GT Needs TO Make A Commitment

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Kennesawkid

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I heard an interview with Carl Franks on the radio today and he spoke of the commitment Duke has made to having a top flight football program. He only spoke of a $25 million building, but Duke has also made a commitment to let football have the same academic offerings as basketball has had for years. Couple that with Duke's 95% student retention rate and they are going to succeed. We are entering a new era at Tech with he new NCAA academic guidelines, I call it the "Football factory relief act". SATs are out and SA's must complete 20% of degree requirements in one year, 40% in two years, etc. If Tech sticks to its age old practice of flunking out a third of the regular students, they will probably flunk out 50% of the SA's, who must compete with 1350 SATs and practice 30 hours a week. None of the other football playing schools in Division 1A match these academic restrictions. We have to get realistic and bring Tech into the 21st Century with the rest of the country. I know some of you are going to run screaming "Don't lower our standards" and "Tech has always had these standards and had athletic excellence". The fact is they have never faced these NCAA requiremnents for progress and a total lack of SAT restrictions on our opponants, along with our raised SATs for athletes. I thought our $70 million stadium expansion was a commitment, and it was. But if The Hill will not cut any slack( and I don't means crip degrees) on academics, we are dead. We need to have some majors that don't require calculus for instance. I made a B in calculus, but a lot of people have trouble with this useless course. We need to get away from the 66% student retention rate. I know of one kid who had an 85 average in a course and got an F due to grading on the curve. That thinking has to go! Tech also requires a 2.0 GPA for elegibility and the NCAA reqiures 1.8. We are also the only school to double count Fs if a student fails a course.
We need for Clough to give a commitment to athletics or he and others need to go. They need to get rid of a few now, such as Braine, Carol Moore, Bob Thomas, and Larry New. The stadium will not do our program any good if we can't keep players in school.
And don't suggest we just go to a lower division. I have given a lot of time and money over the last 35 years supporting this program and many other have given enough to make mine look like a drop in the bucket. It would be totally wrong to throw away something that means so much to so many. What truly has made Tech a special place is the fact that we have had a good mixture of athletics and academics. I don't want to become an MIT.
 
Amen Brother!.....Agree with everything you said except I have nothing against Coach New. He's an old-school football coach and he's been through the wars. There is no middle ground regarding this academic thing. Either we get in there with the Auburns, FSU's, ugag, etc and recruit kids who can play, or we turn into another Duke or Vandy. Stanford is on the left coast,....were in God's Country and there is ZERO reason to attempt to model our athletic program after that bunch. There's plenty of kids in places like Thomasville, Jefferson, Alma, Manchester, Toccoa, Albany and Americus as well as in the City that we need to be going after. Let's get these kids on Campus and then do the best job on the Planet in terms of support. And if this means walking them to class each and every day, well, so be it.

The shame of this whole situation is seeing the remarkable progress we had made under Coach O'Leary just going down the drain. As a true Tech football fan, it just tears your heart out and stomps it flat. Feels like were taking a knife to a gun fight and the bad thing is, were our own worst enemy.

GATA JACKETS!
 
Nice First Post....

In order:

1. Dook's commitment is to give Franks 5-8 bball-type admits vs. his previous 2-4
2. Nice bldg. Vandy has had the same thing for 3 years.

3. Tech's Academics: Unfortunately the GTAA rarely puts male athletes into the Ivan Allen College. Here is the URL, Please click and read Tell me if these courses are significantly easier the CoSci and COE.

4.The Hill: The pendulum will swing, it always does. As soon as FB hits 55-60%, "they" will back off. Amazingly, I can't remember anyone in those offices who were brazenly against DI sports.
Anyone with a title and an office in Tech Tower was fairly neutral on sports. However, the "changes" were the result of the AJC nailing O'Leary's grad rates two years in a row, when those players were left from the prior regime.
Remember Tommy Lugenbill...he didn't finish at Tech.

5: Calculus: Math for Management is not Calculus
However math is ridiculously difficult for 70% of America's youth, because those who can do math, can't afford to live life as a teacher.
Don't Complain to Tech, complain to your local school board. This is the case even in swanky Cobb country. Most Teachers weren't brilliant students, they just care about kids.

6. MIT: We're already not. Our base of students isn't wonderfully prepared, because Southerners are far too complacent with respect to education.
If most of our school boards had their way, public schools would be equivalent to vocational schools. Coach Dodd once said that if Tech were in the Middle of Pennsylvania, he would never have trouble recruiting. Seems to have worked for Paterno...he even outlasted Dodd.

I think you were just venting, but Tech's in a competitive hole, not systemic. The worm will turn.
 
Originally posted by Driver8:
were in God's Country and there is ZERO reason to attempt to model our athletic program after that bunch. There's plenty of kids in places like Thomasville, Jefferson, Alma, Manchester, Toccoa, Albany and Americus

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<font size="2" face="Arial, Verdana, Sans-Serif">D8

THAT's the problem.

Those towns and those high schools are horrible academically. They've provided the same education for 40 years. Many of them have no industry to generate taxes to pay for fundamental educational improvements.

I love visiting South Ga. but outside of Albany, Macon, and Savannah. The region is barely past the days of sharecropping. The workforce isn't well-educated enough for businessess to take advantage of the low tax rates.

It's a vicious cycle. No money to improve education, no educations means no workforce, no workforce means no businesses, no businesses means no money.

Tech would do better to recruit primarily in metropolitan suburbs. Our kids should come from the Brookwoods, Parkviews, Stephensons, SW Dekalbs, of every major city.

We will always lose the battle for the kid who has only his athletic ability going for him. Because Auburn, UGa, BAMA are set up to get him to the Next Level..not his own business.
 
Originally posted by GTg8r:


2. Nice bldg. Vandy has had the same thing for 3 years.
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<font size="2" face="Arial, Verdana, Sans-Serif">Yes, but we've only had a coach capable of taking advantage of it for one of those years.

Nonetheless, I appreciate GTg8r's take on all this and hope it's correct. I hate to see the opinion prevail that GT needs to sell out and just be another Southern football factory; we have enough of those in so-called "college" football.
 
KennesawKid, great and the most informed post in the history of this board. This is just exactly what I have TRIED to put in words on other post, but I guess I just couldn't convey my message well enough. YOU HAVE HIT THE MARK!!
 
I think any new degree programs have to be approved by the Board of Regents, and that might be difficult. I've often thought that if GT had a degree in Education with an emphasis on math and science it would be easier on the athletes and fulfill a genuine need in the high schools.
 
I agree with the need to hit the Metro area in terms of recruiting, but we've got to come down out of the Ivory Tower if we are serious about winning football games. Sure, were going to to have to go the extra mile once we get these kids on campus, but we are finished if we don't recruit players first. Adhere to NCAA standards, give our players the resources and help they might need and then go after the ACC crown and beyond. The state of Georgia plays some of the best HS ball in the country. Sure, ugag will always get their haul, but it steams me to think we can only target the 1200 SAT kid here and there in-state. That's BS,...were losing too many players and WAY TOO MANY GAMES.

GATA JACKETS!
 
Originally posted by Kennesawkid:
We need to have some majors that don't require calculus for instance. I made a B in calculus, but a lot of people have trouble with this useless course. We need to get away from the 66% student retention rate. I know of one kid who had an 85 average in a course and got an F due to grading on the curve. That thinking has to go! Tech also requires a 2.0 GPA for elegibility and the NCAA reqiures 1.8. We are also the only school to double count Fs if a student fails a course.
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<font size="2" face="Arial, Verdana, Sans-Serif">Here are some other good ideas: lets drop the word Technology from the name of the school, or how about we ask the "real" world to make it easier to succeed since we don't like competition , or better yet we change the laws of engineering and physics so we don't have to learn some useless stuff like calculus. Look I want our football program to succeed as much as any other person, but the primary purpose of the school is not to provide us entertainment on Saturday. It is to produce engineers and managers that lead in business and the scientific communities. There was a reason the President put Dr. Clough on the Homeland Defense Commitee, there is a reason the Defense Department spends millions on research grants to our school. It is because of these standards that Tech is renowned throughout the world.

Yes, the NCAA rules put Tech at a huge disadvantage but there are majors at Tech for athletes or any other student that do not want a management or engineering degree. By the way, I doubt it was Mangement Math that caused most of those kids to fail out. If we could allow athletes to joint enroll, I like the education major idea with Georgia State or Emory. But as much as we would love to add a Lesiure Services major to our curriculum, the Board of Regents ain't gonna allow it to happen.
 
Originally posted by Wrecked:
There was a reason the President put Dr. Clough on the Homeland Defense Commitee, there is a reason the Defense Department spends millions on research grants to our school.
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<font size="2" face="Arial, Verdana, Sans-Serif">dude, this is a sports board, why are you talking about anything else?!?!

wink.gif
 
Originally posted by Driver8:
I agree with the need to hit the Metro area in terms of recruiting, but we've got to come down out of the Ivory Tower if we are serious about winning football games. Sure, were going to to have to go the extra mile once we get these kids on campus, but we are finished if we don't recruit players first. Adhere to NCAA standards, give our players the resources and help they might need and then go after the ACC crown and beyond. The state of Georgia plays some of the best HS ball in the country. Sure, ugag will always get their haul, but it steams me to think we can only target the 1200 SAT kid here and there in-state. That's BS,...were losing too many players and WAY TOO MANY GAMES.

GATA JACKETS!
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<font size="2" face="Arial, Verdana, Sans-Serif">PREFACE: I don't hate S.Ga. I love Albany, Ocilla, Fitzgerald, Brunswick, Dublin, Donalsonville and Thomaville.
However, I do not believe Tech can be a consistent football program depending on kids from the State of Georgia. Our future lies in the best Student-Athletes from Fla., Ga., Tex., and Pa.

I think you misread that part of my post.
I don't think Tech can consistently take kids from S. Ga. only because of how deficient their schools are.

There are maybe 50 D-I football players in S.Ga. that have the mindset and discipline to really suceed at Tech. However, I think that recruiting the suburbs of every major metropolitan area in the nation will give us the unique combination of Athletic and Academic ability.

In many ways, the institute has outgrown it's state. From 1889-1990, there was a significant need in the state to supply manufacturing leadership..thus Tech was "a great football team with a damn good regional engineering school"

I think we've outgrown that label and most of the "other Georgia"

Don't worry, UGA is headed that way too. Most of their student body has started to come from Cobb and Gwinnett with smatterings of the other Georgia counties.

Let's just hope Adams stays another 5 years.
 
To Wrecked: I don't think we need to drop the name "Tech" just because we offer some degrees that don't require calculus, no would we turn out fewer business leaders if we dropped calculus. We do have majors already that don't need calculus, but require it. I majored in Industrial Management and have never needed it since making an A on my final exam in calculus. I actually think we would turn out many more leaders by not requiring it in every major, just by the fact we would graduate many future leaders who would otherwise have flunked out. I do know that before calculus was added as a requirement in the mid 1950's, Tech was about the best thing ging in college football, and they were turning out a lot of leaders that are still active today.
 
I apologize Kid, I misinterpreted your post. I thought you were advocating dropping calculus period, not just for management majors. Still, I don't think the calculus requirement is the one academic sticking point with our football program. Simply put, Tech's admission standards are rising and the football players are not as qualified academically as the regular students. Obviously we had a system in place to help alleviate this problem (and it is returning) but we still could do more. I think several classes in remedial math, and english should be set up (not just one) to help all academic special admits adjust to school. Also, you are correct, a student retaking a class they failed should be allowed to replace that grade with the new one. Even the service academies allow that.

I feel your pain. The 50's was a great time to be a Tech fan, but as long as college football requires the kids to be students of the school, Tech is going to have this problem.
 
I still don't get the complaints about us only targeting football players with 1200 SATs. While we would love to have kids with those scores I don't think you'll find many on our team. The real point to all of this is finding those kids who can do the work and actually graduate from Tech and who can also play big time football. It's not all about SATs but it's about interests, motivation, and the willingness to do the work. Unfortunately for Tech, we will never (I hope) provide a place where a kid can go to school for 5 years, screw off and basically major in football. They will have to take real classes and work towards a real degree. But we're not unique in that, just in our limited curriculum. If the Board of Regents will allow reasonable expansion of our offering, I'm all for it. But until/unless they do, we have to take care in our recruiting to make sure there is a reason for the kids we're after to go to Tech. I have no problem with taking kids with 850 SATs if the coaches have evidence from the HS, pastors, parents, or whoever, that the kid is the kind who can and will buckle down and do the work. Once they are in, we have to put the resources in place to help them succeed.

As for the comments on Duke, they will help marginally. But Duke will not make major changes academically for their football team. As someone already said, it could mean 3-4 more recruits a year. That's not nothing, but if the kids they choose don't succeed I guarantee they'll go back to their old standards.

BTW, I'm not sure we're as unique as we think in our math requirements. My daughter just finished her freshman year at MD but when we were going through orientation with her the main concern for almost all the kids and their parents was the math placement tests. MD does have a math requirement (not sure if it's calculus) for all majors. My daughter placed out due to her SATs, but otherwise she would have taken at least 1 semester, and she's a music performance major.
 
The shame of this whole situation is seeing the remarkable progress we had made under Coach O'Leary just going down the drain. As a true Tech football fan, it just tears your heart out and stomps it flat. Feels like were taking a knife to a gun fight and the bad thing is, were our own worst enemy.

GATA JACKETS![/qb]
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<font size="2" face="Arial, Verdana, Sans-Serif">If I'm not mistaken O'Liar had a losing record without the Fridge so who built Tech back to national prominance the Fridge or O'Liar? O'Liar may have set the stage but it was the Fridge who made it happen.
 
If we could develop an articulation agreement with Georgia State on producing a sports management degree, where the sa takes most of their work from GT, but takes a significant amout from GSU, then we could do without a special curriculum from GT for athletes. However, even this degree would require approval from the board of regents, which IMO will never happen in our state which is bent on protecting Ugag.
 
Originally posted by oldfoggy:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Arial, Verdana, Sans-Serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Arial, Verdana, Sans-Serif">

The shame of this whole situation is seeing the remarkable progress we had made under Coach O'Leary just going down the drain. As a true Tech football fan, it just tears your heart out and stomps it flat. Feels like were taking a knife to a gun fight and the bad thing is, were our own worst enemy.

GATA JACKETS!
Click to expand...
<font size="2" face="Arial, Verdana, Sans-Serif">If I'm not mistaken O'Liar had a losing record without the Fridge so who built Tech back to national prominance the Fridge or O'Liar? O'Liar may have set the stage but it was the Fridge who made it happen.[/QB]</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Arial, Verdana, Sans-Serif">The overall program was George's. He hired Fridge and that was good - let's give this man his accomplishments. He took on the challenge to come back here and rebuild a rubbled program. Your assistants are your bread and butter - Ross had O'Leary and Fridgen, O'Leary had Friedgen -good thing for both! Good HC's hire good/great assistants, all the time!
 
let me jump in at this point and state unequivocally that O'Leary was great for Tech.

O'Leary was great for Tech and Tech was great for O'Leary. It was sad to see him leave. He did leave on a sour note after a mediocre season which had really high expectations.

The resume thing really came into picture because of ND. Had O'Leary not left Tech, he would not have been tarnished because of that.

O'Leary did accomplish great things at Tech, granted with the Fridge as his OC. they were a great team and it was sad to lose them both.

We have moved on now. Support who's here. If he fails .. Tech fails. If he succeeds .. Tech succeeds. If he does fail .. he will be replaced.
 
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