Bowden: 5th year of eligibility?

[Lehigh Football Nation]

5th year of eligibility? (http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaaf/news?slug=tb-fifthyear061705&prov=yhoo&type=lgns)


Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, Senior.

Four names for the four years it takes to get a college degree. There's only one problem – it no longer takes four years to get a college degree. It takes almost five. Yes, the average college student takes 4.8 years to graduate.

...

And just as we should give a student five years to graduate, we likewise should give a student-athlete five years to participate in athletics.

Several conferences recently have proposed legislation that would give student-athletes five years of eligibility. Under current NCAA rules a student-athlete has only four years to participate during a five-year period.

...

If he shows that he can continue to help the team, he will remain on the depth chart and in the game plan. If he doesn't pan out then he incurs some type of "injury" and applies for a medical hardship – to get a fifth year of eligibility.

Why don't we all just come clean and do what's right for the student-athlete? It takes five years to graduate so give him five years to play football. Let him develop at his own speed.

...

Don't tell me the current "five years to play four" policy is in the best academic interest of the athlete. Most coaches will tell you that when a student-athlete is held out for an entire season, he loses interest in being part of the team and subsequently loses interest in his school work as well. It is best to keep his head in the game by helping him feel that there always is a chance he will be able to contribute to the team.

Besides, look at the changes that have just been made to the schedule. We have added a 12th regular-season game, and we're extending the season into the second week of January. You talk about prioritizing academics. Gimme a dadgum break!

More games. Longer season. Let's find a way where the student-athlete can play ball and go to school. Let's do something that's not about us but about him. It takes five years to get a college education. Let's give him five years to play football.


To me, this defies belief. Bowden is basically saying - our students are sucking since it now takes 5 years to finish college, and we don't care about athletes anyway since we now have 12 games - so now, let's give them an extra year to not graduate on time!

This would affect I-AA as well. Shawn Johnson-types who currently transfer to places like Delaware as "grad students" to get a 5th year of eligibility would now more likely stay at their original schools. As shameful (IMO) as it is for kids who have already graduated to trasfer to I-AA to try to stay to use up their college eligibility, this would basically institutionalize the fact that kids *deserve* 5 years of eligibility.

To me, 4 years as a college player is the only method that makes sense.

[DTSpider]

I actually think that 5 years of eligibility makes sense for 1AA programs. As it is right now you have a lot of kids redshirting their first year so that they have an extra year to develop. Why not let them be able to play? It would help with depth, which is always an issue with only 63 scholarships. It wouldn't change academics since most are in schools 5 years as is. Instead of having 5 years to use 4 of playing time just have 5 years to do whatever.

I can really see this strategy at the high level of 1A being important as well. They are faced with the decision of whether to redshirt a kid who may be great. If he turns into a great player than he leaves and you lost a year he could be producing.

[Ivytalk]

I agree with LFN. Hey, Terry, why stop at 5 years? Why not let a "kid" stay eligible until he gets through the earliest to occur of (a) daddy's money, (b) his last change of major, (c) redshirting excuses, and (d) the firing of the coaching staff that recruited him? And this from the guy who almost brought Auburn football to its knees.

[blukeys]

5th year of eligibility? (http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaaf/news?slug=tb-fifthyear061705&prov=yhoo&type=lgns)




This would affect I-AA as well. Shawn Johnson-types who currently transfer to places like Delaware as "grad students" to get a 5th year of eligibility would now more likely stay at their original schools. As shameful (IMO) as it is for kids who have already graduated to trasfer to I-AA to try to stay to use up their college eligibility, this would basically institutionalize it.

To me, 4 years as a college player is the only method that makes sense.
You obviously have no clue what you are talking about regarding Shawn Johnson. Johnson did not have to transfer anywhere to get a 4th year of eligibility. Johnson was red shirted as a freshmen at Duke so therefore he never used a year of eligibility. He played for 3 years at Duke and used 3 years of eligibility. He completed his degree at Duke in 4 years. (something I thought you were in favor of). He could have very easily begun grad school at Duke and gotten his 4th year of eligibility at Duke. His grades were good, the football team wanted him, and the grad school offered a master's program in his undergraduate major. Johnson was tired of losing and wanted to go to a winning program and have some fun. He had a brother playing at Fordham and that was his first choice. Fordham fulfilled his requirements and all was fine except for the Holy Cross rule in the Patriot League which does not allow Graduate students to compete. The Patriot League allows players a 5th year of eligibility provided players don't graduate (Jamaal Branch) but penalizes a player who dutifully fulfills degree requirements in 4 years such as Johnson. At any rate Dave Clawson sent the Johnson family to Dave Cohen at Delaware where students who actually graduate in 4 years are not penalized and the rest is history.

I agree with you that Bowden's proposal is wrongheaded. Players should be encouraged to graduate in 4 years. However, your unquestioned buying of Patriot League spin regarding Johnson without any attempt to gather the facts is unseemly especially since you have a blog where these untruths will no doubt be repeated. There are plenty of examples of abuse of the current system. Oklahoma's quarterback was given 6 years of college by the NCAA.
Why not pick him as your whipping boy?

Usually, your posts are on target but this time you are just wrong.

For consistency sake why not disallow red shirts for any reason at Lehigh? The clock starts ticking the minute the student hits the front door and they have 4 years. Of course there would be no 2004 season for folks like Jamaal Branch but what the heck It's the way the high schools do it.

[Lehigh Football Nation]

You obviously have no clue what you are talking about regarding Shawn Johnson. Johnson did not have to transfer anywhere to get a 4th year of eligibility. Johnson was red shirted as a freshmen at Duke so therefore he never used a year of eligibility. He played for 3 years at Duke and used 3 years of eligibility. He completed his degree at Duke in 4 years. (something I thought you were in favor of).... The Patriot League allows players a 5th year of eligibility provided players don't graduate (Jamaal Branch) but penalizes a player who dutifully fulfills degree requirements in 4 years such as Johnson. At any rate Dave Clawson sent the Johnson family to Dave Cohen at Delaware where students who actually graduate in 4 years are not penalized and the rest is history.

I agree with you that Bowden's proposal is wrongheaded. Players should be encouraged to graduate in 4 years. However, your unquestioned buying of Patriot League spin regarding Johnson without any attempt to gather the facts is unseemly especially since you have a blog where these untruths will no doubt be repeated. There are plenty of examples of abuse of the current system. Oklahoma's quarterback was given 6 years of college by the NCAA.
Why not pick him as your whipping boy?

Usually, your posts are on target but this time you are just wrong.

For consistency sake why not disallow red shirts for any reason at Lehigh? The clock starts ticking the minute the student hits the front door and they have 4 years. Of course there would be no 2004 season for folks like Jamaal Branch but what the heck It's the way the high schools do it.

Whoa here. Let's clarify a few points:

1) For the record, Shawn Johnson did not transfer to Delaware to get a grad school education. He did it to enhance his draft value. This was a rousing success for him, as he then got drafted from the exposure he got by playing on Delaware. Delaware's football team and Shawn Johnson benefitted greatly. However, I don't think the image of college football or I-AA was very well served by these shenanigans. Delaware gave a kid a scholarship to play football, not graduate from college.

2) For the record, Jamaal Branch dropped out of Colgate for a year while he worked out some personal issues. When he returned, he still had not graduated and applied to play while he was still an undergrad. 4 years of eligibility, 4 years of being an undergrad (with a year off in between). Putting Jamaal Branch's college career in the same sentence as Shawn Johnson's shenanigans (legal or illegal, that's what it is) is absolutely unfair. Jamaal was getting a grant-in-aid to graduate from college, not to neccasarily play an extra year of football.

3) Did I single out Shawn Johnson unfairly? Possibly. I did want to point out a situation where a I-A to I-AA transfer would be affected, and Shawn Johnson would seem to be a textbook case. Maybe Johnson would have transferred anyway to Delaware after being sick of Duke, I don't know. But you do have to wonder if more athletes will stick for a 5th year at their alma mater to use up their eligibility instead of transferring to a I-AA school, which was the original point.

4) I don't want to get rid of medical redshirts for Lehigh or anywhere else, as long as the students haven't graduated. With all these things there will always be a gray area, but you have to draw the line somewhere, and to me the line is "have you gotten your undergrad education". Yes, you could probably get me a list of Lehigh players who have been grad students after graduating yet still playing football (to save you the trouble, Anthony Graziani and Dave Ceccini leap to mind). But in my mind, you graduate from college, your eligibility is done for me.

5) My blog is really dedicated to Lehigh news and commentary, so it's unlikely I'd bring up Shawn Johnson unless he talked smack about Lehigh. And since PL schools don't allow it (as you mention), it's unlikely to come up even as an example.

[GannonFan]

So you're basically saying that you think only undergrad students should participate in college sports???? So all these good students and go-getters who work hard and graduate in say 3 years are no longer worthy for sports because they are good students? Heck, these guys could have all of two years eligibility left under the current system (redshirt first year and play the next two) but because they are superior students they are now persona non gratis on the athletic field? While you think you're coming up with a noble system in essence you're devaluing the education part of the student-athlete model by penalizing those that are good students. There are literally tons of 5th year "seniors", and a few less 4th year "seniors" that have finished their undergrad education and are pursuing graduate studies. So you're in favor of bumping these good students to the side of the road and instead reward the other students who haven't worked as hard or achieved as much and are still trying to get that undergrad degree? For one from a conference that supposedly treasures its student athletes you sure seem to have a misguided way of doing it.

Oh, and on the Shawn Johnson thing, since he seems to be the favorite whipping boy around here, he didn't need UD to increase his draft value - he was the ACC sack leader in his last year at Duke going up against the best the ACC had to offer - playing at UD, while distinguished in the minds of the Blue Hen fans, is not a particularly good way to increase your draft value. He had the year left to play, he went to classes at UD while he played (graduate level classes in Biology and Genetics as I recall (or something close to that - the exact major escapes me at the moment) - not exactly the pursuits of one who is just there to play football), and he was a model citizen. The Shawn Johnson's of the world, who shun the NFL and it's instant payday for a year of football and the college experience (and that includes classes), are the types of student athletes I would hope we would see, not run out of the game as you are proposing because they were too good in the classroom.

[ChickenMan]

Apparently Shawn Johnson will 'live' forever on the AGS board... :rolleyes:

[FightinBluHen51]

Yup. I guess he wasn't allowed to creat a "back up" plan even if he did come to Delaware to pad his NFL resume? :rolleyes:

[blukeys]

1. Johnson transferred to improve his draft status? Please cite me your source. Johnson was all-ACC at Duke. Pro scouts are pretty savvy characters and tend to notice players like that. Another all-ACC year at Duke against ACC competition especially considering the lame status of Duke would have garnered that gigantic 6th/7th round selection he got at Delaware.

2. Johnson attended and passed the grad level courses he took. Where's the shenanigans. If Johnson had been one course shy of graduating, he would have played for Patriot team Fordham. He qualified under Fordham's rules and the PL's in all areas except he committed the crime of actually graduating on time without the need for a year of getting his head together.

The ultimate irony is had he done this PL folks would have hailed the action. Johnson would have been a great student athlete (dean's list) with a difficult major (biology) coming from a great academic school (Duke) making his contribution to a great academic conference (Patriot). The Patriot spin machine would have qualified Johnson for sainthood if he had just taken undergraduate courses instead of Graduate.
I agree Branch and Johnson are not in the same category. Johnson was a better student. Branch definitely received a grant in Aid to play football. If he did not play football he would have had to get a loan to pay his tuition. That is way the system works.


3. Johnson is definitely not a textbook case. Most I-A to I-AA transfers occur due to lack of playing time (Sonny Riccio, Andy Hall). Johnson had started for 3 years and was all ACC. Your picking of Johnson to be your whipping boy does not qualify on this count.

4. If your qualification is "did you graduate?" that just encourages athletes to spread out their undergraduate careers if they want to play another year and therefore supports Bowden's case. For the record Johnson's big crime was getting sick of losing at Duke and wanting to play on a winner with his brother at Fordham. His status under NCAA rules was no different than Lehigh's Anthony Graziani and Dave Ceccini. Delaware was not originally on his list and only got on the list by the recommendation of Fordham head coach Dave Clawson, who no doubt, was part of the shnenanigans too.

[BBB]

But, transferring from a BCS conference SCHOOL where you were a ALL-CONFERENCE PICK in that BCS CONFERENCE to a 1-AA school where you get little to no TV time to "improve" your draft staus?

Doesn't make sense to me.

[blukeys]

But, transferring from a BCS conference SCHOOL where you were a ALL-CONFERENCE PICK in that BCS CONFERENCE to a 1-AA school where you get little to no TV time to "improve" your draft staus?

Doesn't make sense to me.

It didn't. That's our point. It was Lehighfootballnation who advanced the ridiculous notion that the transfer was motivated by a desire to improve Johnson's draft status.

[Fordham]

geez, and all the Fordham boards had ever said about Shawn Johson is that Duke grads just have a tough time getting into our school.

I guess I've learned something here today. ;)

seriously, it does seem clear that Johnson is not a good example for what LFN was getting at (man, it would have been nice to have had him on our team that year!). That said, everyone knows what LFN's point was, so if you sub a different name of a player who transferred only to get that extra year of f-ball, how do you feel about what Bowden is recommending?

[wkuhillhound]

So you're basically saying that you think only undergrad students should participate in college sports???? So all these good students and go-getters who work hard and graduate in say 3 years are no longer worthy for sports because they are good students? Heck, these guys could have all of two years eligibility left under the current system (redshirt first year and play the next two) but because they are superior students they are now persona non gratis on the athletic field? While you think you're coming up with a noble system in essence you're devaluing the education part of the student-athlete model by penalizing those that are good students. There are literally tons of 5th year "seniors", and a few less 4th year "seniors" that have finished their undergrad education and are pursuing graduate studies. So you're in favor of bumping these good students to the side of the road and instead reward the other students who haven't worked as hard or achieved as much and are still trying to get that undergrad degree? For one from a conference that supposedly treasures its student athletes you sure seem to have a misguided way of doing it.


I know this maintains to athletes. It took me 5 years to graduate because I changed majors. So that means I am less than "perfect", or just an "awful, terrible, unmotivated, stupid, ignorant, and lots of other bad words" student because I couldn't make a decision at that time. It is amazing to me how quick people judge based on how long people take to graduate whether its academic or athletic. Most student-athletes want to graduate in 4 years, some student-athletes could care less.

God forbid if they leave school b/c of personal issues, lack of funds, injury, or other reasons they're just not worthy in your JUDGMENTAL eyes. Just b/c YOU graduated in 4 years or less, you expect everyone else to do the same. LIFE happens folks get with the program! :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang:

[Fordham]

wku, all that you posted may be dead-on for an argument on why it's no big deal for someone to get their degree in more than 4 years but what does it have to do with playing more than 4 years of football?

[Marcus Garvey]

The reason it takes 5 years for people to graduate from college is most students go to large public universities where the funding, sadly, does not keep up with the requirements of a large student body. It often take 5 years because you simply can't get into all the required courses for your degree because they don't offer enough classes. Lord help you if you decide to switch majors too! The only people whom I know that gradutated in 4 years from Pitt, Penn St., Arizona St. and Arizona did so because they took several summer session courses.

Now, this issue doesn't affect the average I-A scholarship player at Florida St. Assuming he's a biology/pre-med major (yeah, yeah, I know, bloody unlikely, but work with me here), he'll have no problems getting into his classes. Do you really think football players get put on the same waiting list as the general student population? I highly doubt it. And frankly, what I-A coach wouldn't love to have a Pre-Med player on scholarship graduate in 4 years, assuming his football skills warrant the scholarship? He'd be mentioned in the media guide for sure!

I say give them 5 years, no red-shirt. Instead, "freshman" (i.e., first year students) are ineligible.

[blukeys]

I know this maintains to athletes. It took me 5 years to graduate because I changed majors. So that means I am less than "perfect", or just an "awful, terrible, unmotivated, stupid, ignorant, and lots of other bad words" student because I couldn't make a decision at that time. It is amazing to me how quick people judge based on how long people take to graduate whether its academic or athletic. Most student-athletes want to graduate in 4 years, some student-athletes could care less.

God forbid if they leave school b/c of personal issues, lack of funds, injury, or other reasons they're just not worthy in your JUDGMENTAL eyes. Just b/c YOU graduated in 4 years or less, you expect everyone else to do the same. LIFE happens folks get with the program! :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang:
Why do you assume that everything is a personal attack on you? Can you reply to these posts with reason and not emotion? This thread has nothing to do with students who take 5,6, or 7 years to graduate. This is originally about extending athletic eligibility to 5 years. Read the ENTIRE thread so you can acquaint yourself with the issues instead of going ballistic on one person's post. Otherwise, you look like a fool.

For the record I did not get my undergraduate degree in 4 years. I got married had a kid and had to work full time. So it goes. I don't feel bad about it. Even if someone were to criticize my decisions I would not overreact as you have done.

[wkuhillhound]

wku, all that you posted may be dead-on for an argument on why it's no big deal for someone to get their degree in more than 4 years but what does it have to do with playing more than 4 years of football?

It does have something to do with student-athletes b/c some of those don't get scholarships or walk-ons. I was not an athlete at all, but I can see why people could take longer to graduate than "normal" 4 years that colleges lead everyone to believe. I also took summer classes and had a job during that time to be able to graduate in 5 years. I know also that some courses are required to graduate are offered every other semester or every other two semesters so it gets very difficult to fulfill, especially if their major is not a popular one.

[colgate13]

I agree Branch and Johnson are not in the same category. Johnson was a better student. Branch definitely received a grant in Aid to play football. If he did not play football he would have had to get a loan to pay his tuition. That is way the system works.

Clarification:

No he wouldn't. If Jamaal didn't play football, he would have been treated like every other student at Colgate, and we certainly don't expect every student to get a loan to pay for their (implied) entire tuition.

Jamaal for his senior year would have had to take a $5,500 Stafford Loan and had a work study job of around $1,500. Every other dime of his financial need would still be met with grant. The difference between two "full" need kids at Colgate over four years, one playing football and the other playing the cello, is about $15,500 in federal loans (Colgate doesn't max loans or double loan) and $8,000 or so in work study. So if the full need for four years is $160,000, the football player gets $160,000 in grant and the cello player gets $136,500 in grant with the rest in loans and job. THAT's how the system works! ;)

[blukeys]

thanks for the clarification 13. I am over my ranting stage and back on my meds. Liquid of course. ;) ;)

[colgate13]

thanks for the clarification 13. I am over my ranting stage and back on my meds. Liquid of course. ;) ;)

blukeys?

http://www.tvacres.com/images/ren_small.jpg