Interesting article in SI about McCallie

[mtnman]

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm

[DonCChatt]

Interesting article. I must be missing something. McCallie is a D2 school, and there is D2 Crosscountry. Why couldn't they participate in the D2 championship?

[fiftyfifty]

Interesting article. I must be missing something. McCallie is a D2 school, and there is D2 Crosscountry. Why couldn't they participate in the D2 championship?

 

The rules are clear as a bell. Aid is restricted to need-based only. There is no such thing as an academic scholarship. Seems clear to me.

[PHargis]

The "no rules" are clear in public schools and is easy to compete. Over riding are secondary issues or they would find a way to get around the issue. Wonder how many even knew the reason they didn't compete. Wonder if they knew this when they first went to school there. The writer of the article wasn't sharp enough to find out or maybe he was just finding a way to write a story. Life is full of decisions some of which have secondary issues. Aid for athletes might just be one unless this is a lobbying effort by SI on the academic issue. I wonder how athletes got by and academics didn't initially. I think 4.0 academics or a little less should be recognized and athletes should not. However, its not my rule.

All things realized and taking out the decision, it is surprising McCallie admissions allowed this to happen unless someone did not know the rules. This is a bad rule but consistant.

[BigShow1]

Wondering if D2 is split from D1 in cross crountry? Since it is not like football/basketball/baseball do they compete all together with like track/field and cross-country thus rules for D1 apply for all?

 

Either way once again.. school choice eliminates the need for rules that are well intentioned but have unfortunate consequences.

[rick7425]

I don't see anything bad about this rule or anything unfortunate about the consequences when the choice between a scholarship or participation in TSSAA sports was clear from the outset. Not every rule is written to serve the interests of the individual athlete. Some rules like these are written in furtherance of competition among teams or schools.

[PHargis]

Good and thoughtful post. I guess being a little defensive on SI taking the time to write a nationwide read article about Tennessee high schools, I thought the article to be critical. As you mentioned, maybe the full story was not written and told why. As just an isolated rule about academics there is some merit but in the total scheme of things, it is consistant from the rulemakers.

[Bighurt]

It is a stupid rule. The bottom line is the student made good grades and could not reap the benefits because of a rule that was written because rewarding academic achievement could be abused.

 

JMHO

[rick7425]

It is a stupid rule. The bottom line is the student made good grades and could not reap the benefits because of a rule that was written because rewarding academic achievement could be abused.

 

JMHO

 

BH, to understand the wisdom of a rule like this you have to get beyond the focus on "abuse" involving some individual student. Preventing abuse is not the sole objective of the TSSAA rules. TSSAA is an organization of schools. The rules are designed to provide a competitive balance between very different types of schools. You can call it competitive equity, a level playing field, whatever terminology suits you for this concept of fairness. The restriction of aid for varsity athletes to "need-based" aid promotes competitive equity between private schools that can't afford scholarships and those that can.

[Bighurt]

It is a stupid rule. The bottom line is the student made good grades and could not reap the benefits because of a rule that was written because rewarding academic achievement could be abused.

 

JMHO

 

BH, to understand the wisdom of a rule like this you have to get beyond the focus on "abuse" involving some individual student. Preventing abuse is not the sole objective of the TSSAA rules. TSSAA is an organization of schools. The rules are designed to provide a competitive balance between very different types of schools. You can call it competitive equity, a level playing field, whatever terminology suits you for this concept of fairness. The restriction of aid for varsity athletes to "need-based" aid promotes competitive equity between private schools that can't afford scholarships and those that can.

I understand the reasoning behind the rule. I probably should have said "it is a bad rule". The kids still are forced to choose between accepting the scholarship and playing a sport.

[rick7425]

It is a stupid rule. The bottom line is the student made good grades and could not reap the benefits because of a rule that was written because rewarding academic achievement could be abused.

 

JMHO

 

BH, to understand the wisdom of a rule like this you have to get beyond the focus on "abuse" involving some individual student. Preventing abuse is not the sole objective of the TSSAA rules. TSSAA is an organization of schools. The rules are designed to provide a competitive balance between very different types of schools. You can call it competitive equity, a level playing field, whatever terminology suits you for this concept of fairness. The restriction of aid for varsity athletes to "need-based" aid promotes competitive equity between private schools that can't afford scholarships and those that can.

I understand the reasoning behind the rule. I probably should have said "it is a bad rule". The kids still are forced to choose between accepting the scholarship and playing a sport.

 

Come on, BH, the rule helps to achieve its objective. Just because in the process it requires some difficult choices doesn't make it a bad rule. If you do away with the rule, then the choice you describe doesn't have to be made, but you'll tilt the playing field -- is that a better rule?

 

Besides, the kids aren't having to choose anything. Their parents are choosing. Parents who can afford the tuition (remember, this is not need-based aid we're talking about) and who have choices about which schools to send their kids to are sending them to this one on scholarship, knowing the consequences for their children when it comes to TSSAA varsity athletics. The parents apparently value the savings of a scholarship more than they value their child's chance to play varsity sports, or at least they did when they started out. It was their well-informed choice to make.