College is supposed to be where students learn the skills they need to be successful in life, but is it worth attending a college that passes an obviously failing jock just because he (or she) is good at sports?
Take the case of Dasmine Cathey for example. He entered the University of Memphis as a promising young football player. His skills were prized so much that the university did everything it could to keep him in college – even when he hardly attends classes and is barely able to understand anything that he is studying.
He has even failed in yoga and family communication courses.
Now don’t get it wrong. Cathey is not your typical frat boy: he is taking care of two children of his own while helping raise his siblings who were abandoned by their mom. It is a story that will definitely cause anyone with a heart to root for Cathey to finish college.
The problem is that Cathey works as a delivery man who is still studying to get his degree in “interdisciplinary studies” – not a promising future for someone who was once prized for his football skills.
This reflects a distinctly rotten side of “sports-oriented” colleges: they take in young athletes, train them up, maximize their profit from playoffs and then cast them aside when they’re done using the poor lads and lasses.
Even courses like interdisciplinary studies aren’t meant to arm these athletes with useful real-world skills. These institutions just cram all the easiest courses together just to keep these athletes eligible for college.
To cut a long story short, “dumb jocks” are allowed to go into college without learning anything from the experience provided they serve as cash-cows for the college. That’s not exactly what colleges were meant to do, but that’s the sad reality of the situation.
