Too damn many student athletes wearing skates

billhoward · March 30, 2007, 05:33:27 PM

Elsewhere on the forum (see Other Sports), there's grousing (he didn't get in) and cheers (Cornell's standards remain high) when a basketball prospect was denied admission. Like it's gonna make a difference: We'll win the Ivy hoops title one of these years and be a 15 seed that gets blown out instead of 16 seed that gets pummeled.

Maybe we've got the opposite problem at Lynah: Too many of the hockey players are attending class regularly and getting good grades. Sheesh, this never would have happened in my day. The nerve. And it's not just a couple guys, it's half the freaking team is smart.

[quote cornellbigred.com]10 Men's Hockey Players Named To ECACHL All-Academic Team. McCutcheon's third career honor highlights Cornellians on team. Senior Mitch Carefoot was one of 10 players named to the ECACHL All-Academic Team

March 29, 2007
ITHACA, N.Y. - The ECAC Hockey League released the annual All-Academic Teams on Thursday, with 10 Cornell men's hockey players among the 147 players honored by the league. Players are eligible for recognition on the All-Academic team if they carry a cumulative grade point average of at least 3.00 or have a grade point average of 3.00 or better over the last three semesters.

Senior forward Mark McCutcheon leads the 10 Cornellians on the team, earning the third award of his career at Cornell. McCutcheon, an applied economics and management major, is one of 13 players league-wide to be a three-time honoree.

Joining McCutcheon on the All-Academic team are fellow seniors Mitch Carefoot (biological sciences), Matt Hedge (applied economics and management) and Evan Salmela (applied economics and management). All four members of Cornell's junior class were named to the team, with Chris Fontas (applied economics and management), Doug Krantz (hotel management), Raymond Sawada (human biology) and Topher Scott (sociology) each earning their first honors.

Rounding out the honorees for the Big Red are sophomore Dan DiLeo (sociology) and freshman Colin Greening (economics).

Cornell finished the 2006-07 season with a 14-13-4 overall record and was fourth in the ECAC Hockey League. The Big Red earned a bye into the quarterfinals of the league tournament for the fifth consecutive season, the only school across the league to do so.[/quote] -- http://cornellbigred.cstv.com/sports/m-hockey/spec-rel/032907aaa.html

ithacat · March 30, 2007, 05:43:46 PM

Here's the list:


RPI        22
Brown      20
Harvard    14
Quinnipiac 14
Princeton  13
SLU        13
Union      12
Cornell    10
Colgate     8
Dartmouth   8
Yale        7
Clarkson    6

French Rage · March 30, 2007, 05:53:06 PM

How can a Brown student have above a 3.0? Aren't they pass/fail?

ugarte · March 30, 2007, 05:56:45 PM

[quote ithacat]Here's the list:


RPI        22
Brown      20
Harvard    14
Quinnipiac 14
Princeton  13
SLU        13
Union      12
Cornell    10
Colgate     8
Dartmouth   8
Yale        7
Clarkson    6

[/quote]
Looks like Cornell benefits from not having too many players trying to get on the list.

KeithK · March 30, 2007, 05:59:18 PM

RPI has 22 players on the list? I want to be impressed at the academic commitment of the Engineer players/coaches. But with 22 of 26 qualifying with 3.0 GPA or better I just can't help but suspect something is going on. Man, I'm cynical.

Brown has 20 of 27, but it's common knowledge that Brown grades are bullshit.

redhair34 · March 30, 2007, 06:02:20 PM

[quote KeithK]RPI has 22 players on the list? I want to be impressed at the academic commitment of the Engineer players/coaches. [/quote]

IIRC, they had about that many on the list last year.

KeithK · March 30, 2007, 06:22:09 PM

[quote French Rage]How can a Brown student have above a 3.0? Aren't they pass/fail?[/quote]
Nope: http://www.brown.edu/Administration/Registrar/grading.html

QuoteGrade Option

In most courses a student may, in consultation with the advisor, elect to be graded on a basis of either Satisfactory/No Credit or A,B,C/No Credit. ...

No Credit

No Credit is given when courses are not satisfactorily completed. Neither the notation No Credit nor the description of the course in which it is given are entered on the transcript.

The bullshit factor comes from the italicized sentence (emph. added). A brown student can fail classes and it'll never show up on his record.

mtmack25 · March 30, 2007, 06:35:57 PM

As a former AEM major, I will say that the players who are AEM majors are more likely to carry a 3.0 or better, and they should be. As a TA I had contact with many players and I can say that they were very intelligent and capable students. Actually, they were some of the best students to have in class. I think Schafer really rides them about school work.

Swampy · March 30, 2007, 06:40:54 PM

[quote KeithK]RPI has 22 players on the list? I want to be impressed at the academic commitment of the Engineer players/coaches. But with 22 of 26 qualifying with 3.0 GPA or better I just can't help but suspect something is going on. Man, I'm cynical.

Brown has 20 of 27, but it's common knowledge that Brown grades are bullshit.[/quote]

It would be helpful to know what the average GPA is at the respective schools. Also, to know what the average GPA is for the student's college and major.

KeithK · March 30, 2007, 07:07:17 PM

[quote Swampy][quote KeithK]RPI has 22 players on the list? I want to be impressed at the academic commitment of the Engineer players/coaches. But with 22 of 26 qualifying with 3.0 GPA or better I just can't help but suspect something is going on. Man, I'm cynical.

Brown has 20 of 27, but it's common knowledge that Brown grades are bullshit.[/quote]

It would be helpful to know what the average GPA is at the respective schools. Also, to know what the average GPA is for the student's college and major.[/quote]
Yep.

Most of the RPI players are Management majors. Only a small handful of the Engineers are really engineers (and even fewer if you don't count "Industrial and Management Engineering"). I do see two "real" engineers, one math major and one bio major on their all-academic list. Since I feel like dropping the cynicism for a bit I will take it for granted that the RPI Management major is not basket weaving and be pleased that the RPI (non-)Engineers are keeping up the ECAC's tradition of academic excellence. :-)

jkahn · March 30, 2007, 07:33:34 PM

[quote billhoward] Too many of the hockey players are attending class regularly and getting good grades. Sheesh, this never would have happened in my day. [/quote]
I've got to defend the guys from my era here. We can start with Ken Dryden, who reportedly was in the 3.6-3.7 range as a History majory, and this was when 2.90 to 4.30 represented the top quartile according to the info that went to grad schools with my transcript. And while we on the subject of goalies, Ned's other team starred Butch Hilliard in goal, arguably the best lacrosse goalie ever, an Engineering Physics major with a 3.9. Butch was my dorm counselor second semester of my freshman year. There were plenty of other hockey players on those '69 and '70 teams who did well academically too. John Hughes got an MBA and JD, Brian Cornell went on to run Cooper & Lybrand's Boston office, Ed Ambis (as I hear in the ads during the games) is a dentist and there are plently of successful others. Bob Zimmerman, who was a freshman in '69-'70 and played only briefly as a sophomore, ranked #1 in the Ag school at some point. I remember seeing him reading Gulliver's Travels during a varsity game at Lynah his freshman year and kidding him about it afterward.

billhoward · March 30, 2007, 08:35:43 PM

[quote jkahn][quote billhoward] Too many of the hockey players are attending class regularly and getting good grades. Sheesh, this never would have happened in my day. [/quote]
I've got to defend the guys from my era here. We can start with Ken Dryden, who reportedly was in the 3.6-3.7 range as a History majory, and this was when 2.90 to 4.30 represented the top quartile according to the info that went to grad schools with my transcript. And while we on the subject of goalies, Ned's other team starred Butch Hilliard in goal, arguably the best lacrosse goalie ever, an Engineering Physics major with a 3.9. Butch was my dorm counselor second semester of my freshman year. There were plenty of other hockey players on those '69 and '70 teams who did well academically too. John Hughes got an MBA and JD, Brian Cornell went on to run Cooper & Lybrand's Boston office, Ed Ambis (as I hear in the ads during the games) is a dentist and there are plently of successful others. Bob Zimmerman, who was a freshman in '69-'70 and played only briefly as a sophomore, ranked #1 in the Ag school at some point. I remember seeing him reading Gulliver's Travels during a varsity game at Lynah his freshman year and kidding him about it afterward.[/quote]
Next, Mister Class of '70, you're going to say nobody rolled a doob in your four years on the hill, either. The thread was actually meant tongue in cheek but I hate using emoticons and figure, what the heck, some people will read it seriously, but okay ...

Let me rephrase and clarify the initial post with all seriousness and jealousy: It is humbling, was humbling, and probably will be humbling, to see other males at Cornell who can propel a hockey puck at 100 mph (or get a glove on same), carry a full course load, and date better looking women weekly than I probably even talked to in my four years. Then on top of it, half of them are carrying a GPA well above 3.0 and in a couple cases did things I never dreamed of, like get into Yale Med. Or go to law school and then have a daughter who wins a gold medal.

jkahn · March 30, 2007, 09:14:40 PM

Bill- I'm just reacting to your "never would have happened in my day" comment. I'm proud as hell of what the recent guys have done both on and off the ice.

ursusminor · March 30, 2007, 10:05:46 PM

[quote KeithK]RPI has 22 players on the list? I want to be impressed at the academic commitment of the Engineer players/coaches. But with 22 of 26 qualifying with 3.0 GPA or better I just can't help but suspect something is going on. Man, I'm cynical.

Brown has 20 of 27, but it's common knowledge that Brown grades are bullshit.[/quote] Actually, RPI has 22 of 24 eligible players on that list. Of the 26 on the roster, one left in midseason, and one, Bill Neubert, played too little to be eligible. This is the most ever because I don't think that Freshmen used to make the list.

Grade inflation has gone amok.

marty · March 30, 2007, 10:35:36 PM

[quote KeithK][quote Swampy][quote KeithK]RPI has 22 players on the list? I want to be impressed at the academic commitment of the Engineer players/coaches. But with 22 of 26 qualifying with 3.0 GPA or better I just can't help but suspect something is going on. Man, I'm cynical.

Brown has 20 of 27, but it's common knowledge that Brown grades are bullshit.[/quote]

It would be helpful to know what the average GPA is at the respective schools. Also, to know what the average GPA is for the student's college and major.[/quote]
Yep.

Most of the RPI players are Management majors. Only a small handful of the Engineers are really engineers (and even fewer if you don't count "Industrial and Management Engineering"). I do see two "real" engineers, one math major and one bio major on their all-academic list. Since I feel like dropping the cynicism for a bit I will take it for granted that the RPI Management major is not basket weaving and be pleased that the RPI (non-)Engineers are keeping up the ECAC's tradition of academic excellence. :-)[/quote]

Dan Peace* Jr. Electrical Engineering
Ryan Swanson* Sr. Chemical Engineering

Note Dan is the son of Dave Peace '75 (who was a regular on the dean's list at CU) and his sister just graduated from Cornell and is headed to U of Michigan Law School.