Don’t sacrifice an education to achieve your goals

Jeremy Tyler, a 6-11 post player from San Diego, has announced plans to forgo his senior year of high school and play professionally in Europe in hopes of being more prepared for a future in the NBA.

Dumb jocks? Hardly.

The 2009 Men’s and Women’s Final Four champions are among nearly 800 Division I sports teams to rank in the top 10 percent of their sport’s Academic Progress Rate (APR) rankings. Michigan State and Villanova also made the list for the men.

So, why does the “dumb jock” label remain when statistics (on average student-athletes graduate at a rate higher than their non-athlete peers, for example) prove otherwise?

The system deserves a chance to work

Atlanta Journal writer Michael Carvell recently encouraged Georgia football coach Mark Richt to stage an act of civil disobedience to call attention to what Carvell believed to be wrong-headed NCAA legislation.

The case involved Georgia recruit Chris Burnette, one of the nation's top-rated offensive lineman - and also valedictorian at Troup (Georgia) High School. Richt apparently told Burnette that he was the first valedictorian that he had ever recruited and that if Burnette earned the right to speak during graduation, Richt would be there.

“Then the big and bad NCAA got in the way,” Carvell wrote.

Should it cost the same to attend a women’s game?

Journalist Laura Pappano, writer-in-residence at the Wellesley Centers for Women, offered a preview this month of a study she is conducting of ticket prices for Division I sporting events.

Pappano, working in conjunction with the WCW Women’s Sports Leadership Project, writes in a provocative op-ed piece in The Christian Science Monitor: “There aren't many bargains in sports, but one of them is NCAA Division I women’s college basketball - and that’s a problem.”