DKW 86 7,433 Posted July 18, 2006 Share Posted July 18, 2006 The NYT Article and Auburn University. Still debugging..It is an interesting time to be an Auburn grad, an Auburn fan, an Auburn man. It seems we have been in the crosshairs of one of the nation’s largest newspapers for some two years now. That’s right; little ole Auburn University must have someone’s full attention. Now if that seems funny to you it is more than puzzling to us. We have been told for years that we are just a small podunk university out in the fly over country in the middle of nowhere. What in the world would motivate the NYT to do multiple hugely negative stories on such a place? Why would the NYT proactively seek out and spend hard-earned investigative journalist payroll and expense account money to write articles about a place and a bunch of folks that are barely known outside of Alabama or Georgia? Auburn Studies Do not get me wrong; to us Auburn is Our Promised Land. Small town, good folks, very good academics, and great football. For the last 25 plus years, we have been rated in the Top 50 Public Colleges in America. According to US News & World Reports, we excel at engineering, business, nursing, veterinarian sciences, architecture, value for the dollar, and good old-fashioned American values. Auburn is as American as great music, apple pie, and Motherhood. Auburn is a place where they LITERALLY paint almost every store window in town for the USMC Birthday Ball. Our football team has one of the top APR ratings in College football. Probably will as long as Coach Tommy Tuberville is there. At AU, we try our best to recruit only those kids that show something that leads us to believe that they will produce in the classroom as well as on the field. With the new APR system, coaching college football has been dramatically changed. The time of recruiting kids that cannot make it in the classroom has passed. The APR numbers are a fact of life and we are still learning to manage that. Tuberville just had a slight jump on some schools and had some good luck too. Steady leadership is a key to APR Results and Tuberville is the second most senior coach in the SEC. Auburn Serves Auburn ranks near the top of universities producing young American men and women officers for our Armed Forces. We have some of the largest Army, Air Force, and Navy-USMC ROTC programs in the nation. We have produced so many engineers working in NASA and for the Defense Department that it boggles the mind. We have had Shuttle missions that were 100% Auburn manned. Ken Mattingly, the Gary Sinise character in ‘Apollo 13,’ is an Auburn grad. General Carl E. Mundy Jr, the man that as Commandant of the USMC told Pres. Bill Clinton to stick his “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell†policy is an Auburn grad. Auburn Plays We have sports programs too. Out here in the American Outback, we dominate the US Swimming and Diving Championships. Coach David Marsh has won 6 National Titles so far and regularly wins men’s and women’s trophies. This year he won them both! This year alone we took the Women’s Golf Title and also won the equivalent of the Team Equestrian Title. We have an AP National Title in 1957. In football, we have even received a national title trophy from the above-mentioned NYT in 1983. We went undefeated in 1993 and in 2004. We have shared or outright won an SEC West 5 of the last 6 years and won the SEC in 2004. We are not the NY Yankees, but we win our share. Auburn Prays Auburn folks are loud lot. We love our lives. We love our sports. However, more than anything we love our Auburn Family. Want to see an Auburn grad or fan cry? Just remind them of the song “Hard Fightin’ Soldiers.†You see, that is the Christian hymn that our football team sang as they played through the 2004 season. That is what Auburn is all about. Whether we went 13-0 in 2004 was moot to most of us because we got to see our Head Coach and the team singing ‘HFS’ right after they secured the SECCG berth by beating Ole Miss just before Halloween. Tommy Tuberville has built a program that flourishes athletically, academically, AND spiritually. Chette Williams, FCA rep and Team Chaplain, is our team’s MVP, ask any coach or player. This is a guy that is winning and baptizing roughneck footballers. On the FCA site, there was a picture of Chette baptizing Carnell Williams, now star running back with the Tampa Bay Bucs. Coaches, high school, college, and pro, flock to Auburn and fly our guys around the country to hear how all this was put together. The next time you see a team come onto the field, grown men, black and white, locked arm and arm as Brothers, that is likely due to some influence from the Auburn Tigers and the Chette Williams Ministry, Auburn, Is Human Does all this mean that things AU are perfect? Lord, NO! You will find sinners and saints at Auburn. We have had few of the kids arrested for drinking, etc. Yeah, they are definitely enjoying the college experience. Just like I did, and I hope you did or do too. Tuberville a log time ago decreed that Auburn would get its academic and character house in order and most think he rules with an iron hand. However, as in everything, no one is perfect. The Point…Of All This Everybody has a job. Everyone has a role in life to fulfill. That is a given in America. We work. We produce. We sell. Life goes on, each and everyday. Auburn folks have been wondering why in the world is Auburn the recipient of so much negative attention from the NYT. I think I might now know. Today it was published that the NYT was closing a printing plant and laying off some more folks. The job of each and every one of us to successfully work our jobs. Successful reporters know that their first job as reporters is to sell papers. Without sales, circulation falls, ad rates fall, income goes down, profit falls, plants close, and people get laid off. Business is business, and newspapers are businesses. The NYT owns four papers in Alabama alone, in Gadsden, Florence, Decatur, and Tuscaloosa. Folks, every one of these papers is slowly watching its sales decline. Is it unreasonable to assume that the NYT Company could be working with four ailing papers to try and recover lost sales? Auburn Article I am sure Pete Thamel is a good journalist. I do question why in the world a journalist of his caliber would be brought to bear on a story that almost all say is nothing more than inter-department squabbling between two professors and sour grapes over a promotion that did not and maybe even should have gone through. The Facts: Were these classes available to all students? Yes. Were players favored? No. Were player’s grades above the regular student population? No. Did the players make up a large part of the classes? No, only 7%. Were there problems? Yes, some academic issues, not athletic ones. How much exactly was credited? 97 hours to 18 players over two-four years. They averaged 5.4 hours per player. How did it affect the players GPAs? 5.4 hours out of 120 hours for a degree amounted to only 4.5% of their degrees. Little if any bump to an overall GPA. What about APR score? Amounted only about 1-3% of APR score. When will it be fixed? Corrective action was taken in the spring of 2005 and has been there ever since. Will there be SACS or NCAA Investigations? Both organizations have publicly stated no or did not think so. So why does this commend a full-page article and lead in on the front page of the NYT? Conclusion Budget cuts, department consolidations, and faculty feuds should not be a basis for destroying good people and their careers. Whether you are a rival fan or an Auburn Man, the points remain the same. The students and the athletes are just like everyone else in college. They are finding their way through a myriad of tough burdens and light loads. Some semesters you have time to go to the beach, Some semesters you live in the library. College kids will always look for the path of least resistance. Gee, kids being kids… Again, why was this story written? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saniflush 0 Posted July 18, 2006 Share Posted July 18, 2006 Great read man! Great read! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tombigbeetiger 223 Posted July 18, 2006 Share Posted July 18, 2006 Again, why was this story written ===================================================== this is a question that needs an answer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tgr4lfe 220 Posted July 18, 2006 Share Posted July 18, 2006 Good Stuff David. WAR EAGLE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draven 0 Posted July 18, 2006 Share Posted July 18, 2006 Great read thanks for posting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Proud Tiger 4,261 Posted July 18, 2006 Share Posted July 18, 2006 Good article. I hope you put it on CT. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SupperClub 0 Posted July 18, 2006 Share Posted July 18, 2006 Excellent job! Very well thought out and a great read. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vatz22au 142 Posted July 18, 2006 Share Posted July 18, 2006 Just wondering, but do you know where they got their facts in that read DKW?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DKW 86 7,433 Posted July 18, 2006 Author Share Posted July 18, 2006 Just wondering, but do you know where they got their facts in that read DKW?? 249443[/snapback] A calulator? The APR calculation assumes 80 players and them having something like 100 hours/ THat is beacsue some players do not graduate on time and graduate later. It also go back to like 1999-2000. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WarTim 3,456 Posted July 18, 2006 Share Posted July 18, 2006 David......EXCELLENT article! ! ! Now, if only people would take the time to answer the question you pose in their own minds they would see what we see.....nothing there at all. Again, Great job! WDE ! ! ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ranger12 46 Posted July 18, 2006 Share Posted July 18, 2006 Great read! Amazing things can happen when actual research is done on a story so that the facts are accurate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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