Shouldn't Most Of These Kids Be In Class Right Now?
Conference tournament season is great. You’re not going to get an argument out of me on that. Very few things are better than having a full slate of games to watch during the middle of the day in the middle of your work week.
With that being said…I can’t help but to think back on my time as a college student. More often than not, I feel like I typically had a class sometime around 12-1pm in the middle of the week. And while I understand that some of these schools may be in the middle of their spring break right now, I can’t help but to think that there’s a strong possibility that some of these student-athletes have a class they should be in right now.
Notice how I said STUDENT-athletes right there. It’s not the other way around. These are students first, athletes second. However, the NCAA basketball tournament almost always seems to be putting the athletics first. Because the conference tournaments are just the beginning. Think about how many classes these kids will miss if they’re on a team that makes it to the Final Four. That first Thursday/Friday of the Tournament? Nobody is on spring break anymore at that point. So you have to imagine that every single player on those 64 teams is missing at least a class or two.
But here’s the thing. It’s not the kids who are scheduling these games. It’s not the schools either. It’s the NCAA. Seems pretty ass backwards to me. I mean what’s with all the “most of our student-athletes go pro in something other than sports” commercials?
You skip a class in college, you immediately become un-employable. Everybody knows that. All I’m saying is that I wish we could start focusing on the things that really matter here. Instead of betting on point spreads in the game, how about tossing a little wager on which team will end the season with the higher collective GPA? Villanova -1.5 is a lock.