I hope everyone has been enjoying all the fun stories included on this blog. As much as I would like to continue this entry with a fun story or something similar, I would like to take some time to address a recent article that was published in the Stanford Daily and has now become news nationwide. The article is titled “ Stanford Athletes had Access to ‘ Easy’ Courses,” and much like the title suggests, this article attempted to prove that a list of courses available in the Athletic Academic Resource Center (AARC) at Stanford is a list of easy A classes that student athletes could take to fill their course schedule each quarter. To clarify something right off the bat, this list, which is available each quarter, is essentially a compilation of a large variety of courses offered in the current quarter, which both fulfill GER requirements and meet during the hours that most athletes take classes. The classes are organized based on the time of day they meet, which is a very important criteria that student athletes must consider when organizing their class schedules. My own first impression of this list when I first looked at it as a freshman was that it was a helpful resource to get a feeling for the academic breadth of classes that the university offers and to find classes that fulfill GERs. And by the way, this same information is available to every student at Stanford via Courserank, a website used by numerous colleges nationwide that ranks courses based on popularity, grade distribution, and average weekly hours dedicated to the course.
Now that you have the background, I can give you my own personal reaction to this story. The biggest issue that I have with this article is its effect on the reputation of Stanford as both a top tier athletic and academic university. So many people regard Stanford as a great example of a place where students can excel both academically and athletically. Unfortunately, this article, although not fact-based, soils this reputation. Since it has been publically released and is now presented on several news websites including Fox Sports and ESPN, there is no way to take back what the article says, no way to remove it from the public eye. The article opens the door to a wide variety of people nationwide to question what they had always thought about Stanford student athletes as being the real deal.
In light of all of this, I must now take some time to try to restore the reputation of Stanford’s athletic department, an athletic department that I have always been and continue to be honored to represent. It would be hard to miss the 15 consecutive Director’s Cups lining the Hall of Fame Room in Arillaga, a true testament to the athletic achievement. And for the student portion of Stanford student-athletes, look at the number of academic accolades that we receive each season, including Academic All- Americans, Conference All-Academics and the NCAA Elite 88 recognition, all earned by true student athletes that populate a variety of majors here at Stanford. Other recent news about the Stanford athletics program that was not included in the article is that the only two major Division I NCAA football programs whose athletic departments are without a major NCAA violation are Penn State and Stanford. We take our responsibility to Stanford, our teammates and our supporters seriously, but I guess doing things the right way just isn’t news-worthy.
I would like to end with a quote taken from another Daily article posted on the Daily’s website the afternoon that the initial article was published: “ ‘ Stanford athletes work hard in the classroom, hard in athletics, and are good people. Don’t let anything bring you down.’ ”
http://msn.foxsports.com/collegefootball/story/NCAA-trouble-is-a-UConn-firstList-of- unpunished-schools-now-4-54247260
http://www.stanforddaily.com/2011/03/09/1046687/
http://www.stanforddaily.com/2011/03/09/perspective-on-the-list/
go moni!
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