Used, abused, and thrown away...

Please watch this video, which I found today at CNN's website. It concerns the number of college athletes in football and basketball programs at top-tier schools who not only are not equipped to succeed in the college classroom,, who are in some cases barely literate, and who never get the help they need to succeed in the classroom.

Okay. You've watched? Now I've got some things to say about it, and the first and most important thing is this question: Doesn't it ever occur to any of the universities that they are using those athletes who do not have the skills necessary to succeed in college and then throwing them away?

But, you say, some of them go on to lucrative careers in the NFL and the NBA.

Well, no. They don't. I don't have the figures in front of me, but the number of student athletes who go on from college to successful pro careers is really very small. There are only so many positions on each pro team each year to be filled, and there are a lot of student athletes vying for those few available spots.

You might also say, but the numbers of truly illiterate student athletes are very small.

That's not the point, though. The point isn't even that no student athlete - no student, period - should enter a top-tier, four-year university unable to do the work.

The point is, those schools are using those athletes - both the ones who can't manage to succeed in classes and those who do very well in their classes - to make money (and top-tier football and basketball programs earn lots and lots of money for their schools) but don't even bother to give real help to the students who can't cut the academic part of college. They put them in programs, as the video mentions, where very little work is required. Or the administration looks the other way when those athletes cheat. Or they bully professors to pass students who aren't doing passing work. They might provide tutors for those athletes, but how do you tutor a student who can't read to pass courses where they have to read material that is beyond their ability and generate papers and other written work when they can barely write?

I know this kind of thing goes on at all levels, from community colleges up to four-year schools, not because that CNN report says that it does. I've seen it in action.

I tutored for several years both on the community college and four-year university level, and I know people who have tutored in programs where I did not. So, I've heard stories about how student athletes are tutored, and I've seen tutoring in action myself. I've seen things like the basketball player who was being tutored in reading on the "See Dick. See Jane. See Jane run" level at the first community college where I tutored because he literally could not read at all. I've heard similar stories from other tutors.

I've also witnessed coaches demanding that an instructor give a student athlete a passing grade in a class so that he would be eligible under school and league rules to play in the next game. I was a student at a time and had just gone by the instructor's office to find out something about a class I was taking from him, and I was stunned when the coaches continued their lobbying for the student in front of me, a student, with no hesitation or embarrassment whatsoever. They were very matter-of-fact about it - they wanted the student to be able to play (I believe his sport was baseball), and they didn't care whether he was actually doing the work. They had no concern at all about whether he was getting educated or not. They were also not concerned about the message being sent to that student athlete, who was present at the time. I was not an athlete at all, so I guess that fact that I was present did not count at all in their eyes.

In that last case, at least, the instructor stood his ground and told the coaches, that no, the student had not been doing his assignments and had not passed the exams in class and that he was not going to say he was passing so that the student could play. The instructor did ask me, after the coaches and student athlete had left his office (I witnessed this because the instructor's office door was open while all this was going on) that I not speak to anyone on campus about the incident, but he also went on to complain to me about the frequency with which that sort of thing went on.

The point is, too, that if schools are going to admit student athletes to their institutions, they need to give the athletes the help they need to succeed in their education and not just on the field or the playing court. They owe it to the athletes to give them an education, not just a place to play their sport for a few years.

I do want to make one thing very clear here: I'm not in any way trying to perpetuate the stereotype that athletes are stupid. It is very clear that student athletes, as a class of people, are not any stupider or smarter than other students. I've known student athletes who also get top grades. I'm just saying that when schools see fit to admit student athletes who don't meet the academic standards that other students are expected to meet, that the schools should do everything in their power to help those student athletes achieve success in the classroom and not just on the field or the court.

Otherwise, the schools are just using the student athletes and then letting them go, often without any way to succeed in the real world if they don't or can't go on to professional sports.

I don't know what people are thinking any more...

Every time I think the world can't get any stupider, stories like this come across the wires.

No, really. In what universe is it sane to take sports so seriously that one person would shoot and kill another because she thought the other woman wasn't sufficiently upset that their team - in this case, the Alabama Crimson Tide - had lost a big football game?

I thought it was bad when I was in the grocery store one day and, apropos to the conversation I was having with the cashier, I expressed the opinion that I am not a fan of either football in general or the local state college's football team. Before I knew what was happening, there were four or five store employees grouped around me, trying to convince me of the error of my ways. You would have thought that I had declared myself an atheist in the middle of St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, the reaction was so extreme. But, you know, none of them threatened bodily harm over it or anything.

Now, to be fair, police investigating the killing have been quoted as saying that it is "unclear" whether the shooting was really motivated by the game. On the other hand, witnesses to the event have been explicit in their contention that the shooter was upset by other fans at a party who she felt "weren't real Alabama fans."

This just points out what I see as one of the big flaws of American culture in the 21st century. More and more, it seems, too many people are adopting - re-adopting, really - the position that anyone who doesn't agree with them deserves to die. I was under the impression that as civilization has advanced, we had abandoned that very old notion and were learning to live with at least some of our more minor disagreements. You know, like disagreements over games.

Yes, I said that. Football, baseball, basketball...they're all just games, you know, no matter how much money and how many egos have gotten tied up in sports, especially at the professional level. They are not life. Ultimately, they are entertainment rather than something that is actually important. And, yes, I love baseball, and I have "my team", but as vocal as I might get when watching games, I know that it is just a game, and not important at all in the grand scheme of things.

It alarms me enough when people take important things like politics with that deadly seriousness. It shocks me when I see people threatening the life of a politician (and I have seen that on social media as recently as in the past couple of months) just because they don't happen to agree with the politicians policy positions. It likewise shocks me when I hear people express their belief that others who don't agree with their religious beliefs deserve to die. Even that sort of thing, a few years ago, was considered to be so much on the fringe that almost everyone was shocked when such threats were made. In the past few years, though, that sort of threat has become almost normal, and people are not even subtle about making them sometimes.

It is even more alarming, though, when people prove willing to kill over a reaction to a game, or over wearing the wrong color or the wrong sports jersey. Have we so devalued human life that violence over personal opinion is coming to be accepted?

It hurts me to write this, but when I see stories like the one linked at the beginning of my post, I start to suspect that we might not really have the right to call ourselves civilized in the sense that most people take that concept.

I don't know. Maybe I'm blowing this up all out of proportion, and this is just a case of someone drinking too much for their own good and having access to a firearm. But I don't think so. This sort of thing, someone injuring, maiming, or killing of what is really something minor, happens much too often for all of those incidents to be outliers that don't reflect the culture at large.

Non-serious on a Saturday...

I don't write about sports much around here.

This doesn't mean I don't like sports. It just means that I'm aware that on a general interest blog like this one, a lot of sports talk tends to be a turnoff for some people. Also, I don't really follow the sports I like the most - primarily baseball, basketball, and tennis - as closely as I used to. Certainly not closely enough to write about them on a regular basis.

However, I saw a headline today that caught my eye. I've been vaguely aware that the Los Angeles Lakers have gotten off to a dismal start this season, and had heard that, barely more than a week into the season, the team had fired their new head coach. Since I'm a Lakers fan (the one and only professional basketball game I have ever attended was a Lakers game, a very long time ago), I was dismayed to hear that the season was starting so badly, but I hadn't realized just how badly until the news of the coach's firing.

So, today as I was looking through my usual news sources, I saw a headline speculating that Phil Jackson might be coming back to coach again. I like his style (he wins, and he makes his players read books occasionally), and so this is a good thing as far as I'm concerned. While it certainly isn't a done deal, reports say that he is interested in returning for his third term as the Lakers' coach. If he does, it will definitely increase my interest in the season.

It would make me happy to have a sport to follow with a little more interest this winter. I am not a football fan (and by that, I mean that I am so not a football fan). I don't follow hockey (are they even playing yet?). And I'm a little sad right now that baseball season is over.

As a little informal poll among my readers - Do you like sports? Do you follow sports? If you do, which sports do you follow?

A little Olympics geography...

So. I'm still watching the Olympics. Men's indoor volleyball, currently.

What I've been thinking about, however, is geography. Last time I took a geography class, about 10 years ago or so, I did really well. And so, during last week's Opening Ceremonies, while the athletes filed into the stadium, I played the game I always do: Where's That Nation. And I could locate most of them, at least to continent and general location within that continent. Or, body of water, in the case of island nations. I should be able to do that. In that geography class I just mentioned, we had to memorize the locations of all the world's nations. We were tested on them, so it wasn't just an idle exercise.

I recognized the names of nearly all the nations in the parade on Friday. There were four, however, which were a mystery to me. Never heard of them. Really. Never, as far as I could remember. Yeah, I did really well on that map test in geography. I did not get 100 percent.

So, I sat down and looked up the four nations I hadn't recognized. Now that I have done that, I understand why I hadn't heard of them, at least in relation to that geography class. Or, three of them, at least. Three out of the four are located in the Pacific Ocean. In class, we were not required to learn every little island nation in the Pacific. The fourth nation that I didn't recognize is in West Africa. I must not have been paying enough attention when I was memorizing the African nations.

The three Pacific Ocean nations that I didn't recognize the names of were the Republic of Kiribati, the Republic of Nauru, and Tuvalu. Kiribati is the largest of the three, with 313 square miles of atolls and a raised coral island scattered over 1,351,500 square miles of ocean in the central tropical Pacific. It has a population of just over 103,000, as of a 2010 estimate. It sent three athletes to the Olympics this year.

Kiribati is absolutely huge compared to the other two Pacific nations I didn't recognize. The Republic of Nauru is an island nation in Micronesia, located just 26 miles south of the equator. It covers 8.1 square miles and is the world's smallest republic. A July 2011 estimate put its population at 9,378, with only Vatican City having a smaller population among sovereign states in the world. The other Pacific nation in question is Tuvalu, 10 square miles in area, located about halfway between Hawaii and Australia, and with an estimated 10,544 residents. But, even with these small populations, Nauru sent two athletes to the Games, while Tuvalu sent three.

Notably, Tuvalu is the second least-elevated nation in the world, with it's highest point at 15 feet above sea level. Only the Maldives, in the Indian Ocean, are lower, with that nation's highest point at 7 feet, 10 inches above sea level. It is interesting to note, too, that one of the titles Queen Elizabeth II of England holds is Queen of Tuvalu, as the monarch of that member of the Commonwealth of Nations.

The African nation I didn't recognize, Togo, is considerably larger in both area and population, covering an area of 21,925 square miles between Ghana and Benin in West Africa. It has a population of 6,619,000. Out of that population, Togo sent six athletes to the Games. French is still the official language of Togo, reflecting its history as a French colony, but there are a number of indigenous languages spoken there, and over 50 percent of its inhabitants still practice indigenous religious, although about 20 percent of the population practices Islam and 29 percent claim Christianity as their religion. Togo won its independence from France in 1960.

Another of my geekdoms, as you may have noticed, is geography. I learned the joy of geography and map-reading at my father's knee. So, I feel kind of disappointed in myself that I didn't know anything about any of the nations I've written about here. But they are not the only participants in the Games that have interesting stories to tell about their geography and inhabitants. I could have gone on for several more paragraphs about the very small European states that are represented in the Olympics. I mean, the city-state of Monaco is less than a square mile in area and still sent six athletes to the games.

But I've gone long enough for tonight. I started writing while volleyball was on, there was some gymnastics in there somewhere, and some swimming. It's almost time to go out and put the trash can out at the curb.

And, hey, there are still more Olympics to watch.

Of course, I'm watching the Olympics...

I've been watching the Olympics a fair amount this week. although I have to admit that I like the Winter Games more than I enjoy the Summer Games.

Having said that, however, I will say that I enjoy watching diving. That's what's on as I write this, and I have to give NBC credit for showing the finals of the women's synchronized platform diving in prime time even though the US team did not qualify for the finals. I've always thought that US coverage of the Games focuses entirely too much on US athletes, leaning toward only showing, especially in prime time, events in which US athletes are believed to have a good chance to win medals.

I also enjoy watching gymnastics, although I don't have any interest in what they call rhythmic gymnastics (the women's routines that use ribbons and hoops and so forth as props). I like volleyball, too, mostly because I played volleyball on a church league when I was a senior in high school. It amazes me how different indoor volleyball is from beach volleyball, but I like watching both. Swimming is fun to watch, as well, although I'm not quite sure why I like it. You can't really see anything but flailing arms and splashing.

I have no use, however, for the track and field events. Running and jumping and flinging things just does not interest me. Well, the pole vault fascinates me in a sort of perverse way, because I just can't understand why anyone would do that. I certainly would never launch myself all those feet off the ground on what looks like an excessively flimsy fiberglass pole. I'm just surprised that those poles don't break more often.

Water polo doesn't do anything for me, either.

The sport I'd like to see more of is synchronized swimming. I know. It's a weird sport. And those nose-clips they wear make them look like they've all had the same unfortunate nose job. But I've always been clumsy in the water, and it fascinates me that those groups of swimmers can look so graceful doing what they do.

My favorite parts of the Games? The opening and closing ceremonies. I'm not going to contribute here to the criticism of NBC's coverage of the Opening Ceremonies this year (I did enough of that on Friday night, other places online, while I was watching), except to say that the commentary and editing nearly ruined the experience for me. I really, really want to see a recording of the BBC's coverage. I've heard that it was much superior.

I will say that what we got of the entertainment portion of the Opening Ceremonies in the US coverage impressed me and entertained me. I loved the Queen, Daniel Craig, and the corgis. That was fabulous, and I feel a great deal of affection for the Queen for agreeing to be a part of that. On the other hand, who could possibly turn down the chance to be a Bond Girl to Craig's 007? I certainly wouldn't. I loved the music that was chosen (and I did catch the sound of Doctor Who's TARDIS at the end the portion of the music segment featuring Queen). And, I loved seeing Paul McCartney performing "Hey, Jude". I was sorry to see so much criticism of his singing, since it was obvious to me that it was a result of his feeling the emotion of the moment. I've heard the emotion-choked voices of individuals trying to sing before, and that is exactly what that sounds like.

And the fireworks. The fireworks were spectacular, even on television. I don't usually enjoy watching fireworks on TV, but I enjoyed those.

The games have just begun, with almost two weeks of events left to go before the Closing Ceremonies on August 12. I'm hoping for exciting competition, no off-the-field drama (although there has already been one incident of some people throwing around accusations of doping, involving a Chinese swimmer), and a little better coverage from NBC than they've provided so far.

I will be watching.