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[quote=Anonymous]This is all silly.

The only college athletes who skirt the issues academically are some football and basketball players at the Power 5 conferences.  It does a kid no good to backdoor their way into a high academic school and instantly be way behind literally everyone else at the school.

And, realistically, once you dip below the top 20 schools (public and private combined) in any given major then you are reaching the great happy medium.  Is a kid graduating with a 3.3 gpa with a business management degree from the Univ of Georgia any better or worse off than a kid with the same gpa and degree from Central Kentucky State, or an econ major with that gpa from a small liberal arts school?  Nope.

The question is what else did you do while at college to learn, grow and improve yourself?  Did you work, did you volunteer, and/or did you play a sport?  All those things make a difference.  They get you interviews and they get you jobs.  What you do after that, after you got the job, and/or got into grad school, etc. . will push you further along.

I can say -- what playing a college sport will get you -- is an interview if you have the required degree/stats that make the cut for an interview by an organization.  Literally everyone making the "interview or not" decisions is interested in talking to student athletes to see what you are like.  What the athlete does in the interview itself is a different thing of course.  But, in interviewing college grads what are employers looking to see at that interview?  In short -- they are looking for someone with the potential for growth and leadership within their business.

How do you get and demonstrate that potential?  Did you form or lead clubs or organizations, or lead a student research team?  Did you become a shift manager at a local business?  All good stuff.  Similarly, a captain or leader of a college team pretty much already has "potential leader" stampled right on their resume.  That's why they are going to get interviewed if they meet the other cut offs.

And, again, outside of the big 2 sports in the Power 5 conferences you have to do well in school to stay on the team.  The starting right guard struggling in math at big State U. will have lots of help to keep him eligible.  The guy who swims the butterfly, or plays lacrosse, or the girl on the basketball team all better keep the gpa up and stay on NCAA graduation track or else they are done.  My daughter's soccer team gpa at college was consistently over a 3.5, and they were far from unique.  The guys were only a bit lower typically and once or twice were higher.  The reality is that the coaches who coach the non-revenue sports simply do not have time or resources to expend on poor students.  
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