With all the talk about Sociology and Wonderlic...

[DKW 86 7,425]

Who is Willaim Bradford Huie? From the University of Alabama Journalism Dept.

Huie Article

Can anyone show me where the term Cripple Course or Crip Course was used prior to this article? I have searched for some tims about this. Even a Lexus-Nexus search pulled up nothing older than this quote.

So, The term "Crip Course" may have been first used to describe the UAT football team...Funny isnt it?

Great Heroes Deserve Degrees

But back to classes again. After we had found all the "crip" courses we could for the Red Shirts and the varsity men, we turned to our problem children. These were the postgrads.

This squad was composed exclusively of Great Heroes-the fellows who had played out all their years of eligibility and now had returned from the wars to rest on their laurels while we poor brain trusters sweated to get them some kind of degree. Hank Crisp, it seems, has a sense of honor. He doesn't mind firing off the inept by the hundreds, but when a guy has fought and bled for the alma mater for five or ten years, he not only deserves an all-something-or-other but he also deserves a college degree. And Crisp was one to see that he got it. Or rather Crisp was one to see that I saw that he got it.

We called these great heroes the postgrad squad for two reasons. First, because the sports writers had already mournfully announced the Tide was losing them through "graduation," and second, there was the morale to think of, as Dr. Goebbels might say. After all, when a worshipful freshman got inquisitive at the frat house, these great heroes had to have some explanation for their continued presence around the campus.

"Oh, I'm hanging around doing a little postgrad work," they would remark loftily.

They couldn't afford to tell the frosh they still hadn't passed freshman English. It would have been bad for the morale.

For the most part these postgrads were the fellows who abused the privilege of being dumb. The most affable, probably without degrees, would have already left the campus to sell bonds or insurance. Those who had been given degrees would be teaching and coaching in high schools and developing new prospects for the machine.

A Triumph for Education

The classic story of the Alabama campus is the one about the football player in the history class. Having failed all his exams, the professor consented to give him one last special exam.

"I'm going to give you one question," he said. "If you can answer it, I will pass you. The question is: What is the capital of Alabama?"

The beefer studied for a long moment and answered: "Wetumpka."

"All right," replied the professor. "Had you answered 'Montgomery, your grade would have been 100. Since Wetumpka is 18 miles from Montgomery, I'll subtract 18 from 100 and your grade will be 82 for the course. I congratulate you.

Seriously, however, most of the passing was done through the system of fellowship students at the university. These students teach some of the elementary classes, and they grade virtually all the examination papers. They know that the football team is an asset to the school, and they know what must be done to keep many of the players eligible. They are the ones who furnish most of the elastic consciences.

But the colossal injustice only begins when the great hero gets his degree. He now becomes a favored applicant for a coaching position in some high school. But high schools in the South can't afford full-time coaches. The coach has to be a member of the faculty and spend part of his time teaching history or math or chemistry. And I had to sell those great heroes to school boards as teachers as well as coaches.

When I think of some of the scenes that must have transpired in Alabama schoolrooms during the past ten years, I wonder if I can ever atone for the sins I have committed against the rising generation. Huie is speaking about how these thoroughly uneducated Bama grads are now teaching real classes in high schools that they are totally incapable of passing themselves.

Cripple Courses are Safest

(That term is associated with the University of Alabama in its first use?)

But back to the brain trust. The big push for us came in September when the freshmen brainless beef rolled in. Here were two hundred huskies who had been "eased through" high school an football and now we had to ease the best of them through college. In registering them we used our marked list of freshman professors. We placed the beef in classes where they would receive "sympathetic treatment" and steered them clear of those old sour apples who still insisted on flunking a guy just because he didn't know anything. But we had other limitations to consider, too. All science courses except the most elementary were out, for they would have long laboratory periods for which no beefer could find time. Courses leading to any form of higher mathematics were impossible. So commerce, law, medicine or any form of engineering were blacklisted from the start. This left us only the School of Arts and Sciences and the School of Education through which to route the beefers.

Our most successful plan was to enroll the beefer in the School of Education and point him toward a possible bachelor of science degree in physical education. (Now days it's Home Ec.) One of the factors which may have caused us to prefer the education school was that Dr. James J. Doster, dean of this school, was a faculty adviser to the athletic department, and was usually selected to represent the faculty on the long football trips.

Accordingly, the typical course with which we loaded down the freshman beefer consisted of classes in Bible, Psychology 1, Astronomy, and Music Appreciation. All were "cripples" of the purest ray. Bible was taught by a lovable old gentleman who delivered lofty lectures and never bothered his sleeping class with details like questions or examinations. I once heard of a beefer about to Runk this course who was given a special examination by the professor. The professor asked him two questions: Who created the world? and How long did it take? The beefer answered only the first question correctly for a grade of fifty, but the kindly professor gave him an additional ten points for having tried the second to bring his grade to the sixty necessary for passing.

Astronomy, Psychology I and Music Appreciation were all taught by "fellowship" students and not by regular professors, so we had little difficulty here.

Why Football's Lost a Fan

Of all the 3,000 1 don't know a single one today, outside coaching or professional football, who could be pointed out as an eminent success. I have known only one who was unusually intelligent. He was Freddie Sington, All-America tackle in 1930. Sington, a Phi Beta Kappa student, wanted to study law but found it impossible with his football activities. He played professional baseball for a while and is now selling automobiles in Decatur, Georgia.

We fellows who have helped make football what it is today may as well face the facts. We've come a cropper. In the name of sportsmanship we've built a rah-rah empire that's phony to its roots. We've taken a fine game and converted it into a monster which takes from a boy his formative years and leaves him nothing but a letter to wear on his chest, a spavined knee and a false sense of values.

[runswithscissors 33]

seriously, when is that article from??....1941. thats digging pretty deep, however, this story isn't too old....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/13/sports/1...p;ex=1178078400

just a few little snippets.....

Professor Gundlach looked at the player's academic files, which led him to the discovery that many Auburn athletes were receiving high grades from the same professor for sociology and criminology courses that required no attendance and little work

The availability of better grades for some athletes who did not attend class did not surprise professors who said Auburn sometimes emphasizes athletics at any cost. In December 2003, the university was placed on probation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, partly because of concerns about whether trustees had too much involvement in the athletic department.

The N.C.A.A. has cited Auburn through the years for seven major infractions, the most of any university in the Southeastern Conference and among the most in the nation

Among those caught off guard by Auburn's performance was Gordon Gee, the chancellor of Vanderbilt, a fellow university in the Southeastern Conference and the only private institution. Vanderbilt had an 88 percent graduation rate in 2004, compared with Auburn's 48 percent, yet finished well behind Auburn in the new N.C.A.A. rankings.

We were getting sociology majors graduating without taking sociology classes. I'm a director of a program putting out people who I know more than likely don't deserve a degree

The Auburn football team appeared to be the biggest benefactor of Professor Petee's directed-reading offerings.

The 18 football players received an average G.P.A. of 3.31 in the classes, according to statistics compiled by Professor Gundlach. In all of their other credit hours at Auburn, their average was 2.14.

Mr. Williams, who now plays for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, had already completed his football eligibility at Auburn. He was a B student, according to Professor Petee. But Professor Petee also acknowledged that by taking those two classes, Mr. Williams helped boost Auburn's standing in the academic rankings. He left Auburn six credits short of graduating.

In the fall of 2004, Mr. (Doug) Langenfeld found himself in an academic bind. More than two months into the fall semester, he realized that he had been attending the wrong class because of a scheduling error. Mr. Langenfeld approached Professor Gundlach about adding a class, but Professor Gundlach said he could not help him because it was too late in the semester.

Mr. Langenfeld then went to his academic counselor in the athletic department, Brett Wohlers, with a plea: "I got dropped from a class and need a class to stay eligible for the bowl game, Mr. Langenfeld recalled in a recent telephone interview. "I need a class, and I'll take any class right now. I don't not want to play in my last bowl game.

He said Mr. Wohlers told him about a "one-assignment class" that other players had taken and enjoyed. So in the "9th or 10th week," Mr. Langenfeld said, he picked up a directed-reading course with Professor Petee. Semesters typically run 15 weeks.

Mr. Langenfeld said he had to read one book, but he could not recall the title. He said he was required to hand in a 10-page paper on the book. Between picking up the class and handing in the paper, he said, he met several times with Professor Petee in his office.

Professors around the university said they saw Mr. Langenfeld's late-semester rescue as inappropriate. When told of Mr. Langenfeld's situation, David Cicci, the chair-elect of Auburn's faculty senate, said: "From my point of view, that's not much work for three credit hours. It's an awful lot of credits for reading one book.

The senior associate director for admissions and records at Auburn, Louis E. Jimenez, said that a situation in which a student adds a class as late as Mr. Langenfeld did usually only happens once or twice a semester, if at all. "It's very unusual," he said.

Professor Petee defended his record on directed readings, saying he provided so many because of an influx of students, a shortage of faculty and the convenience of using the Web to communicate with and teach students. Professor Petee said that the classes were structured, even though he did not meet with the students regularly, if at all. The department office assistant at the time, Rebecca Gregory, said Professor Petee managed the work with students primarily through e-mail.

But the numbers baffled educators around the university. "I have never heard of anything of this magnitude in any discipline at any university," Mr. Cicci said.

"When you've got more than five or six athletes in one class, you're guaranteed to have fun," said Robert Johnson, a tight end who left Auburn in 2003 and now plays for the Washington Redskins. "Class is guaranteed to not be as hard as the rest of your classes, especially if you're winning."

"Things have reached a point where we're getting ready to produce more James Brooks incidents," Professor Gundlach said. "It's embarrassing."

[DKW 86 7,425]

Apparently the "Since 1929" angle has eluded you.

All NCAA schools are guilty at some level. I was just making fun of the Bama folks not knowing their own history as critiqued by their own athletic dept. BTW, you do understand that Bear was a player there during all that sighted in my post dont you?

[AURainman 6]

seriously, when is that article from??....1941. thats digging pretty deep, however, this story isn't too old....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/13/sports/1...p;ex=1178078400blah, blah, blah.

Runswithscissors....

Did you go to college?

Did you take any classes because you new they were easy?

These classes were open to ALL AU students. Does it make me proud? No. But then again, my engineering degree is about the exact opposite of a sociology degree. BUT, I sure enough to some GPA boosting classes when they were available.

No cheating happened. No wrong-doing by the athletic department was found.

To summarize the story, AU athletes took advantage of an easy course.

:shudder to think!!!!:

You'd better find some better smack talk.

[AUChizad 0]

Did you take any classes because you new they were easy?

Irony.

[DKW 86 7,425]

Did you take any classes because you new they were easy?

Irony.

POTD!

[kickerman97 3]

Did you take any classes because you new they were easy?

Irony.

POTD!

[WinCrimson 61]

Take everything you read by Huie with a grain of salt.

[DKW 86 7,425]

Take everything you read by Huie with a grain of salt.

Bama website says....

I’m In the Truth Business: William Bradford Huie considers the legacy of an author whose 21 books sold more than 28 million copies. Seven of them were made into Hollywood movies starring James Garner, Julie Andrews, Martin Sheen, Jane Russell, Tony Curtis, and Richard Burton. He held the sales records for three of the nation’s leading news magazines that published articles he had written. His investigations into racial murders in the South hastened the Civil Rights movement.

The program, which received Emmy awards for its script and musical score, airs on PBS at 10 p.m. ET, Tuesday, Oct. 7, and at 10 p.m. that night on Alabama Public Television.

Born in Hartselle, Ala., in 1910, and educated at the University of Alabama, Huie’s first novel, Mud on the Stars, chronicled the education of a North Alabama boy during the Depression and the events leading up to World War II. After serving in the war Huie moved to the Northeast and hosted Chronoscope, a nationally broadcast interview show. He wrote his best-selling comic novel The Revolt of Mamie Stover, which told how a Honolulu prostitute amassed a fortune when the island was swamped with servicemen.

But Huie’s name became forever associated with controversy after he moved back to Hartselle and wrote about the murder of black teenager Emmett Till in Mississippi for Look magazine. Two white men had been acquitted in the slaying. Huie felt that the truth behind the shocking murder would never be revealed unless a journalist uncovered it. So he paid the men $4,000 dollars for their story. Since they could not be tried again for the murder, they were free to admit to it.

Many journalists and readers denounced Huie, saying that information paid for is suspect.

"A lot of people resent using informers," Huie said. "I don’t recommend it. I just don’t know any better way." Many times in his career he reminded his detractors that the FBI commonly paid for information.

Huie continued to pay for stories. In 1964 he wrote Three Lives For Mississippi when three civil rights workers were killed in that state. And in 1968 he caused an uproar when he paid James Earl Ray $40,000 for his story of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. Huie concluded that Ray, acting alone, had indeed committed the murder.

Huie’s prominent role in documenting the Civil Rights movement made him many enemies in Alabama. When his 1967 novel, The Klansman, unmasked the inner workings of the Ku Klux Klan, Huie defended himself with a shotgun as the local Klan burned a cross in his yard.

Huie’s book The Execution of Private Slovik was the most-watched television movie when it aired in 1975. It’s the story of the only American serviceman to be executed for cowardice and desertion in World War Two. Martin Sheen played the role of Eddie Slovik.

"I think that book, until In Cold Blood, was the best non-fiction reportage book that we’ve ever had, and I think it’s still one of the top two or three," says writer Wayne Greenhaw.

"I’ve always thought he was a courageous man and a champion of investigative journalism," says Larry Woods, who, as a reporter for TIME, covered the murders of the Mississippi Civil Rights workers.

Despite his many successes, Huie remained a controversial figure because of his checkbook journalism. His books were out of print when he died in 1986, although this fall The University of Alabama Press is re-printing his first novel, Mud on the Stars.

Don Noble, professor of English at the University of Alabama and co-producer of the program, says that Huie is an important literary figure.

"Huie’s reputation waned in the 80’s because the nation’s attention turned from the World War II to the Vietnam War, and the nation became exhausted with the Civil Rights struggle," says Noble. "A renewed interest in World War II and some breathing room and perspective on the Civil Rights movement will lead to a renewed interest in Huie and his two greatest subjects."

I’m In the Truth Business: William Bradford Huie was produced by Brent Davis of The University of Alabama Center for Public Television. The project was supported by a grant from the Alabama Humanities Foundation, a state program of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

[CCTAU 3,327]

Is it "crip" or "crib"?

[AURainman 6]

Did you take any classes because you new they were easy?

Irony.

POTD!

I've been pwned.

Thanks.