Duke and Georgetown basketball recruiting...

[Kewlswim]

Hi,

I am curious, did Sean Dockery have better credentials than the kid in question here? I hope so.

GO DUKE! (I think this link is OK to post, if it isn't please remove.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/30/sports/ncaabasketball/30georgetown.html?_r=1&ref=sports&oref=slogin

[Troublemaker]

I hope JJ Redick, Greg Paulus and Taylor King had/have better credentials as well.

1. Can we please stop referring to Dock as if he were stupid and had poor grades when there is no evidence of that?

2. How is anyone going to confirm for you what Dock's grades were? There are folks who post here with sources, but I doubt they have access to Dock's transcripts.

[Kewlswim]

I hope JJ Redick, Greg Paulus and Taylor King had/have better credentials as well.

1. Can we please stop referring to Dock as if he were stupid and had poor grades when there is no evidence of that?

2. How is anyone going to confirm for you what Dock's grades were? There are folks who post here with sources, but I doubt they have access to Dock's transcripts.


Hi,

Past articles, of course now I can't find them, alluded to the fact that Coach K had to fight with admissions to allow Dock to enter Duke. Perhaps those articles were wrong or I am remembering incorrectly. That is always a possibility too. Dock was one of my favorite players.


GO DUKE!

[DukeDevilDeb]

I had Sean in class, and he did well to very well as a senior.

[Kewlswim]

I had Sean in class, and he did well to very well as a senior.


Hi,

What you have written shows how some things like grades in high school and SAT scores are indicators, but not the whole story when it comes to college success. For example, I am sure that there are kids who score 1500 or better on their SATs, but sit around, don't apply themselves and actually do worse by their senior year than kids who did significantly worse on their SATS, but applied themselves. My question at the root of this thread had to do with matriculation, I was just curious if Sean did significantly better in high school than the guy from Georgetown before entering Duke. There are TONS of reasons why he might not of (then again he might have done better)--Chicago can be a rough place and simply surviving and wanting to do well at Duke might be more of an indicator of future success than any scores or grades. I am, in some ways, sorry I started the thread because I think it was taken the wrong way.

So, for the record. I am glad Sean Dockery matriculated at Duke. I don't think he is stupid. It is wonderful to hear that he did well in his classes. From what I heard he was a model citizen.

GO DUKE!

[dockfan]

You might be able to predict where I stand on this. ;)

We could have had Anthony Roberson.

Great call, Coach K!

[Clipsfan]

Having read the article, I feel safe saying that there was nothing in Dockery's background which came close to the GU player's stats. If I remember correctly, Dockery was a fairly decent student who had good grades, but didn't do as well on the SAT as the average Duke student. I don't know what score he got, but I think the concern was that it wasn't good for Duke, not that it didn't qualify him for Div 1 athletics. He had a good work habit, just a poor school system which didn't prepare him well for the SAT. I'm sure that posters on this board have heard the argument that the SAT is an inherently racist test, with questions based upon social circumstances and preconceptions that are more easily understood/accepted by both the wealthier portions and often the white portions of society. There are many stereotypes in the written sections of the test, and it also helps to have attended a school which prepares you.

[dukie8]

Having read the article, I feel safe saying that there was nothing in Dockery's background which came close to the GU player's stats. If I remember correctly, Dockery was a fairly decent student who had good grades, but didn't do as well on the SAT as the average Duke student. I don't know what score he got, but I think the concern was that it wasn't good for Duke, not that it didn't qualify him for Div 1 athletics. He had a good work habit, just a poor school system which didn't prepare him well for the SAT. I'm sure that posters on this board have heard the argument that the SAT is an inherently racist test, with questions based upon social circumstances and preconceptions that are more easily understood/accepted by both the wealthier portions and often the white portions of society. There are many stereotypes in the written sections of the test, and it also helps to have attended a school which prepares you.

you have to be kidding me? if not doing "as well on the SAT as the average Duke student" was a cause for concern for basketball recruiting, then nearly every player would have major issues. i really don't think you understand how off basketball players numbers are to those of the "average duke student." we are talking 400 or 500 points off -- not 50. here is an article that has some key facts in it:

http://www.dukechronicle.com/home/index.cfm?event=displayArticle&ustory_id=1fcb182b-4405-45f6-96df-bb1e86da7a76

note that the average male non-athlete has an average sat of 1438 and the average male basketball player had an average sat of 997! btw, dockery's stats are in there too: 2.3 gpa and 15 on the act (i don't know acts scores but i assume that that is extremely low). yeah, a 2.3 gpa qualifies as a "fairly decent student" in my book.

with that being said, it is an absolute disgrace that georgetown, which certainly considers itself to be one of the top schools in the country, would let an absolute academic zero in like the guy in the article. it is stories like that that make you want to vomit over college sports. i am curious as to how much georgetown throws academics out the window in recruiting and if that player was just an isolated incident.

[JasonEvans]

with that being said, it is an absolute disgrace that georgetown, which certainly considers itself to be one of the top schools in the country, would let an absolute academic zero in like the guy in the article. it is stories like that that make you want to vomit over college sports. i am curious as to how much georgetown throws academics out the window in recruiting and if that player was just an isolated incident.

Georgetown has a long history of taking kids who are big academic question marks on the basketball team. But, it has a reputation for working fairly hard to try to get those kids to go to class and get a degree too.

I've got no problem with a school taking academic risks-- so long as it makes a strong effort to give that kid an education once he gets there. Temple and John Cheney were legendary for this and I have nothing but respect for Cheney's attitude about academics.

The problem comes when a school takes kids who are so poor academically that they are unprepared for college and have no chance to getting through school.

-Jason

[freedevil]

I agree with Jason, but it is hard to decide when a school is taking a good-faith academic risk with a kid and when they are just bringing in a kid solely for the fact that he is good at sports.

Am I the only one who saw Dockery and Eddy Curry on the "Chicago Hoops" show on FSN about 6 or 7 years ago that featured Dockery sprinting around his high school gym when he found out he finally qualified for college? He was so unbelievably happy - if someone was only interested in sports you'd think they'd just pump their first when they found out they qualified, but he was so happy it, IMO, demonstrated how proud he was that he could go to school.

[Troublemaker]

I agree with Jason, but it is hard to decide when a school is taking a good-faith academic risk with a kid and when they are just bringing in a kid solely for the fact that he is good at sports.

Am I the only one who saw Dockery and Eddy Curry on the "Chicago Hoops" show on FSN about 6 or 7 years ago that featured Dockery sprinting around his high school gym when he found out he finally qualified for college? He was so unbelievably happy - if someone was only interested in sports you'd think they'd just pump their first when they found out they qualified, but he was so happy it, IMO, demonstrated how proud he was that he could go to school.

My take is we're drawing arbitrary lines here. You either don't relax academic standards for athletes or you do. Once you've relaxed them, who's to say when you've relaxed them too far (assuming the kid still meets NCAA minimum requirements)? The bottom line is this: can the kid survive the academic rigors of the school? Can he interact and contribute positively to the environment and community when he enrolls? For all anyone knows, that Georgetown kid did just fine in those areas. You can't judge a person by some numbers on a sheet of paper. We should get off our high horse.

[rsvman]

btw, dockery's stats are in there too: 2.3 gpa and 15 on the act (i don't know acts scores but i assume that that is extremely low).

A 15 on the ACT is probably pretty close to the national average; maybe a couple of points low. The top score is 36. Anything over 20 is pretty good.

[throatybeard]

First, I agree with Troublemaker. A collective high-horse dismount would be nice.

Second, here are some ACT averages by state in 2004: http://www.act.org/news/data/04/states.html

The national mean composite was 20.9 in 2004 and 21.1 in 2005.

Illinois is in at 20.3 avg ACT composite for 2004. One ought to discount the states that have low percentages of kids taking the ACT. The kids who take the opposite qualifying test from the dominant one in their state tend to be above-average scorers who intend to go to college out of state.

15 composite is pretty low. (I don't mean to criticize Dockery personally here; I'm just trying to give some context about the test and I'm assuming most of the people on this board are more familiar with the SAT, which dominates on the coasts. I didn't know anything about the ACT till I moved to MS).

So for example, the IHL board that supervises all 8 public universities in Mississippi just lowered from 19 to 17 the Comp I cut-off on the English subsection. MS has your standard two-semester Frosh writing. Currently, you can get into Comp I at 19, but 18 puts you in Basic English, a non-credit class that catches you up before you take Comp I. Now, no one on the instructional side of this issue believes that the ACT is a great predictor of which Frosh writing a kid needs to be in, but we currently haven't the resources to administer diagnostic testing.

Point being, 15 composite would mostly likely land you in Basic English at Mississippi State, which ain't Duke.

[willywoody]

isn't 997 sat pretty low for most any school? i saw some listings of sat scores for some tiny colleges in sc that were better than that. i'm talking schools that were junior colleges less than 20 years ago. i can understand players from urban public schools having bad scores but we have way too many players from private schools and fairly well to do families that should be able to score 1000 without thinking about it. 1000 ain't what it used to be ya know.

[throatybeard]

They re-normed it, twice. After a little while of near-universal access to the test (as opposed a few few to rich college-prep kids taking it in the 1940s), the verbal mean in particular had dropped, so they dinked with the scoring to make 500 the subsection mean again.

Also remember that there's a third section now, in which you write essays. So it's out of 2400.

[willywoody]

but those duke scores listed must not take into account the written section as the duke average is 1400 something. i read somewhere (in an article about the act being accepted everywhere now) where most schools are not officially including the written essay portion of the sat in their consideration.

therefore, based on the new renormalization of scores, i guess 1000 is what it used to be. still it does seem we should have a better average. i guess we are not recruiting a few of the stellar scholar/athletes as we had in the past and instead have more stellar athlete/scholars.

i just think our recruits should beat the mean at anderson university, formerly known as anderson junior college.

http://education.yahoo.com/college/facts/5116.html
http://www.ac.edu/pdf/diversity.pdf (states a requirement for 1000 sat score for acceptance but i'm sure their athletes have reduced requirements as well)

[badgerbd]

Dock had to of scored above 15 on the ACT. KG will tell you that a player needs 17 to play in the NCAA.

It's really not fair to compare Dock, or the basketball team, to the student body. I doubt Duke will release the info, but a more legit comparison would be to the non-athlete African American Duke student.

[throatybeard]

I doubt Duke will release the info, but a more legit comparison would be to the non-athlete African American Duke student.

That sentence just made me realize that Sean Dockery is, in fact, a former Duke athlete.

[dukie8]

Dock had to of scored above 15 on the ACT. KG will tell you that a player needs 17 to play in the NCAA.

It's really not fair to compare Dock, or the basketball team, to the student body. I doubt Duke will release the info, but a more legit comparison would be to the non-athlete African American Duke student.

why is it not fair to compare basketball players to non-athletes? duke's mission, first and foremost, is education and not athletics. it's entirely fair and relevant to see how much duke throws out its academic standards to field a competitive basketball team (which i believe is a lot worse than most of the people on here want to admit). moreover, i am completely confused as to why you believe that we should be comparing the basketball team, which has both white and black players, to non-athlete blacks at duke.

[dkbaseball]

Between 1986 and 1993 Duke had at least 12 players recruited from the Washington D.C. area on its roster -- Dawkins, Amaker, Billy King, Ferry, John Smith, Crawford Palmer, Brian Davis, GHill, Kenny Blakeney, Christian Ast, Tony Moore and Joey Beard (and Wojo if you count Baltimore). Since then I can think of only Nate James in '96.

What happened? D.C. was a natural recruiting base for K since it had plenty of talent, his wife is from Alexandria and he coached for a time at Fort Belvoir. But once Duke became the most prominent program nationally, it's recruiting became more or less a matter of identifying which McDonald's all-Americans were academically eligible and signing them up.

I think maybe we've lost something by forfeiting a recruiting base where the coaches know the territory and beat the bushes a bit to find diamonds in the rough such as Brian Davis. The way Wisconsin finished the season I hate to hold them up as an example, but consider their approach to recruiting. They spend far less money on it than any other team in the Big Ten, confine themselves for the most part to three states (Wisc., Minn,, Illinois), and sign almost all players ranked in the 65-125 range when they are juniors. Yet they stay competitive with anybody. The approach really puts a premium on talent evaluation, and the coaching staff keep their scouting chops well honed.

[badgerbd]

why is it not fair to compare basketball players to non-athletes? duke's mission, first and foremost, is education and not athletics. it's entirely fair and relevant to see how much duke throws out its academic standards to field a competitive basketball team (which i believe is a lot worse than most of the people on here want to admit). moreover, i am completely confused as to why you believe that we should be comparing the basketball team, which has both white and black players, to non-athlete blacks at duke.

Because admission standards are quite different for blacks at Duke than for whites or Asians. No one should deny that, for whatever reason, in terms of test scores Duke significantly lowers the bar for certain races. It's not right to compare Dock's test scores to the average student's. His race is a big advantage in admissions and ya'll are lumping that advantage with the basketball advantage to make the bball advantage look even greater than it actually is (which is pretty significant).

No the basketball team shouldn't be compared to non-athlete blacks, as it is made up of both whites and blacks. Still it usually has a greater percentage of blacks than the student pop and that should be considered.

[dukie8]

Because admission standards are quite different for blacks at Duke than for whites or Asians. No one should deny that, for whatever reason, in terms of test scores Duke significantly lowers the bar for certain races. It's not right to compare Dock's test scores to the average student's. His race is a big advantage in admissions and ya'll are lumping that advantage with the basketball advantage to make the bball advantage look even greater than it actually is (which is pretty significant).

No the basketball team shouldn't be compared to non-athlete blacks, as it is made up of both whites and blacks. Still it usually has a greater percentage of blacks than the student pop and that should be considered.

duke won't release the average numbers for blacks overall because it would create such an uproar. i remember when a disgruntled prof at gtwon law school leaked the numbers for whites and blacks at gtown law and it was beyond comprehension how wide the gap was. the bottom line is that nobody should be admitted to duke with a 2.3 and a 15 on the act. i don't care what your situation is and how good of an athlete you are, you clearly are not prepared and have not done enough to earn an admission into a school that is attempting to be one of the very best academic institutions in the world. the fact that someone with those credentials (if you want to call them credentials) passed his classes and graduated doesn't mean that i am wrong because, as anyone who has gone to duke knows, it is REALLY hard to get Ds and Fs unless one completely blows off everything and is not working with much upstairs.

[DevilAlumna]

I haven't lived there for awhile now, but my guess would be the qualified talent (those good enough to both get into Duke and play there) just isn't there, and for the few top players, competition is really strong.

Looking at the Scout.com list of top 100 players, only a handful are from the DC/Bal'more metroplex, and they're going to G'town, MD and VTech (one to S'cuse).

I doubt it's a big deal -- the Duke connection to DC is sooo strong (bball and otherwise), that those who can ball in the area know whether they can/want to play at Duke or not.

[6th Man]

I wish we would start recruiting more "athletes" in the mold of Brian Davis, Robert Brickey, Thomas Hill, etc. The tough hard nosed athletes that were not McDonald's All-Americans. It worked for VCU this season and LSU the year before. It seems as though we always come across the wrong team in the NCAA's because we don't match up athletically. I don't think overall VCU or LSU could match our talent, but we couldn't match their athleticism. I know Nelson and Henderson are great athletes, but I think we need more on our team each year. They don't have to be Mickey D's. You can teach basketball, but you can't teach speed and jumping ability.

[gw67]

Although Smith prepped at Oak Hill, I'm pretty sure that he is from the Maryland suburbs.

gw67

[dockfan]

Good point as far as the men's program - but Coach G has dominated Coach K in recruiting the DC area recently:

Mo Currie, Wanisha Smith, Brittany Mitch, Joy Cheek (I believe originally from the DC area), and this year's all-Met Player of the Year, Jasmine Thomas.

[mapei]

Sadly, most D1 universities sold their academic souls to the sports machine long ago. As a fan of both Duke and Georgetown (and an alum of the latter's law school), I wish it weren't the case at either of those schools. I wish they were better than that. But I also wish I were 20 years younger and wealthy. :)

[studdlee10]

Sean got into Duke because of his basketball abilities. There is no doubt about that. Sean deserves a lot of credit for making the best of that opportunity. Sean made the Dean's list several times at Duke and often hosted underpriviledged kids from Chicago in his apartment. Credit Coach K for getting to know Sean and for giving him the chance. I know the average kid in South Chicago doesnt' have these opportunities available to them, but as a Duke alumn, I love that Coach K and the admissions committee gave Sean a chance and helped enrich the Duke community.

Sean is a great representative of our university and to lump him together with the Michael Beasleys and Derrick Characters of the college basketball world does him a great disservice.

[kydevil]

you have to be kidding me? if not doing "as well on the SAT as the average Duke student" was a cause for concern for basketball recruiting, then nearly every player would have major issues. i really don't think you understand how off basketball players numbers are to those of the "average duke student." we are talking 400 or 500 points off -- not 50. here is an article that has some key facts in it:

http://www.dukechronicle.com/home/index.cfm?event=displayArticle&ustory_id=1fcb182b-4405-45f6-96df-bb1e86da7a76

note that the average male non-athlete has an average sat of 1438 and the average male basketball player had an average sat of 997! btw, dockery's stats are in there too: 2.3 gpa and 15 on the act (i don't know acts scores but i assume that that is extremely low). yeah, a 2.3 gpa qualifies as a "fairly decent student" in my book.

with that being said, it is an absolute disgrace that georgetown, which certainly considers itself to be one of the top schools in the country, would let an absolute academic zero in like the guy in the article. it is stories like that that make you want to vomit over college sports. i am curious as to how much georgetown throws academics out the window in recruiting and if that player was just an isolated incident.

A 15 on the act is not to hot, i had average grades going through high school and pulled off a 25. Not taking anything away from Dock I loved him as a player and if that is the best he can do then there is nothing bad personally i can say.

[greybeard]

I just read the Times article that precipitated this post. It was the weekend of the final four. Nice timing. But, here is the interesting part. Mike Wise, a disgusting new hot shot sports reporter for the Washington Post, chose the Saturday of the final four to write an article very critical of the Georgetown Program, in particular of Big John, that featured Freddie Brown. Two articles going after the Georgetown program on the weekend of their return to prominence in storybook fashion what with the Big/little stories of the Thompsons and Ewings and all.

Bottom feeders if you ask me. Too many sports journalists these days do not know jack about the sports that they write about and are little more than bottom feeders. This stuff about the Lutheran connection came out last year when someone at the Post bashed GW's Karl Hobbs for having taken two players from that school. Oh, GW too was riding the highest wave of notoriety its program had ever achieved. And, one of the guys who was criticized I believe graduated that year, and the other, Rice, has done well enough to remain eligible for two years running.

Perhaps it is the case that men who show brilliance for the concepts of what to me is a very fascinating game almost by definition have enough smarts to succeed in a classroom if properly motivated. If so, that is, if there is actually a correlation between such demonstrated aptitude and the ability to succeed academically, and a coach of high standing like JTIII makes an assessment that a kid belongs at his school, then giving weight to that aptitude makes as much, if not more sense, as giving weight to those ridiculous SAT scores do.

That always was Big John's view; and I believe on that score that the man's track record proves that he was right!

SAT scores, imo, and to use Big John's words, are "a bunch of bull"!!

[feldspar]

Perhaps it is the case that men who show brilliance for the concepts of what to me is a very fascinating game almost by definition have enough smarts to succeed in a classroom if properly motivated. If so, that is, if there is actually a correlation between such demonstrated aptitude and the ability to succeed academically, and a coach of high standing like JTIII makes an assessment that a kid belongs at his school, then giving weight to that aptitude makes as much, if not more sense, as giving weight to those ridiculous SAT scores do.

That always was Big John's view; and I believe on that score that the man's track record proves that he was right!

SAT scores, imo, and to use Big John's words, are "a bunch of bull"!!

WOW. That's quite the leap. Were you on the track team in high school?

[Wander]

Sean got into Duke because of his basketball abilities. There is no doubt about that. Sean deserves a lot of credit for making the best of that opportunity. Sean made the Dean's list several times at Duke and often hosted underpriviledged kids from Chicago in his apartment. Credit Coach K for getting to know Sean and for giving him the chance. I know the average kid in South Chicago doesnt' have these opportunities available to them, but as a Duke alumn, I love that Coach K and the admissions committee gave Sean a chance and helped enrich the Duke community.

Sean is a great representative of our university and to lump him together with the Michael Beasleys and Derrick Characters of the college basketball world does him a great disservice.

Well said. A much better representative of our university than the supposed "intellectuals" who I'm a real wanker for saying this.I'm a real wanker for saying this.I'm a real wanker for saying this.I'm a real wanker for saying this.I'm a real wanker for saying this. and moan about athletes getting a little more slack in the admissions process than non-athletes.

[dukie8]

Well said. A much better representative of our university than the supposed "intellectuals" who I'm a real wanker for saying this.I'm a real wanker for saying this.I'm a real wanker for saying this.I'm a real wanker for saying this.I'm a real wanker for saying this. and moan about athletes getting a little more slack in the admissions process than non-athletes.

"a little more slack?" you should know from this thread that basically all academic standards get tossed out the window for far too many athletes. dockery may be a great guy and may have represented his school well but he had absolutely no business being admitted with those numbers. i would rather the basketball team not take recruits that are so academically unqualified (duke's mission is academics and not sports) and lose a few more games each year than toss out any and all academic standards. the fact that someone "represents" duke well doesn't make the bad admit decision right ex post facto. there are a lot of people (probably 10s of thousands of high school seniors) who are completely unqualified for being admitted to duke and who don't play a sport who, if admitted, could pass their classes and "represent" duke well. they shouldn't be admitted either.

[feldspar]

"a little more slack?" you should know from this thread that basically all academic standards get tossed out the window for far too many athletes. dockery may be a great guy and may have represented his school well but he had absolutely no business being admitted with those numbers. i would rather the basketball team not take recruits that are so academically unqualified (duke's mission is academics and not sports) and lose a few more games each year than toss out any and all academic standards. the fact that someone "represents" duke well doesn't make the bad admit decision right ex post facto. there are a lot of people (probably 10s of thousands of high school seniors) who are completely unqualified for being admitted to duke and who don't play a sport who, if admitted, could pass their classes and "represent" duke well. they shouldn't be admitted either.

Life's not fair. Get over it.

[dukie8]

Life's not fair. Get over it.

i think that i have been able to get over dockery's admission.

[dukie8]

i'm catching up on old bd weeklys and in the march 10th one there is an article on the campus culture initiative steering committee. it cites the committee as calling for "the admissions office to reduce the number of athletes admitted near the low end of Duke's academic standards." usually brodhead gets it wrong with athletics but he is spot on there.

[Wander]

i'm catching up on old bd weeklys and in the march 10th one there is an article on the campus culture initiative steering committee. it cites the committee as calling for "the admissions office to reduce the number of athletes admitted near the low end of Duke's academic standards." usually brodhead gets it wrong with athletics but he is spot on there.

The CCI is probably the biggest piece of crap ever written in the history of Duke University. I don't really care what it says.

[calltheobvious]

i think that i have been able to get over dockery's admission.


D8,

I don't know how long you've been posting at the DBR. For whatever reason, I don't remember reading your stuff before the change to the first new board format. I bring this up because I don't ever remember you jumping onto your "standards" high-horse nearly so aggressively when stories like this one http://www.collegejournal.com/aidadmissions/newstrends/20030224-golden.html were published as you have about the likes of the recent GU expose.

In the interest of fairness, and given my bad memory (or your short posting history here, I don't know which), I'd like to offer you the chance to excoriate Duke for its history of preferential admits to children of wealthy families. If you are just as vehement in your objections to preference to wealth as you have been to preferences to athletic ability, then kudos on your consistency.

[dukie8]

D8,

I don't know how long you've been posting at the DBR. For whatever reason, I don't remember reading your stuff before the change to the first new board format. I bring this up because I don't ever remember you jumping onto your "standards" high-horse nearly so aggressively when stories like this one http://www.collegejournal.com/aidadmissions/newstrends/20030224-golden.html were published as you have about the likes of the recent GU expose.

In the interest of fairness, and given my bad memory (or your short posting history here, I don't know which), I'd like to offer you the chance to excoriate Duke for its history of preferential admits to children of wealthy families. If you are just as vehement in your objections to preference to wealth as you have been to preferences to athletic ability, then kudos on your consistency.

taking in someone with a 2.3 and 15 on the acts because he can play basketball is competely different than taking someone who is a little below the academic cut-offs but whose parents give money to duke. here is a direct quote from the article:

"We'd take students in some cases with SAT scores 100 points below the mean, or just outside the top 15% of their class," says Mr. Wingood, now dean of admissions at Clark University in Worcester, Mass. "They weren't slugs, but they weren't strong enough to get in on their own."

the basketball average sat as per the chronicle article posted earlier on here was 997. that's more like 400 points below the average and i am sure that the grades that go along with it are closer to the bottom 15% than the top 15% (also, don't forget that that is the average so we all know that the players with the worst numbers are considerably lower). to use wingood's own word, an applicant with a 2.3/15 is a "slug" and has no business being admitted to duke. if you can provide evidence that duke is admitting "slug" legacies (this article actually provides evidence to the contrary), then i will excoriate duke regarding that just like i have with duke tossing all academic standards out the window for some athletes.

[throatybeard]

Also, along the lines of what D8 is saying, an outlier basketball admit now and then amounts to just a few kids. A basketball team has 13 kids on it. Given how many rich alumni we have, if we were doing with legacy kids anything like what we're doing with MBB, that would be taking place on a much larger scale and its impact would be huge.

[calltheobvious]

Throaty, I appreciate that insight, but if I'm a high school senior whose profile leaves me on the cusp of admission to Duke, I'm far more concerned with standards being relaxed slightly for many students in exchange for donations to the annual fund than I am with standards being lowered dramatically for only a few students in exchange for donations to the athletics department. Furthermore, this hypothetical student is not competing for admission with Sean Dockery. The decisions of K and the admissions committee on cases like Sean's (God, I hate reducing to a file folder or a statistic someone I admire so much) have no bearing whatsoever on the average Duke applicant.

[Jumbo]

i'm catching up on old bd weeklys and in the march 10th one there is an article on the campus culture initiative steering committee. it cites the committee as calling for "the admissions office to reduce the number of athletes admitted near the low end of Duke's academic standards." usually brodhead gets it wrong with athletics but he is spot on there.

It's funny, I could have sworn you were arguing against me on the lacrosse board a couple of months ago, when I cited a study saying that athletes get the most preferential treatment of any sub-group in college admissions. You seem to be doing a 180 in this thread.

[johnb]

1. Dock's race was not a significant factor. His being the all-time career leader in both steals and assists in the great state of Illinois was a factor, as was the fact that careful evaluation of him as a person showed that he was durable and earnest and would do fine at Duke in spite of the high demands of his sport. If he had applied as a nonathlete, I doubt if he would have been considered. I think it's important to realize that he didn't take up a spot that would have gone to Johnny Jones from Durham Academy. He took a spot that would have gone to Anthony Roberson or some other 1st team high school all american. Sean and Johnny would never have been mentioned in the same sentence by an admissions officer.

2. I don't think Dock's grades and SAT's are public, and so the Chronicle "journalist" made them up or got them from an unreliable source. If either is true, she should be canned from writing editorials. She may have good SAT's, but that doesn't mean she is ethical or wise. Reminds me of the time that Dean Smith revealed that the combined SAT's of Laettner and Ferry were less than those of Scott Williams and another black Carolina player; while a nice anti-racist factoid, it breaks the rules in that such numbers are supposed to be private.

3. Admissions is not a reward for good grades and SAT's. It is a process that helps bring together an interesting bunch of people. Anyone who thinks it is an exact science--or a legitimate arbiter of worth--has not been on an admissions committee.

4. By having a bunch of relatively nonacademic kids on campus, the "academic" kids get higher grades, which comes in handy when they apply to Yale's graduate program in English. The relatively nonscholarly kids tend to go to Wall Street and quickly make 5 times the salary of an assistant professor. Seems to me that it works out okay for everyone except the earnest, hardworking kid with a 3.8 and a 1490 who gets turned down (and has to go to a school that is roughly as good as Duke, where s/he will do just fine).

5. By the way, a recent Princeton study concluded that legacies do worse than minority students who have the same grades/SAT's (see this week's Chronicle of Higher Education: http://chronicle.com/weekly/v53/i31/31a02801.htm

[Jumbo]

2. I don't think Dock's grades and SAT's are public, and so the Chronicle "journalist" made them up or got them from an unreliable source. If either is true, she should be canned from writing editorials. She may have good SAT's, but that doesn't mean she is ethical or wise.

If SAT information isn't public, that means Duke, Dockery's high school and the SAT board can't release the information. So, if someone released that information to a reporter, that's who should be "canned," if you're looking to blame someone. The Chronicle is under no such obligation to protect SAT scores, and if newspapers didn't print otherwise privileged information leaked from official sources, well, you can imagine where this country might be today.

[dukie8]

It's funny, I could have sworn you were arguing against me on the lacrosse board a couple of months ago, when I cited a study saying that athletes get the most preferential treatment of any sub-group in college admissions. You seem to be doing a 180 in this thread.

i can't recall exactly what we were arguing about but i never would have claimed that the basketball players get less preferential than other groups. athletes across the board get preferential treatment, which is fine and necessary if you want to have competitive teams. however, what i have a big problem with is when duke throws all standards out the window to admit someone because he can play basketball.

on a related note, i do wonder what the price is to buy your way into duke. let's say that bill gates has a kid with a 2.3 gpa and 15 act, what's the price he would have to pay to get the kid in? $10MM? $50MM? $100MM? there's a price for everything.

[dukie8]

2. I don't think Dock's grades and SAT's are public, and so the Chronicle "journalist" made them up or got them from an unreliable source. If either is true, she should be canned from writing editorials. She may have good SAT's, but that doesn't mean she is ethical or wise. Reminds me of the time that Dean Smith revealed that the combined SAT's of Laettner and Ferry were less than those of Scott Williams and another black Carolina player; while a nice anti-racist factoid, it breaks the rules in that such numbers are supposed to be private.

as jumbo pointed out, this is entirely incorrect. the journalist could have received the sats from an extremely reliable source and just printed them. ethical? not really, but she had no duty not to disclose them.

[Scarbo]

"as jumbo pointed out, this is entirely incorrect. the journalist could have received the sats from an extremely reliable source and just printed them. ethical? not really, but she had no duty not to disclose them....."

Or she simply could've done 5 seconds of research to find out those scores aren't possible, per the NCAA's own sliding scale. A kid w/ a 2.5 gpa must post a minimum score of 17 on the act. Journalist, eh? Lazy, hateful cow is probably more apt....

[johnb]

as jumbo pointed out, this is entirely incorrect. the journalist could have received the sats from an extremely reliable source and just printed them. ethical? not really, but she had no duty not to disclose them.

I love it when two very opinionated guys are wrong (even though I also enjoy your posts, and I am indeed often entirely incorrect).

The scores that she quoted would not have gotten him past the NCAA standards, much less Duke's. Further, what would be the reliable source? Think she called Dock or the athletics department at either Duke or one of the schools to which Dock applied? I think she either made up his grades or got them 3rd/4th hand in order to make her uninspired point. In either of those cases, what she did seems unethical to me (I didn't say immoral--it's competing goods not good vs. bad, but in regards to the competing goods of privacy and disclosure, I think we should be clear that we're not talking about Watergate; we're talking about the high school grades of someone who has already graduated from the college where his high school numbers are arguably the reason he shouldn't have been admitted in the first place). In this instance, I think a journalist has a duty not to disclose private information. And when she prints information that is wrong, she and her editors should be ashamed of themselves.

Look, I also take pause with admissions policies that lead a whole subset of the Duke population to have different academic backgrounds than the rest of the campus, but I also question whether that implies unusual "preferential treatment." The whole campus is filled with people who got preferential treatment (geography, alums, faculty kids, special talents, bright smiles, etc). These latter people are unlikely to have an SAT under 1100, but there are plenty of people who get rejected from Duke whose numbers are higher than theirs. And if you are looking simply at on-campus success and general merit, our basketball players graduate at high rates and have an ancillary skill that is far more rare than that which goes into the selection of the AB Duke scholars.

By the way, has any Duke professor ever publicly complained about either the basketball or fooball players? My understanding is that some professors loathed some lacrosse players because a subset acted like anti-intellectual spoiled jerks whereas the professors appreciated the effort that the major sports guys put into their studies and the fact that they seemed to be taking advantage of an opportunity that they deeply appreciated.

The admissions department does NOT toss standards out the window in regards to athletes. Prospective admits are evaluated with MUCH MORE care than is the average applicant. This is partly for the good of a marginally academic prospect, but it is also because each of these top prospects is worth his weight in gold to the team; an academic failure can cost the team a chance at the final four.

As for the theoretical Gates kid: if s/he grows up with two genius parents with all the attention and schooling that money can buy and still has a 2.3 and under 1000 SAT's, this is a kid who is fundamentally different than the average Duke basketball player, who tends to be extremely hard working and is willing to attend a school where his classmates will admire his talents and--judging from some of the posts on this thread--disparage his right to be a classmate.

Anyway, my central point is that if people want to complain about admissions, perhaps they could avoid dissing specific players (for all we know, for example, Mr. Patterson reads this stuff and--while I have no idea about his grades and SAT's--he just may prefer to go to a school where students can admire thoroughbreds without spending time on their high horses)

[bill brill]

I know something about dockery's situation. the numbers that have been reported apparently were published in chicago after his junior year. he had a superb senior year and raised both his gpa and his act. I have an idea what the latter was but I can't be sure, so won't print it. and K told me that summer, everybody runs his own race, and dock's was different from most. he met with all of the people necessary when he visited. he was extremely academically oriented. he did well in school. he graduated. if you ever talked to him, you'd know why. and, oh yeah, he was the only person from his high school to go to college.

[dukie8]

I know something about dockery's situation. the numbers that have been reported apparently were published in chicago after his junior year. he had a superb senior year and raised both his gpa and his act. I have an idea what the latter was but I can't be sure, so won't print it. and K told me that summer, everybody runs his own race, and dock's was different from most. he met with all of the people necessary when he visited. he was extremely academically oriented. he did well in school. he graduated. if you ever talked to him, you'd know why. and, oh yeah, he was the only person from his high school to go to college.

bill, thanks for clearing it up. so dockery wasn't actually a 2.3/15 guy and had much better numbers when he started duke. my guess is that k told him that summer that if he wanted to come to duke, he need to buckle down in the classroom, he did and that's the end of the story.

[greybeard]

WOW. That's quite the leap. Were you on the track team in high school?

Feldspar, I fear that you never actually played the game, mcuh less really understand it. The game is all about geometry, physics, deductive reasoning, and that is without the complexities that modern defenses and offenses present. You only have to listen to some of the better spoken players who never got much education but who totally "got" the game to understand the depth of intellectual capacity that goes into such mastery.

Why in heaven's name should a person who has a wonderful feel for the geometry, physics, etc that goes into sports and has developed that understanding into a computer-like useability be put on a dramaticly lesser footing than some other person who has demonstrated his or her understanding of such things in the more conventional arena of competition in which we place learning known as a classroom?

Participating in the physical word and learning through movement is, after all, where all learning begins. On the other hand, everyone associated with them understands that SAT tests require special tricks in order to do well even for the very best and brightest, by what I take would be your conventional measure, who almost uniformly spend a thousand bucks on special courses so they can do well on them.

If you examine the nature of learning from an epistemolic perspective, you will find a considerable school of serious thought to support the perspective that I have put forth. You will do that if you care to expand your myopic view of the value of sport and those who play it, or not. I am far from a dim wit, have learned the great game from some of the very best and from years of participation, and have spent years examing on a serious level the intersticies between action and thought, and how each might influence the other. Or, we can meet somewhere, and just play a game of horse or one on one to decide who shuts up. I am 60 years old but can assure you it won't be me.

[greybeard]

Coincidences ever abound. I was watching TV this evening, and I think it was CNN Sports did a piece on a physicist who was a 1000 point scorer in high school and college and who wrote a book called "Basketball and Physics" or some such. Anyway, he says that having an understanding of the natural laws immeasurably improve one's ability to play the game. He did not say that if you can really play the game, it follows that you must on a fundamental level grasp the natural laws articulated by Sir Isaac. He didn't say it; but I have and do.

I'm definitely buying that book, btw; think it will make working with kids on the great game ever more effective and interesting from many perspectives.

[EasternDB]

My oldest son (7th Grade) played soccer in the fall and now plays baseball for his middle school team. Everyday after school they have a two hour practice and twice a week (Mon. & Wed.) they have a game. On away games, it could be 9:00 pm getting home. He still has the same amount of homework & school projects as non-athletes. There has been several nites where he has been doing homework @ 11:00 pm, only to have to get up at 6:00 am to start all over again. Baseball season last for 3 months.

He is also an honors student and was able to take the SAT this past January because of being involved in the Duke TIP Program.

My point is Student Athletics takes a huge amount of time. The students must learn very early how to manage their time. An Student Athlete who has an 1000 SAT score would not worry me a bit.

JMO...