Did we not learn anything from Flunkgate?

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JTS

JTS

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"We would have probably been able to look at some things to help them a little bit better down toward the end of the semester if we realized they were in this situation," Gailey said.

We don't even know that our starting QB and one of our best defenders are on the brink academic ineligibility. Don't get me wrong here, the ultimate responsibilty lies with the players themselves. We have a tough school guys will flunk out, but to not be aware of the situation just smacks of the same issues that led to flunkgate. How could we not be aware of the situation? We could have pulled these guys out of practice to give them more study time or any number of things.

Did we not learn anything?
 
JTS said:
"We would have probably been able to look at some things to help them a little bit better down toward the end of the semester if we realized they were in this situation," Gailey said.
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When I read the article in the AJC, I was also pretty surprised by the CCG quote. It certainly could have been taken out of context in the scope of an entire interview, but it sounds like the football program is once again complacent with the academic performance of its SA's.
 
Ever since Bobby Ross, I know there is some monitoring of attendance for football players. However, after 3+ years of experience in the program, I would imagine that players are cut some slack and trusted to come for needed help. The profs are also contacted to see how SA's are doing. Unfortunately, too much of the grade comes down to finals and end of semester projects or term papers.

I know when I was at GT, Scott Aldredge and John Porter tried to get me to use the tutors for an English class that we were taking. Apparently, it didn't help John because he flunked out the next year and transferred to Clark Atlanta University.

It's the old horse and water story. The resources are available for assistance and attendance/progress are monitored. My guess is that the players thought they would be eligible until the next semester started and had no intention of graduating from Tech. Thus, what's the point to completing school work. It would be nice if we knew that the AA and coaching staff were pushing the players on academics, but I doubt that they will come out at this point and say it, citing confidentiality rules in academics. The two were experienced starters/students and short of suspending them from the team, there wasn't much that could be done until it was a fait accompli. If they were underclassmen, Chan could pull scholarships, prepare other starters, or mandate tutoring as a stipulation to remaining on the team.

Also, don't compare it to flunkgate, where we used ineligible players. Those controls appear to be in place as this and the Tarver situation have verified. As far as the 0 for the graduation rate, I would suspect that it would have been the result in the end anyway.
 
it is further proof that GT is not going to give a kid an unearned piece of paper no matter how many games he starts.

When you consider the attrition rate of non-athletes it would be more suspicious if you did not have a couple every year.

I assure you this is not a problem at Ohio State(see post where their credits would not transfer to ANY school) and numerous other schools.
 
law_bee said:
it is further proof that GT is not going to give a kid an unearned piece of paper no matter how many games he starts.
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Tell that to the NCAA that slapped us with probation for allowing athletes to play who were ineligible.
 
GT1992 said:
Also, don't compare it to flunkgate, where we used ineligible players.
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I thiink you are cofusing flunkgate and probation.

It does compare with flunkgate where 10 (or was it 11) players flunked out of school or faild to make sufficiently academic progress to remain eligible.

Probation resulted from using ineligible players.
 
Geetee said:
Tell that to the NCAA that slapped us with probation for allowing athletes to play who were ineligible.
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whats that got to do with them not getting a degree? Didn't the scum up the road in Athens let a player who had flunked out play in a Jan 1 bowl game a few years ago?
 
Flunkgate happened because Braine knew the NCAA was hot on our trail and we had to burn the 10 ineligible kids to the ground. In the old system, we would've just made their eligibility problems "disappear." Most of them anyway.
 
Flunkgate happened because Braine knew the NCAA was hot on our trail and we had to burn the 10 ineligible kids to the ground.
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This is 1000% false. Flunkgate happened because when Chan was on his way in, someone (possibly Braine) decided that they'd take some work off of his plate by assigning someone else (Carol Moore) to handle monitoring the academics for the football team, without realizing that Carol Moore is an EVIL HAG WHO HATES FOOTBALL, HATES STUDENTS, AND HATES HER LIFE.

Seriously. Carol Moore tried to have my wife kicked out of Tech when she was there, for having answers too similar to someone else in her CS1501 class. Bitch.

After flunkgate, Chan resumed control of monitoring the academics of the football team, a job that OLeary always did himself. Significant changes to the academic monitoring process were made after flunkgate.

So yeah, JT, we did learn something from flunkgate, and we mostly fixed the problem. But you already knew that.
 
I think a lot of people are missing the point here. It's not that they are ineligible or even why they are ineligible. It's that our staff was completely unaware of this possibility given the potential impact it could have our preparation and on field performance. We are not talking about backups here. If you going to be a hawk about anyone's grades, it will be your starting QB's.

I don't see how this could have snuck up on us either as some have suggested. We are talking about senior level Management courses here not E-Mag. I find it difficult to believe that any well prepared student even a football player could drop from a high C grade to failing in one of these courses. I am left to believe that they either:

A. had low C or worse grades going into the final

B. that they just did not prepare for the test and got a ridiculously low grade (sub-50)

C. they did not show up for the exam at all

In the unlikely event that the players did all the prep work and then just decided not to show up for the exam, I can see why the coaches would be caught by surprise, but otherwise they should have known that there was a problem. If they had, they could have put the student's academic concerns ahead of football practice and put the team in a better position to be ready to compete.

Once again I will reiterate, it's not that they are ineligible. It's that we were completely caught by surprise and unprepared for this contingency that really bugs me.
 
beej67 said:
Seriously. Carol Moore tried to have my wife kicked out of Tech when she was there, for having answers too similar to someone else in her CS1501 class. Bitch.
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I had a similar experience with Carol Moore. I failed out as a frosh, came back and had to maintain a certain GPA to stay in school so that when I graduated, I would have a passing average. Well, I ended up doing very well and had my GPA above a 2.0 within no time. A year or so down the road 1 qtr AFTER making my first Dean's List, I made a 2.0 average on 10 hours (Hey, I partied down that quarter). My overall GPA was like a 2.6, but that bitch tried to have me kicked out for coming in that qtr below a 2.2. I told her to go f*ck herself and the Dean of MGT at the time got involved and told her about the same.

That woman has no earthly business around an education system of young minds.
 
JTS said:
It's not that they are ineligible or even why they are ineligible. It's that our staff was completely unaware of this possibility given the potential impact it could have our preparation and on field performance.
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Dude, trust me. The staff was completely aware.
 
beej67 said:
After flunkgate, Chan resumed control of monitoring the academics of the football team
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If this is the case, then explain Chan's quote in the original message. Straight from the horse's mouth, he admits to being unaware of the problem and consequently not taking all the steps possible to help correct the problem because of the oversight.

We are talking about star-level performers here. If the HC is completely unaware issues with these players, what does it say about the monitoring of the other players?
 
BarrelORum said:
Dude, trust me. The staff was completely aware.
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Then why didn't Gailey say "We were aware of the situation and did everything that we could to help them. Unfortunately, things did not work out the way we wanted."

Instead of

"We would have probably been able to look at some things to help them a little bit better down toward the end of the semester if we realized they were in this situation," Gailey said.
 
JTS, that may be true for Gailey, but I guarantee you there were people on the staff who were all over Reggie. Kenny Scott on the other hand sounds like someone who was never an issue and then fell through the cracks.

These kids each have their own advisee that reports to the coaching staff. Unless the advisee just totally failed to do his job which is possible but doubtful, then there were at least 2 people (advisee and a coach) who were aware of the situation.
 
That's it in a "nutshell", Gailey was caught by surprise. Just because they were seniors and trusted to do the work does not mean they are going to do it. IMO it's squarely on the head of Gailey and Radakovich should read Gailey the riot act and let him know one more screw up and he's out! No excuse for not knowing that 2 starters were having difficulty.
 
I understand that he delegates, but why would the coach not report the situation to Gailey?

What does it say about the system if the HC is so far out of the loop that he does not know that his starting QB and star-CB are not making grades?

Why would Gailey say such a thing if it were untrue or he was so poorly informed about the situation when it only makes us look worse?
 
I don't disagree with you there. I just don't buy the fact that this escaped notice by someone close to the program. I've seen the way it works and that was before the system was "improved", so I cannot imagine someone NOT knowing.

If Gailey didn't know about it, someone sure as hell did. But to suggest its squarely on DRad and Gailey like yellowbritches suggested is just retarded. Its called accountability and last I checked a 22 year old is plenty old enough to be held accountable in this world.

I also imagine both those players had people all over them and ignored it. You guys think that Reggie and Kenny were off in la la land without having anyone on their case about their grades. I guarantee you that didn't happen. I imagine that both of them were instructed repeatedly to get their act together and they still didn't.

Which is probably why Kenny's dad puts full responsiblity on Kenny Scott. If it happened any other way don't you think his own dad would raise some hell? Think about it.
 
JTS said:
Then why didn't Gailey say "We were aware of the situation and did everything that we could to help them. Unfortunately, things did not work out the way we wanted."

Instead of

"We would have probably been able to look at some things to help them a little bit better down toward the end of the semester if we realized they were in this situation," Gailey said.
Click to expand...
How do you know what the entire quote was or the context of the statement. You have to understand that the media use the soundbites and quotes that fit the intent and meaning for the paragraph and article. If the entire quote or the entire stream of consciousness doesn't fit or help prove a point then they just chuck it.

Understand as well that it is entirely possible that the kids were not being totally forthcoming about their progress.

I'm not suggesting that the coaches don't at least have to keep on top of where kids are academically in general. I think it wasn't a particularly good quote either but I think our coaches have always known who is close to flunking out and who isn't and have always had contingency plans for this.
 
I'd also like to know what Gailey was trying to get across in his statements. Maybe what he's saying is they thought they had it addressed? Part of the issue is that we shouldn't know exactly what went down because it's none of our business. The academic progress of SAs is private between them, their guidance counselors, GTAA, etc. It's not something that should be on a message board or in the paper.

That said, I've seen enough comments from "people who know somebody" to think that Reggie may have simply not finished the semester. Whether that means didn't take the exams or just didn't prepare I don't know. But it feels that way given all the smoke.
 
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