So much about big-time college sports is criticized. But the worst scandal is almost never mentioned: the academic fraud wherein the student-athletes, so-called, are admitted without even remotely adequate credentials and then aren't educated so much as they are just kept eligible.
Interpretation
The quote critiques the flawed system in big-time college sports where student-athletes are often admitted without proper qualifications and their education is neglected.
Frank Deford highlights a significant yet overlooked issue in big-time college sports, namely the academic fraud that occurs by admitting student-athletes who lack the requisite academic credentials. Instead of receiving a genuine education, these individuals are merely kept eligible to play, compromising both their academic integrity and the educational standards of the institutions. This critique sheds light on the broader implications of prioritizing sports over education.
In practice
In a speech addressing the need for reforms in college athletics, one might say, 'As Frank Deford pointed out, we must confront the academic fraud surrounding student-athletes.'
I think there are more good sportswriters doing more good sportswriting than ever before. But I also believe that the one thing that's largely gone out is what made sport such fertile literary territory - the characters, the tales, the humor, the pain, what Hollywood calls 'the arc.'
Sport is an art: it has incredible appeal everywhere on this earth, and it fills so many human hearts with passion that it's impossible to dismiss.
My contention is, all kids have tremendous talents. And we squander them, pretty ruthlessly.
That's what I tell my students at California Institute of the Arts where I taught for 27 years. I taught them if you strive to be a good person, maybe you might become a great jazz musician.
Here’s a bumper sticker I’d like to see: “We are the proud parents of a child who’s self-esteem is sufficient that he doesn’t need us promoting his minor scholastic achievements on the back of our car."
The proudest moment for [a teacher of leaders] is seeing not what students learn but what they do.
It is one of the aims of linguistics to define itself, to recognise what belongs within its domain. In those cases where it relies upon psychology, it will do so indirectly, remaining independent.
Let us labor for that larger comprehension of truth, and that more thorough repudiation of error, which shall make the history of mankind a series of ascending developments.
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