Cat is out of the bag now...

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http://montgomeryadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs..../607170343/1055

COMMENTARY: 'Times' story on AU academics carries little substance

By Josh Moon

Montgomery Advertiser

Former Auburn and Jeff Davis tight end Robert Johnson didn't speak favorably of the New York Times article on allegations involving academics and the Tigers' football program.

Just once I'd love to have a "bombshell" actually turn out to be a bombshell.

Twice within the past year, sports fans in this state have been lathered into a frenzy over some soon-to-be-released, earth-shattering stories, only to wind up terribly unsatisfied in the end.

The first, of course, was the two years' worth of posturing and proclaiming from attorneys in the Ronnie Cottrell vs. NCAA lawsuit, which fizzled out quickly and quietly when the cards hit the table.

The latest is the recently released New York Times story -- one that was supposed to all but shut down the Auburn athletics department -- that fell well short of its advanced hype.

It was presented as a scandal involving grades in the Auburn athletic department, but comes across as a confusing piece of journalism.

There's little doubt the Times did a boatload of work for this report. The paper talked to numerous people around the Auburn campus, several players from the football team and pretty much anyone else who had any knowledge whatsoever of Auburn University.

What the Times found was something very interesting: A Sociology professor at Auburn, Thomas Petee, had been teaching an astronomical number of directed-reading courses. These course do not require students to come to class, but instead, carry out reading assignments and write reports or take tests. Petee, at one point, was teaching 152 of these classes in a semester.

There's absolutely no way a professor teaching that many classes can adequately teach those students. It also seems as though Petee, who is a Criminology professor, was teaching classes outside of his discipline.

That's a good story. Unfortunately, it's not the story we were presented with in the Times' article. For some reason, this whole thing was turned into an indictment of the Auburn football program.

How was that connection made?

By pointing out that over the course of four years, 18 football players took a total of 97 hours worth of Petee's courses.

By rehashing all of Auburn's past NCAA troubles.

And by revisiting the "Jetgate" embarrassment which involved university officials flying to Louisville in attempts to woo Cardinals coach Bobby Petrino to replace a still-working Tommy Tuberville.

But forget all the filler and go back and look at the numbers. Read those numbers again closely, and this time, really think about them.

When you break all of it down, you get this: These 18 players -- out of a team of 85 -- each took two or three of Petee's classes over a four- or five-year period corresponding with their playing careers.

That's a grand total of six, with perhaps as many as nine, credit hours these players received from Petee's classes. To maintain eligibility, an athlete must take a total of 12 credit hours each semester. That's 24 hours per year for at least four years.

I'm sorry, but six hours out of 96 does not make a football scandal.

It's tough to even label this as an athletic scandal, since only a quarter of the students taught by Petee were athletes. Given that this is Sociology, a field of study that's very popular among college athletes, the fact that 60 of the 250 students were athletes, seems a little low. (If you don't believe that, go through the rosters of any sports team at any university that offers Sociology as a major).

The reason so many ath letes and so many regular students, for that matter, choose Sociology as a major is because that field of study offers so many electives that make it a little easier to maintain a good grade point average.

A 2003 USA Today story noted that these clusters of players in a particular major were a common occurrence. The story included figures from such notable academic institutions as Duke, Vanderbilt, Wake Forest, and Harvard.

For example 32 percent of Duke's football players majored in Sociology. Similarly, 44 percent of Wake Forest players majored in Communications, while 46 percent of Harvard's players majored in Economics, and 43 percent of players from Southern Mississippi majored in Sports Administration.

In that same article, Auburn reported that roughly one-quarter of its athletes were Sociology majors. That means the number of athletes in Petee's classes provided an accurate representation of the number of athletes enrolled in that field of study.

Maybe that's the biggest indictment of the Auburn football players. Maybe we're supposed to be disappointed that so few athletes were smart enough take advantage of such easy courses.

I don't know.

But what I do know is that for this to be some major scandal, athletes would have to be receiving preferential treatment. Since the story makes it absolutely clear that these Auburn athletes were taking the same classes and doing the same work as roughly 200 regular students, it should eliminate that line of thinking.

In fact, the athletes, on average, were awarded worse grades than the everyday students.

So, I'm failing to understand why this story -- which is a fine investigative piece without the athletics angle -- was presented as an athletics corruption story?

And so is former Auburn player Robert Johnson, who was quoted in the Times' piece.

"I don't understand what (the Times) was doing with that story," Johnson said. "They talk about academics, then you see something about the Louisville thing and Petrino. What was that? How does that have anything to do with anything?

"(There was) nothing with students, nothing with academics. It's just about getting negative stuff in the paper about schools in the South, I guess."

Maybe, maybe not. But whatever the story accomplished, it certainly failed to live up to its bombshell hype.

Josh Moon, who is a sports writer for the Advertiser, can be reached at 334-240-0191 or by e-mailing him at jmoon@gannett.com.

[TigerOne 1,140]

is it safe to say that the media spends more time making up stories

when there is none instead of actually reporting the truth?

In this case it would seem so, a fair article would have also included all the academic acheivements of atheletes and students as well.

[Tiger in Spain 0]

War Josh Moon! This article proves all journalists aren't idiots.....only 60% of them.

[AUChizad 0]

Great article to forward to all the Bammers trying to make a mountain out of this molehill.

[Draven 0]

Finally it seems like some people with a reasonable level of sanity are coming out to call this "scandal" what it really is B.S. all around a very poor journalistic attempt by the NYT.

[Dyebama 2]

Just what I Thought....NYT is making a Mountain out of a Bammer Trailer Park..

I hope this fires our Team up so we can give every body we Play this year

THE THUMB!!!

[BoJtrueAUman 4]

I just don't inderstand why the NYT gives a rats ass what goes on at Auburn. Its not like we are playing any NY schools are they still POed about the win over SU in 2002? It's rediculous that they care one bit about what AU does why us why NOT SU or someone in their area.

[tombigbeetiger 223]

i just wrote mr. moon and thanked him for that