tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35248477.post7298637556931463834..comments2024-03-27T14:20:05.905-04:00Comments on Montclair SocioBlog: Why Is Half the Football Team in My Class?Jay Livingstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06652075579940313964noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35248477.post-78400755019061736702009-03-10T09:48:00.000-04:002009-03-10T09:48:00.000-04:00At my very small Division I undergraduate institut...At my very small Division I undergraduate institution, we had one academic advisor that was hired by the athletics department to advise athletes. The position for many sports was kind of a joke -- we had a number of true scholar-athletes who would go to meetings with her, politely listen, then go to their non-athletics academic advisor and major in things like mechanical engineering. But, for a couple of sports, athletes got A LOT of pressure to pursue certain majors. I think that current athletes would report how easy or hard certain majors were, report back to the athletic academic advisor (who also saw transcripts of currently enrolled athletes), and would guide younger athletes into the same majors.<BR/><BR/>My guess is that large Division I schools with well-established athletics programs, schools like LSU and USC, each team might have their own athletic advisor. Each of those advisors gets information based on what members of those teams have done before, so tends to send newer players on the same path. Thus, you have football players majoring in sociology, basketball players in kinesiology (our fancy name for P.E.), and baseball players in sports management.mike3550https://www.blogger.com/profile/09621465191508532187noreply@blogger.com