Williams. Any other notables?
I went to Duke in the 60's so am pretty far removed from what is going on now.
We did have a language requirement. I remember my roommate tutoring Bob Verga in Latin.
I have a friend whose daughter was a recent scholarship athlete at Duke. She majored in Sociology which her mother referred to as the "jock major." Can't say if that is true or not. However I would say that "anonymous" knows very little about he writes. I am sure that there are non-athletes majoring in Soc and, as many have written, basketball players with other majors.
To call Duke the dirtiest program in college basketball and your only charge is that players major in Soc is just totally stupid.
I was glad to see all of the posts that were critical of anonymous.
SoCal
Not surprisingly, there is a lot of competition...
Gminski and Bilas seem to have accomplished a lot on and off the court, although the G-man had the better basketball career. Trajan, once his career in Europe ends, will likely have some other accomplishments of note. Wasn't he a math major?
Others with serious professional careers are Spanarkel, Jay Buckley (PhD physics plus 2nd team All-ACC), Jack Marin (NBA All-Star and Duke Law). Heck, good old Kenny Dennard is apparently doing really well with his own financial public relations firm. And these days, he is certainly "well-rounded."
The late Denny Ferguson (team captain in 1965) was a professor at Cornell.
sagegrouse
'BTW I must add that when I enter "Class of Mullins" after my name, I am telling the literal truth. Others who claim Class of G. Hill, Class of Cherokee, etc. are indulging in unsupported hype. Jeff Mullins was, in fact, the President of the Class of 1964'
The subject of academic rigor and "athletic majors" frequently appears. Living in the DC area, I am the direct and indirect recipient of many outrageously pro-Maryland comments, especially during basketball season. In January or February 2009, during the worst of the Vasquez and Williams turbulence, the local media suggested that Maryland was: (a) the most selective university in the ACC as well as (b) the most academically challenging. They highlighted a few majors at Maryland including FIREFIGHTING. I was astonished; that's great for a training school, but inappropriate for a university. A MIND IS A TERRAPIN THING TO WASTE.
Jay Bilas made an interesting point about the difference between Duke and state schools from an academic standpoint. I think it was on a Bill Simmons podcast a few weeks ago, but I'm not positive. Basically his point was that GPA and graduation rates aren't a problem at Duke like they are at state schools, but there is much more grade inflation for both students and student-athletes at Duke.
At a big state school, such as Maryland or Ohio State, it takes more than just showing up every day to . However, basing this on my own experience at Duke (history major, class of 09), if you show up at every day and turn in assignments, it's really easy to get Bs, but you have to work incredibly hard to move from a b/b+ to an A. If you look at the class rank curves you'll see a median around a 3.0 with a really small standard deviation. Of my trinity class of about 1300, a 2.7 (b-) was ranked at about 900/1300, while a 3.5 (b+/a-) was ranked 200/1500.
That being said, you get out what you put in. If you're Jay Williams or Patrick Paterson, you can take a full course load every year and two summer sessions to finish your degree in three years before going to the league. Likewise, if you're John Wall, Demarcus Cousins, or even Corey Magette and you're gone after your first year, is there any reason to sit through a semester of caribbean history or african dance for another semester when you're not planning on graduating anyway?