When I was writing for The Sportswriters on TV, I remember two stories about athletes being admitted, passed through classes, and even playing professional sports while being unable to read. The first one I remember was when former basketball player Kevin Ross told ESPN that he had attended Creighton University in the 1980s as a functional illiterate. That was followed in 1989, by the Congressional testimony of Washington Redskins All Pro defensive lineman Dexter Manley that he got through college and into the pros without ever learning to read.
No one should be naïve enough to believe that this is not still occurring, and earlier this week, CNN.com published a very long article detailing its investigation of public universities across the country, finding that many students in the basketball and football programs could read only up to an eighth-grade level; some to a third-grade level; others, not at all.
The story centers on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where learning specialist Mary Willingham details her experiences with athletes. She talks about athletes who couldn’t read at all, one who had problems with multisyllabic words like Wisconsin, and another who just wanted to learn to read enough so that he could read about himself in the news.
As a graduate student at UNC-Greensboro, Willingham researched the reading levels of 183 UNC-Chapel Hill athletes who played football or basketball from 2004 to 2012. She found that 60% read between fourth- and eighth-grade levels and another 8% and 10% read below a third-grade level. This means that approximately 70% of those athletes can read what you’re reading right now.
There was a scandal two years ago at UNC two years ago where a professor gave passing grades to students, many of them athletes, for classes they didn’t attend, and where they did nothing more than turn in a single paper. Last month, a grand jury indicted a professor on fraud charges accusing him of being paid $12,000 for a class he didn’t teach.
Ms. Willingham admits she took part in cheating, signing her name to forms that said she witnessed no NCAA rules violations when in fact she did, but the NCAA, the college sports organizing body, never interviewed her. Instead, it found no rules had been broken at Chapel Hill. Of course, the NCAA is working from three disadvantages: 1) the investigators are woefully understaffed; 2) the rules are voluminous and difficult to decipher, much less follow and to investigate; and 3) the NCAA is literally the fox guarding the hen house – policing its own member institutions. UNC now says 120 reforms put in place ensure there are no academic transgressions.
Of course, the reason is simple: NCAA sports are big business, generating billions of dollars for the schools, the conferences, and the NCAA itself. Also, test scores aren’t the be-all-and-end-all and other reasons could be to blame for the low scores. The article points out that some athletes don’t aim for high scores when taking entrance exams, looking only to score high enough to become NCAA eligible. Many times, low scores are indicators of learning disabilities.
Officials interviewed by CNN said they believe excellent tutoring and extra attention from academic support allows these athletes to excel off the field as well as on, and many cited the high graduation rates of athletes, but it’s expensive. Proper tutoring (not cheating) can shorten or even eliminate “the achievement gap” – the difference between the academic levels of the athletes and their nonathletic peers at the same university.
Unfortunately some of the universities from which CNN sought data didn’t even have remedial classes for student-athletes to attend. Often, athletes take the field before they even get to a classroom, and with the way the labor rules are for the professional leagues, many athletes consider college mandatory time they have to put in before becoming pros (see the list of underclassmen lining up to become eligible for the NFL Draft).
The story says to me that things are actually better than they were in Ross’ and Manley’s day. There is more transparency about scores and graduation rates for athletes especially in the “revenue” sports, so the universities have to may more than token lip service to educating athletes. Unfortunately, it is little more than lip service.
It is sad – these young men (mostly men) willingly line up to be pimped by coaches at many levels, agents, even family members for the opportunity to make a lot of money for a short period of time (if they make it, that is), and often they ex-athlete either disappears into a bad end (if they don’t play pro ball; or end up bankrupt a few years after their careers end. And many of them can’t read well enough to get a decent job.

The same week that CNN was posting its story on illiterate athletes allowed into colleges and universities, the University of Louisville showed that winning and the windfall of money that comes with it is all the school cares about.
The Louisville football program showed great improvement in the years 2003 to 2006 when they were coached by Bobby Petrino. The school tried to keep Petrino at the school despite his annual flirtation with the NFL and other schools. Then Louisville Athleteic Director Tom Jurich negotiated a 10-year contract extension only to watch Petrino leave for the NFL Atlanta Falcons six months later.
Louisville spent many years rebuilding its program which Petrino left the NFL in the middle of his first season for Arkansas. Louisville finally found a coach, Charlie Strong who brought them back to the post season only to see him leave recently for the University of Texas. Petrino led the Razorbacks to Top 10 BCS status, only to get fired after lying about his mistress who was on the back of his motorcycle when he had a traffic accident. If that wasn’t enough, Petrino had hired the young woman to the school’s staff. Not exactly someone who young men can look up to as a symbol of integrity.
As a result of Strong leaving; faced with finding yet another replacement, Tom Jurich vigorously scoured the coaching landscape and settled on, wait for it …. Bobby Petrino. Really? Have you no shame, Tom? No, of course he doesn’t. Jurich allowed Strong to keep ace recruiter Clint Hurtt on his staff even after the NCAA slapped the assistant with penalties for his involvement in the University of Miami/Nevin Shapiro scandal.
But Tom Jurich doesn’t care: the athletic department reportedly made a $29 million profit last academic year in part because the Cardinals’ men’s basketball team won a national championship, the football team won a BCS game, the women’s basketball team made an appearance in the national championship game and the baseball team went to the College World Series.
It’s good to see that at the University of Louisville, former Oakland Raider owner Al Davis’ motto lives on: “Just Win Baby.”

Long time readers have followed my complaints that the former progressive rock station WXRT in Chicago has become a shadow of its former self, to which station management thumbs their collective noses at complaints since they are very profitable, especially since they had not competition since WKQX became a news-only station, then a pop station targeted at women.
Well, WKQX is back. This morning, 101.1 FM returned to being an alternative rock station. The format change follows the announcement last week that Cumulus Media had taken over operations of WLUP-FM 97.9 (The Loop) and WIQI-FM 101.1 through a four-year local marketing agreement, with a firm option to buy the stations from current owner Merlin Media. As part of the deal, the alternative rock format airing on WKQX-FM 87.7, technically a low-power TV station that Merlin had been running through a local marketing agreement, migrated back to its former home on 101.1 FM. After simulcasting for 45 days, alternative will remain on 101.1 FM and 87.7 FM will revert to its owner, Los Angeles-based Venture Technologies Group, where it will be repurposed to another format, according to executives.
As I’ve said for a very long time, WXRT’s problem isn’t with the number and diversity of the artists they play; it’s that they play only the same 3-4 songs by any artist other then the Beatles and Stones. They have become alternative oldies radio station, playing artists that eventually end up on traditional pop stations like Lorde. Nothing against Lorde, but it’s not exactly rock and roll.
So, despite my friendship with a few of the WXRT DJs (who are not at fault), I will be glad to have a true alternative station who may introduce me to some new artists that aren’t’ the crappy mid-tempo boring bands being pushed by WXRT’s parent CBS records.

Yes, Dennis Rodman is an idiot. We’ve always known that. The only thing we can hope is that Kim Jong Un will keep The Worm in North Korea forever.
There was a scary report on The Huffington Post yesterday. According to the online news source. Adoph Hitler’s Mein Kampf is the top seller in Amazon’s Propaganda & Political psychology section, and 12th in the Politics & Current Events section of the iTunes e-book store. This has occurred as print sales, have remained stagnant; it hasn’t been on The New York Times’s nonfiction bestseller list since the year of its release.
The article gives reasons for the sudden surge in interest. First, the 99-cent Kindle version was released in January 2013.
Another theory, which also explains the overnight popularity of Fifty Shades of Grey, is that people are more prone to purchasing embarrassing titles on their e-readers than in print. The publisher of the 99 cent version asserts that the book is being purchased for academic reasons, stating, “With digital readers, no one faces the stigma of having a copy of Mein Kampf on their bookshelf or risks it being seen on a table and having visitors make false assumptions about their reasons for owning it. They can read it in the subway without fear of being mistaken for a racist just because they want to learn about history.”
I don’t know about that history argument. I am reading a German biography of Hitler by Joachim Fest and it is chilling how the mindset of the German people when Hitler came to power is eerily similar to the mindset of the current American Tea Party (and I’m not lightly throwing around the common act of comparing any politician you don’t agree with to Hitler, which is happening on both sides of the political spectrum).
Fortunately, there are several important differences between 21st Century America and 1932 Germany. Thank Goodness.

Happy New Year 2014. I hope everyone had happy holidays and that all of you are safe and warm. Even with the holidays, I hadn’t expected to be away from the beat for so long, but the hyper-cold weather prolonged the Indignant Children’s vacation, and despite the season, it has been a very busy time at work. So, to start things off, let’s get a list of the old stuff that I was thinking about while I was away….
• Of all the teams to lose to, why did the Bears have to lose to the g##damn Packers? But it was nice to see them eliminated the next week (which would have happened to the Bears in all probability if they had beaten the Packers…
• Another college football bowl season, another pathetic performance by the Big Ten. Seven teams make bowl games, a combined 2-5 record. Only the mediocre Nebraska and surprising Michigan State won their games; even the mighty Ohio State lost. I must say that Michigan State was a big surprise; I guess they really were good this year.
• If the bowl season is over, it is time for the flood of collegeans to announce that they are headed to the NFL. South Carolina Jadeveon Clowney didn’t even leave the field of the Gamecocks bowl game before announcing that he was leaving for the NFL. Of course, Texas A&M’s Johnny Manziel can now legally charge people for his autograph since he is leaving too, as expected.
• On the other side, with the season over, the ax has fallen on five head coaches in the NFL. So far, there are no superstar name coaches although Bill O’Brien leaving Penn State for the Houston Texans is a big deal. He turned the program around in Happy Valley after the child molestation scandal. Elsewhere, former Super Bowl winning head coach and ESPN analyst Jon Gruden’s brother Jay is now the head coach in Washington. Good luck dealing with Owner Dan Snyder, Jay. Finally, Tampa Bay hired former Bear top coach Lovie Smith. They will improve on defense immediately – their offense will suck. Same old Lovie.
• Congratulations to Greg Maddox and Frank Thomas on being voted to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Maddox was a couple of votes by morons away from being the first unanimous pick in history, and notice I said morons. Maddux was one of the best pitchers of all time: control rather than overpowering hitters; changing speeds; encyclopedic knowledge of the hitters and situations; and he was perhaps the best fielding pitcher in history. Plus he could even hit. Unfortunately, the Cubs chose not to resign him after his first Cy Young Award winning season and he went on to 11 glorious seasons in Atlanta. The worst move by the Cubs since Lou Brock for Ernie Broglio.
• On the South Side, Thomas had the best eye watching the pitch come in of any big man I’ve ever seen. Yes, Carew and George Brett and Tony Gwynn had extraordinary eyesight and could drive the ball, but Thomas had much more strike zone than any of the others. I have been harsh on Thomas over the years because he did have his childish tantrums, but he was one of the dominant hitters of his generation and is a worthy member of the Hall of Fame.
• Oh, and Tom Glavine was pretty damn good too. Congratulations to him as well.
• The Chicago Bulls traded Lual Deng to Cleveland for nothing (center Andrew Bynum who they waived before he could even catch a plane to O’Hare). Which is what the rest of this season appears to be – nothing.

With so many others listing their top CDs of the year, it is time to roll out mine. I know that you are supposed to limit your list to 10, but I have a couple of ties that makes my list actually 12, but hey, it’s my site, I don’t have to follow any rules.
As usual, there are a lot of old favorites in my list, but I must say that of the “usual suspects” many of them were stretching in their releases this year, which brought something new to their repertoire, and is always welcome. Let’s start:

10. (tie) Elton John – The Diving Board and Paul McCartney – New: in one case, we have an artist reaching back to his hey day and the other has him stretching forward. For Elton, a return to the piano/bass/drums format of the early 1970s, and while it wasn’t as catchy as the earlier material, the T-Bone Burnett produced CD stripped away a lot of the flourishes of Elton’s recent work.
It’s probably been decades since a Paul McCartney solo release appeared on my best of list, but there were some songs on the new CD that surprised me. “New” showed that the ex-Beatle had learned a lot from some of his non-solo projects with younger artists to have some real sonic differences from the “silly love songs” that have populated his earlier solo work. There is still some of that on “New” but not as much/
9. Arctic Monkeys – AM: the British band moved to LA this year, but once again put out some bright rock music. I have always followed this band and this year, they delivered again.
8. Vampire Weekend – Modern Vampires of the City: speaking of bands that I have followed since inception, VW followed up a mediocre second record with a song cycle that showed growth and maturity to go along with the polyrhythms the band is known for.
7. Buddy Guy – Rhythm and Blues: the double CD from the 77-year-old blues man was a solid addition to his catalog and featured some rousing guitar licks. The blues CD of the year.
6. Elvis Costello & The Roots – Wise Up Ghost: long time readers know that if there’s an EC release in a given year, it’s likely to be on my list. It was very good to hear Costello writing new lyrics and combining them with old lines to come up with a critique of the world of 2013. While ?uestlove is a tremendous drummer and the Roots are a fine band, I just couldn’t get fully into the bass and rhythm heavy music behind Costello. An interesting experiment that, along with the Allen Toussaint CD should bury Costello’s Ray Charles comment for good, but I couldn’t rate it higher than this.
5. (tie) Nine Inch Nails – Hesitation Marks and Gary Numan – Splinter (Songs From A Broken Mind): the reinvigorated Trent Reznor revived NIN and came out with a CD that was more restrained that earlier NIN releases. It was still very good, but not up to his previous release “The Slip.”
One of Reznor’s self-acknowledged influences is Numan who has gone through a multitude of problems since his chart topping days of the late 1970s/early 1980s. The new CD has more edge that the NIN CD, but is definitely in the same ball park. It is interesting to hear the heavy electronic music with Numan’s higher singing register.
4. Arcade Fire – Reflektor: the follow-up to “The Suburbs” isn’t as consistently excellent as its predecessor but there are some interesting songs on this double CD.
3. Richard Thompson – Electric: the folk legend puts away his acoustic guitar and straps on the power in another fine collection of songs with an edge of humor and sadness.
2. Pearl Jam – Lightning Bolt: while not exactly blazing new ground, PJ delivers a CD that was never far from my iPod. My annual list is generally based on what got the most personal play in a given year and Lightning Bolt got a lot of play from me.
1. David Bowie – The Next Day: the surprise that the apparently semi-retired Bowie had been working on a CD was fulfilled with a CD that worked like Bowie’s earlier material. Solid melodies with sci-fi lyrics marked the return of the Thin White Duke. Very well done.
So, that’s the list – on to next year!

Up to now, I’ve been one of the few people who have reserved final judgment on Dallas Cowboy quarterback Tony Romo. Even when he was dating Jessica Simpson and got into trouble for taking her to Mexico during a bye week, I’ve cut him a lot of slack.
Maybe it’s because he was unheralded when he entered the NFL, being from Eastern Illinois. Even though he ended up married to a former supermodel, he seems like a decent guy (although, you can’t really tell unless you’re on the Cowboy/NFL beat). I’ve always placed him in the “above average” quarterback category where the likes of Jay Cutler and Joe Flacco reside. Not in the “elite” category which has Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers, and Tom Brady.
In light of last Sunday’s collapse against the Packers, we have to now say that, as my friend Tony Swanagan says “he is nowhere near clutch.” With the Cowboys comfortably ahead, Romo threw two interceptions, the latter of which required a terrific catch by the Green Bay defender, but the question arises – if he was throwing it away, why didn’t Romo hurt the ball out of bounds, and if he was trying to get it to the receiver, make a better throw, or, with the lead, don’t throw to that guy.
With Romo, the Cowboys have become the professional version of my beloved Northwestern football team – can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory like no one else. Under different head coaches, offensive coordinators, receivers, linemen, one thing has been clear – Romo has a tendency of making poor decisions late in games. This season so far, Romo has thrown 29 touchdowns and only 9 pics for a QB rating of 95.6. This is one of the better rates in the league, but the team can’t take control of a winnable division with bad years from the Giants and Redskins, and an Eagle team with a new coach and quarterback issues. The Cowboys are languishing one game behind the Eagles at the definition of mediocre record of 7-7.
The coaching staff and Owner/GM Jerry Jones stand behind Romo, who is making $16 million this season, and football is the ultimate team game, but Romo seems to come apart at crucial times, trying to force throws that he doesn’t ordinarily. He should be learning from his mistakes, but that doesn’t seem to be happening.
It’s time to say that Romo is a bust in crunch time. With Jones’ notorious impatience, one has to ask how much longer Romo will get the opportunity.