First of all, only looking at the top 25 preseason teams from last year is a rather narrow sampling of college football athletes. Considering the fact that there are 119 teams playing at the Bowl Subdivision level, the top 25 only represents 21% of the whole. So, Sports Illustrated and CBS are making assumptions on the whole based on what less than a quarter of the teams are doing. If you want to go even further than that, how many teams are playing in the lower divisions? The sampling for this "journalism" seems awfully small.
Secondly, if you are going to try to imply a connection between college football success and having players with criminal backgrounds, you don't need to use a preseason top 25. The preseason top 25 is not a barometer for success in any way. In fact, many of the teams in last year's preseason top 25 had horrible seasons that were anything but successful. The article spends most of its time focusing on Pitt. Pitt went 8-5 last year and barely pulled off a bowl victory over Kentucky. It hardly seems that, for Pitt, a high number of players with criminal backgrounds was a formula for success.
They begin the report by saying that 7% of the players in last year's preseason top 25 have criminal backgrounds. There are so many things wrong with making a statement like this. Stating that 7% of the players in their sample have a criminal background, without putting their data into the context of the nation as a whole, does not accurately illustrate what the percentage translates to. Within the general population, 7% having criminal backgrounds is actually a relatively low number. The U.S. Department of Justice says that 6.6% of the U.S. population will serve time in prison during their lifetime. If we look at the numbers based on just the male population, since all of our football players are male, the U.S. Department of Justice states the percent of U.S. males that will serve time in prison is 11.3%. That is serving time in prison, mind you--the percentage with a criminal record would be much higher. That means our college football players are actually coming in far below the U.S. average.
The most startling and upsetting thing about this report is its lack of compassion. The writers are trying to makes some grandiose point with their numbers and statistics. It is clear they have an agenda from the start. They talk to "experts" and they make statements about how they don't want this large a number of criminals involved in NCAA athletics, but they miss out on the humane part of the story. They do not interview any these kids; they don't know the circumstances of their crimes or where they are coming from. Everyone makes mistakes--especially teenagers--because we are all human. To say that mistakes adolescents make should eliminate any opportunities for college is ridiculous. Simple human compassion will tell you that these kids deserve a chance? If they work hard and make the grades, why wouldn't they deserve a chance at a college degree. Articles like this expose a glaring hypocrisy in the American way of thinking: we want freedom and opportunity for all, as long as they fit into our definition of an "upstanding" citizen.
Sources
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/545987.html
http://espn.go.com/college-football/team/_/id/221/pittsburgh-panthers
Sorry SI article you can read for yourself
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/the_bonus/02/27/cfb.crime/1.html
Sources
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/545987.html
http://espn.go.com/college-football/team/_/id/221/pittsburgh-panthers
Sorry SI article you can read for yourself
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/the_bonus/02/27/cfb.crime/1.html
I have a 3.3% approval rating
Tweet
0 comments:
Post a Comment
If you are going to be racist, sexist, or blatantly idiotic I will probably delete your comment.