Athletes should receive college credits for the sports they play

Why not just give the college athlete class credits for the sports that they are participating in….Look at all the time they spend on their sport…Every sport takes hours of time over several months….There is much learning/educating involved in studying and learning the plays and watching all the video to learn what the opposing teams are doing…

Give three hours of credit in the Fall and then three more in the Spring for football….You look at all the Fall time spent on the field and in the classroom and then the football players turn around and do much of the same in the Spring, with all of the time in the weight room and time spent in Spring practice….Allow 6 hours of credit each year, with three hours per semester and count the hours toward the 120 or 128, or whatever amount of hours that they need to graduate….

The Sports credits could be applied toward a PE class or count it as an elective….

Athletes spend loads of time on the field and on the court and why not make it count toward something that they can use toward seeking to acquire their diploma….

Give college class credits to the athletes for the sports that they are playing and in many cases they will receive and honest ‘A’ for a change…..I would say no grade lower than a C for the time you have put in and it could be that the starters get an automatic ‘A’, the second team a ‘B’ and then so on, with no grade lower than a ‘C’….

Get some credit for the time you put into your sport and maybe you won’t have to go looking for all of the easy A’s and B’s elsewhere….

*****You may say that the Student-Athlete already receives a scholarship with FREE room and board, FREE books, FREE classes and a FREE education, but the sports that commit to, are also a part of their of their education….*****

12 thoughts on “Athletes should receive college credits for the sports they play

  1. I would be for allowing pass/fail and credit hours. I can’t see allowing it to apply to a GPA (if so just give them all a 4.0). As a further note, the credits would have to apply to a degree program and few degree programs allow 8 to 10 semester of PE credits and/or free electives. We also open up another issue because these credits are not available to the general student body and therefore favor the athlete.

  2. Even with the amount of time athletics takes up, there is plenty of time to do your school work. Although it is a novel idea, I don’t agree. 99% of these athletes will not be playing sports after college so they need as much training in their academic field of choice as possible. They are students first and athletes second. As long as we don’t forget that, priorities will be placed correctly.

  3. I too would be OK with limited pass/fail type credit hours.

    Just as a side note. The vast majority of student athletes are not fully scholarshipped so all the hoopla about free, free free does not always apply.

  4. I don’t think there is enough time in the day to get the school work done….When you look at football players, it is on to practice right after class and for the rest of the student population there is time to study and relax if you so desire and then after practice you are dog-tired since you have been training for three to four hours….You still have to eat….And then get your work done….

    They should come up with some type of Associates degree for the athletes and let them go to school for sports full-time if that is what they choose….Sports Marketing, Sports Management, Sports Agents, Coaching degrees, and if you want to advace your studies go for teaching degrees and other more serious/detailed majors…

    When basketball and baseball kick in there is hardly any time for the Student-Athlete at all….Look at all the road trips….Somtimes with basketball and baseball you are gone a week or more at a time during the school year….

    Either look more closely at the new way or make more 5 and 6 year degree programs available…..Athletes for the most part are looking for the easiest and quickest way out and they need to be takng something with them…

    Let’s get real, because we have a REAL problem…..

  5. A two-year Associates Degree would really be a good thing since many of the top talents are only staying in school two years anyhows….Give something to take home other than a pink slip…..

  6. Academic credit for athletic endeavors is out of the question. I didn’t send my kids to school to get a chump degree. Please remember the term “student/athlete”. There is enough time in the day to get your schoolwork done. The issue becomes, in what major? It is near impossible for a athlete to graduate with a engineering, science, or even upper end business degree. But it can be done, just not by many. NCAA regulates how many hours you can practice and train each week. there is time to get your schoolwork done. It’s a choice you make. You may have to miss out on some of the weekend parties, monday night football, a world series game or two, may have to study during the day on weekends, but it can be done. Kids do it every day.

    I could see an associates degree for 2 years.

  7. If you take 15 credits a semester, you are normally in class for 15 hours. The big programs have mandatory 2 hour study halls daily. For most majors, that is enough time to get your work done. I was a Math major in college and I played basketball and golf. There is enough time. I also had time to attend the parties on the weekend. It’s simply a matter of being mature enough to allocate your time wisely. Don’t feel sorry for these athletes, they are living a good life. I

  8. Their is no way around this!! The best thing to do is to leave it as is.
    1: You start giving credits for sports that only a few on campus get to play you then open up a hold new door
    2: Most if not all of High schooled athletes headed to college on some type of athletes scholarship,(fully scholar-shipped are not) no with the deal is and should be able to get and keep their grades in order by working with in the schools system ( tutoring centers and study halls and so forth)and if they can’t MAYBE COLLEGE IS NOT THE PLace FOR THEM…!
    3: What about the students that Majors are Sports Marketing, Sports Management, Sports Agents, Coaching degrees, and i teaching degrees and other more serious/detailed majors that do not play any sports at all, What do you do with them??
    From the point that I am looking at from working with young Athletes in TX (we have sports as a Credit, not PE but Football Track and so on) I don’t like it but it is what it is! :I see Parents and some teachers are not doing the job that we should be doing with the young men and woman as far as teaching them how to manage their time and have good study habits but instead we try to give them a pass and ways to look for the easy way out that is not what college is about..! We don’t Have any type of Goal Achievement Plan for kids anymore OTHER THEN MAKING IT TO THE NFL ARE WNBA are any Professional level sport that the Athletes good at tThat’s a shame !!
    My father us to say that their are No easy A’s in school you have to put in the work and if you don’t you get what you get (A long with the Belt..lol.
    Example: UNC you give and easy A you get the NCAA!!! Is that what some of you sports lovers of college sports want for you programs??

  9. The large DI schools are making very big money on Football and Basketball and the ‘Student Athletes’ in turn are getting a box of books to unload in the dumpster when they leave town for the NFL and the ones that don’t make it are left holding the NCAA travel bag…..

    These ‘Student Athletes’ are really getting nothing with the exception of those that make it in the pros and those numbers are very small when compared to the overall group that enters together as Freshmen….

    On the surface this is a bright picture, but when you look closer you see that the true educational process is not being accomplished…

    We not only need to look ‘between the lines’ but ‘outside the lines’ and ‘behind the scenes’ because this system as whole, needs a whole lot of fixing….All of this that we have been discussing this week, is just the ‘Tip of the Iceberg’….Get these kids some credits and get the ones that aspire to get a degree, set them up on a six-year plan if they plan on walking away with a Four-Year Degree….A two-year degree with take most of the athletes four years to complete, if they are full-time athletes….

    It requires more time to be a ‘Full-Time Athlete/Student Athlete’, than it does to be a ‘Full-Time Student’……

    I still don’t see how they get it done and still excel, unless they go ‘Outside the Lines’…..

  10. One more thought and I will close the book on our daytime session and be back for more tonight….

    It will be tough to get everyone together on this concept, but this might be one of those rare cases where we need to Re-invent the Wheel……

    If it is broke, you need to fix it and this current academic process is a mess……Duke and schools like them do fine, but look at their football teams….Duke basketball makes it, but some of those students entered college with a year’s worth of credits before they hit the door for their first class in Durham….Not the same situation at other ACC schools, would you say??? UNC, FSU and more….

  11. The only way I see Fixing this mess is to start at Home with the Parents and not so much with the schools. Most parents know which schools are Foot Ball/Basket Ball factory’s are just sports Factory’s in general, but they send their Kids anyway hoping that they will get that big contact out of college if they stay that long, but getting a degree IS THE LAST THING ON THE KIDS MIND .. I looked into something and it’s kind of funny. Do you know that most of your 4 and 5 Star high school Athletes about 89% never make it to the pros at all, and only about 20 to 30% of them then have a degree of any type. And over 80% of your pro Football and Basket Ball players have no degree at all!!!!! So what do they do ( Find a job that they could have gotten out of high school.
    Come on people I don’t blame the College I blame the parents of the Athletes. All colleges are about making and getting money. It’s their business and what they do! But the parents should be aware and play a bigger role in when their student athlete son are daughter pick a school My Daughter runs Track and plays Basket Ball and could have attend a number of the big schools here in Texas but she picked her school for it’s major not it woman s Basket Ball are Track program . She’s on and athlete scholarship at Texas Woman Univ. At TWU Your a Student first and Athletics come 2nd.( Andy) I have to say this..lol She asked me what was TWU and if they could be a Uconn one day ?? I said No But you can be the Head Physcial Therapist at UCoon…..lol That is what I would like to see more parents saying and more student athletes doing. But giving classes for a easy A no way!!!!!! We always say that we want the best for the kids but when it comes to and out standing Athlete we only pick the best place for them to be seen and if it doesn’t work out we blame the school because their kid has No Degree ?? COME ON BE REAL !!!!!

  12. Ervin is correct. As a society, we need to make sure academics come first. All of these athletes can take classes in the summer when they have no obligations. If they take 2 classes each summer semester, they can have 12 credits. Their load during the semester when they are involved with sports can be reduced greatly. We need to stop making excuses for these athletes. I blame the parents as well. If the parents spent as much time on academics as they do with athletics (AAU, camps, etc…), their children would be great students in high school and this wouldn’t even be an issue.

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