TL;DR - Player was injured, coaches/doctors told him to play, when he said no, they threatened to yank his scholly. Other allegations include details about unlicensed trainers/doctors being employed at Illinois.
I stopped playing football because of my physical health. I was asked to push myself past pain until I didn't want to play anymore. #truth— Simon Cvijanovi (@IlliniSi) May 10, 2015
We don't talk about how we're mistreated because we're then "not a team player" or "soft" but no one pays the bill when we're gone.— Simon Cvijanovi (@IlliniSi) May 10, 2015
I'm not the only horror story of abuse and misuse of power by @coachbeckman— Simon Cvijanovi (@IlliniSi) May 10, 2015
The coach has complete control over scholarship. If he doesn't want you he can make any rule for you to break.— Simon Cvijanovi (@IlliniSi) May 11, 2015
There's about 50-100 tweets. User Gulo_Blue on /r/CFB compiled them all (in readable, chronological order) here. Crazy stuff.
Comments
Regardless of the greater accusations one thing I saw that was concerning if true was what he said about their Injury Jerseys.
They gave them purple ones and were referred to as Cats while doing their limited training. After their main rival Northwestern. Thats not ok for players trying to get healthy.
For a Scout Team? Yea probably it can help build intensity, but for players who are not at their all to so publicly set them apart with the trappings of a team and school you feel passionate against? Thats not cool.
I'm not trying to accuse anybody of anything, I don't know almost any of the circumstances, but I always wonder about players like Dadi. I swear he looked like he was in pain every game last year, but always came back in when he went down.
(edited for grammar)
Nicolas just strikes me as a very demonstrative player. His body language is "louder" than most other players. You can see it when he's talking to referees. Also manifests itself in his tendency to take a little rest on the ground after plays before springing back up.
Yeah, that's the way I see that too.
Also, there are guys that pitch up and down with adrenalin very quickly and it shows.
I used to get nauseous when there was a pause, like a score and reset to midfield but as soon as it got close to a new play, it would completely go away and charged up.
Don't forget, he (and Ekanem as well) also played an extraordinarily number of plays last year for a DE. Probably took 200 snaps (or about 3 games worth) more than normal.
Regardless, he does seem a little more "demonstrative" than most between plays.
Let me play devil's advocate for a second. How can any of us that are just watching the game differentiate between someone who is more demonstrative than other players, and someone who is forced to play through an injury? Maybe it isn't even the football staff that is forcing him, but rather a multi-million dollar NFL contract that is making him destroy his body. Also, while discussed a little bit below what is in place to protect the players from bad situations?
However, with all that being said, my gut feeling is that our program wouldn't do that. Although I do wish I could come up with a good system for player to help protect themselves, no new or great idea has come to mind.
I agree, there should be a system in place to help athletes protect themselves. But a union? I would argue that the coal miners in Matewan needed a union...college football players, not so much.
Agreed. They need an advocate just as much as anyone (like an ombudsperson for graduate students), but not a union. That'd be a nightmare for college football.
As for Dadi, he just seems like the kinda guy who always wants to play, no matter what. The dude just competes, probably to his own detriment sometimes.
I think we're on the same page, I never said anything about supporting a players union
Yeah, we're on the same page. I was responding to your saying the players need some sort of protection and the whole topic of the original post in the same reply.
There are some players who you have to drag off the field even if injured because they have that much passion for what they do and they are that competitive. I had many teammates in high school who the coaches had to hold out even though the player was pleading to play with an injury. Football is a painful sport, there is no doubt about it. You will be dinged up and have a lot of things hurt late in the year especially if you have a non-serious nagging injury. As other poster's said, some players show things differently and Dadi is definitely a person of body language.
Nosal played through having his finger tip severed from his finger and re-attached after the game. Pain takes a backseat for some of these guys but they should never be forced beyond what they are comfortable with after a certain point.
That's why girls don't play the game?
no one has a sense of humor anymore...
I'm wondering what makes that comment funny? That women are weak? Or that football players should give up their body?
I have always found it interesting that people who are weak or scarred are "female genital" because in my experience that area can real take a great deal of pressure and punishment and always comes back for more where as when a dude gets pounded in the same area he curls up on the floor and cries. Random thoughts that keep me from being overly productive at work...
Yeah, I noticed.
It's a line from The Replacements at the very least.
Pain heals, chicks did scars, glory lasts forever...
Hey!....That's my line...
My Mom is the toughest person I've ever met.
man that one guy on the comments section, backinblack92, tore him up. And I have to say I agree. Although I don't know what happened to this guy or the real situation it seems kind of like the headlines everyone was posting on the berman thread. I'm not saying their coach isn't a douche, I have no idea, but is he probably tough on them? Probably. Was there a miscommunication somewhere? I don't know. But one thing I do know is that I don't think players should get paid or unionize. I agree with the one commenter that I mentioned earlier. If they get paid to play then they shouldn't get as much as they get for free. I don't know what a union is going to do for college athletes either. They get more than any other student at the university that is attempting to make it through on their own dime or the states or banks through loans, and some want a union to say "more!! more!!"
I know a guy that was a walk-on at Texas Tech when Leach got fired and said the whole thing was bullshit and it was because the kid who complained was the son of one of the espn guys (forget who) so that had a lot of leverage. But still said the kid was a puss and it definitely didn't go down the way it did. However, Leach was still fired. We'll see if this thing has any legs.
Currently, players do not have a voice. If these aligations are true, who could he have gone to? The NCAA Should be protecting players from their school. However, given the money the NCAA makes, this is now a conflict of interest.
problem is in contemporary use union's serve more as a leveraging tool for money than anything else, and in sports are often a blockade system. if a union organizes for players not to play for a season to get what they want that could financially ruin some schools, schools which have tens of thousands of non-athletic students to cater to. I think there should be some sort of athletics review panel within schools made up of purely non-athletic staff. their identities known only to the president and they hear cases anonymously. if there is meat to the accusations/complaints then they recommend an internal or external audit, but the decision stands. Much how police forces sometimes have civilian oversight committees, etc.
in this case the player is making accusations of criminal abuse. just because they are in the ncaa there cannot be unlicensed doctors practicing medicine. so he should have gathered facts and gone to a lawyer. no idea if what he says is true, but if it is then why wouldn't you? you could win a huge civil case.
exactly. Then players who don't even care about it get hurt through the "unions" actions. Plus how would a union run? Would it be by school? For the sport for all NCAA schools? So what if some teams decide to sitout and others don't? How does schools who have that school scheduled to play work out? Oh you were supposed to play Illinois this weekend but they are striking soooo....you actually lose a game on the schedule because there is no time to make it up. How does that hurt them in the rankings?? There is a lot of money at stake and it's not like that money goes to line coaches pockets. Sure some of it does but what about the smaller schools who get $500k to play that school are now out that money for their athletic dept. There is a lot of risk with a union for college athletes.
Agreed.
Again, I agree, but most collegiate athletes do not have access to a lawyer, nor would they know how to reach out to one.
The issue is multi-facet, but players need a voice and coaches/schools/NCAA need to be held accountable without being taken advantage of.
They seem to be able to get one when they are accused of a crime. And usually not a court appointed one either.
I'm sure every college town has their very own Jimmy Turk, right?
I do see the irony here, however I doubt schools will supply a lawyer to a plaintiff who plans to sue them.
Jimmy is a hired gun, anyone can hire him if he agrees to take the case.
A friend of mine needed a lawyer while he was in college. There was an incident and he felt he was wronged by someone in the school. He had never spoken to a lawyer in his life. Yet he managed to look one up in the yellow pages, call them, schedule an appointment, go through his grievances with the lawyers who saw the merit in his case, and hired said lawyers. he had very little money so the lawyers took a larger percentage of the possible judgment, which they won.
Not for nothing, but it's NEVER been difficult to find a lawyer if you really wanted one. hell, this could even apply these days:
point is that if he really believed this was an actionable offense he should do something about it. Could be he tried and was told there was no merit there, so he is appealing to the court of public opinion rather than the actual court. Could be he didn't try, but that doesn't mean that option wasn't there if he wanted it.
Agreed on your last point. They should have a voice. Unions are not the answer though.
Its seems a stretch to believe that the school does not have some kind of reporting system for abuses whether they be academic by a professor or athletic. I dont' know what lengths he went to before he took to twitter to show his frustrations. Did he attempt to bring things up to the AD? The assistant AD? The school president or other leadership?? Local papers? The school paper? There are a lot of outlets for people with legitimate complaints to share them. And again, I'd be willing to bet the school has some sort of reporting system for this as well.
he absolutely hits it on the head for the one part where the arguments about how the schools are so evil and how the athletes deserve to be paid falls apart, and for me, this one part really hits home...
My wife works for the university where she got her Master's a while back, and when she was there. She took a class for a professor who was working on a cultural project that the class helped research, and the professor liked the work she did so much he elected to keep her on the team after graduation, with pay. Long story short, due to the work both the professor and my wife put in (they were the only 2 on the team), they obtained a 8 figure endowment from a local donor that will help fund a permanent cultural center for the university, which included a travelling exhibit that had made its way around NC over the past 12 months, and will be moving throughout the southeast over the coming years. So this is great, right, my wife was on a team of 2 that obtained the single largest private donation in school history, she has to be in a great position right now, right?
Yeah, not so much. In the months since the donation was obtained, she is still trying to get a full time position through the school, funded by the endowment she helped attain. Mind you, this is 2 years after she has graduated, and has been attempting to pay off the 5 figures in student loans we still owe the school while only being paid what amounts to barely above minimum wage standards with a forced 4 week termination every year because the job requires her to work 40 hours a week as an hourly part time employee. The reason its only hourly and part time is because HR has been blocking any attempt to get a position created for the work she's actually doing because it doesn't fit their rigid check boxes on what can be what. And this is after graduating near the top of her class all the while legitimately making the school millions.
So yeah, I mean I feel bad for athletes that they are asked to do a lot, and don't really have a voice (they should, I'll give them that) but when they start complaining that they aren't compensated well enough (while graduating debt free) and don't have enough resources provided to them (while getting free room, board, tutoring, food, clothing, etc) and start claiming that regular students have it so much better than them, it really starts to fall flat. All students get screwed by universities. I would argue that with the benefits athletes get in their scholarships, they're the ones that are getting screwed over the least.
In a very timely coincidence, I came across this today:
http://chronicle.com/article/The-PhD-Pay-Gap/230041/?cid=at
Oh, boy. On the one hand, I can sympathize. As a PhD student in a relatively well-compensated program (I make 27k a year pre-tax with 90% of my health insurance and all my student fees paid for) that forbids me from taking another job, I can see why having such a meager stipend is problematic, to say the least. Still, there's a reason for the disparity. High-paying programs (engineering, sciences, business) offer higher stipends to be more competitive. And they can because they typically have more grant and endowment money to throw around. That happens because they produce graduates with more marketable, valuable skills. Now, I'm not saying getting a PhD in History or Literature is easy, but there's no question it doesn't open up the same doors as a degree in sciences or engineering. It just isn't worth it to the universities to offer more money to attract more qualified candidates when there's a ceiling to what those graduates will be able/likely to make and therefore give back to the department.
The problem is... a PhD in History is basically mandatory if you don't want your salary range to be capped off at $40k per year in your field. But what makes that really terrible is that by the time you get that degree, you most likely owe an amount in student loans that makes it legitimately impossible for you to pay off your student debt without marrying into a relationship where your partner makes significantly more money than you.
Its absurd that situations like that exist for people with advanced degrees.
Preach. My wife is a vet. $200k in debt in federal loans. The cost of that debt by the time we actually pay it off will almost equal the pay she receives over that time. "Here, better yourself and get a great and prestigious degree, but in turn have no ability to ever save money."
I'm with ya, man.
My wife is a dentist.
Family with no money so, 10 years of university, including 4 years post graduate all financed. There is no stipend for Docotr of Dental Surgery.
Bumped up against the federal limit.
My wife's a vet, too! Even though she makes more than me, we live off my salary and every penny she makes goes toward her student loans.
That is the really unfortunate part. And even more so is that a PhD in some fields really only raises the cap from 40k to about 80 or 90k, during which time that student incurs on the order of 120k in debt just from tuition and fees, let alone any living expenses not covered by the stipend.
*cries about my life decisions*
It's why I didn't go to grad school bro. I'm thankful I had professors who I got relatively tight with who told me that if I couldn't get it all paid for through schollies, then not to do it. They told me I had all the tools to do it, and trust me I love and am very good at research and writing. It's just not worth it to go possibly 100s of thousands in debt for a $42K a year teaching job.
There is a related issue - grant overhead. When last I looked, VT's overhead (F&A) rate for federal grants (where ~90% of the money originates) was at 60%. So if a PI writes a grant for $1M (not an unreasonable amount, perhaps even on the low side, for a 5-year R01 to the NIH), the lab gets $400k. The rest goes to "keeping the lights on," e.g. infrastructure, facilities, and the university's general bottom line. So for the PI to pay students more (and there are federal standards in that case), more money has to be requested, which means more F&A, which means a bigger bottom line. With funding as tight as it's been for the last 8-10 years, and overall federal grant success hovering somewhere between 10-15%, requesting more money simply becomes impossible. I don't know much about funding requests in the humanities, but I suspect the lack of "deliverables," (things that directly benefit human society like technology, pharmaceuticals, etc like you see in the life sciences and engineering) likely keeps available funding low.
I was also generally pretty well compensated during my time at VT. I had two individual fellowships that paid me (slightly) higher than the normal TA/RA stipend. Given the low cost of SWVA living, I did OK and incurred no debt. But the reality is there is a huge disparity across disciplines and across the country. Very unfortunate. Even if the field does not produce "tangible" results, students should be allowed and encouraged to pursue any course of study that interests and motivates them. Universities have unfortunately become businesses, and have deviated from the ideal course of seeking knowledge. They have a bottom line.
Excellent point, and definitely a huge issue. With grant acceptance to the NIH dipping down to the 8% range (and that's for the science-y projects, mind you), it's hard to see how PIs in humanities get any funding at all.
Not all degrees are created equal. Personally, I don't think its right that a student at VT who is exploring a degree in history or English, where future earning potential is very low, has the same pricetag on their degree that a student who is exploring a degree in engineering or business, where the future earning potential is very high. For an out of state student, if you came to VT and left with a degree in history or any of the other liberal arts degrees, there's a very good chance you'll never come close to paying off your student debt without assistance from parents, significant others, or the government. And those problems only increase when you go for an advanced degree.
Huge soapbox issue of mine - interest rate on student loans and/or cost of tuition should be directly correlated to the ROI of your degree.
Gonna have to disagree here. No one forces someone to get an English/history/do you want fries with that degree. Most people do it because it is something they are passionate about or because they want to be able to take it easy in school but still have that piece of paper to show off. It falls on those students to do the research and understand that they are not likely to get a high paying job afterwards to pay off any debt incurred. I don't think those of us that worked our asses off in school and got Engineering, Science or other technical degrees should subsidize those that just want to party and not work as hard as the rest of us just to keep a university afloat.
If you're saying anyone that isn't an Engineering, Science, or any other kind of technical degree candidate of a student is a screw around party animal that doesn't care about his or her future, then you can right ahead and shove a rusty pipe where the good lord/evolution (don't want to spark that debate) split ya.
I know plenty of people who busted their ass in high school and college who didn't get one of those precious degrees you are referencing. Yes, they made a choice to get into a less flashy field, but those fields are also vital to our communities and culture, and they should not be at a permanent financial disadvantage for the rest of their lives because they didn't have the desire to be an engineer.
Also, is there a reason to go for a postgraduate engineering degree if you don't plan to teach in the field? That's not a rhetorical question, I honestly don't know. It seems like with more technical degrees, all you need is a bachelor's to get into your field and then you have a natural career trajectory built in. With liberal arts/social sciences it seems there's a much greater demand for postgraduate degrees just to be able to hold a job in the field.
A friend of mine is married to a guy who has a PhD and works for GE. More responsibility, more money, more work... more money.... lots more money.
You can teach, yes, but you can also roll around in money in an industrial setting.
Maybe tech has changed in the past 15 years since I graduated but that is exactly how it was when I was there, with the engineers and our ilk studying and working on Friday and Saturday night and everyone else out having a grand ole time.
And I did not meant to imply that those with other degrees were lesser people or less intelligent, just to state that they chose those majors which while may be culturally important as you imply they do not pay the bills and that is something they have to accept. They chose those lesser paying career fields so once again why should I have to pay for their choices? I worked my ass off in high school too and as a result got multiple scholarships so I had a free ride in college, maybe that is no longer an option (my info is vastly outdated as I graduated so long ago and my kids are not even in grade school yet) but I find it hard to believe that those who "busted their ass" cannot get some kind of financial help for higher education (be that college or a technical/vocational school).
As someone who busted their ass working full time while earning that do you want fries with that degree and who wants to keep it civil, I'll just say I disagree strongly with your assertion.
I had a short essay prepared to agree with this but I suppose, in the spirit of keeping it civil, it'll have to suffice for me to say I wholeheartedly agree with your disagreement.
Damn I love this place. Props to all of you. This is a discussion worthy of good beer, not some sports site message board.
holy cow that was a bold statement!
I got my degree in Mechanical Engineering but I DO NOT share the same view as Jander75. That's all I'm going to say about that.
As someone who has spent more than 30 years in the student loan industry (focusing on financing graduate health profession educations like medical, veterinary, and chiropractic), I agree with your statement that students should do their research and fully understand the cost of education in their desired field and the expected returns on that investment. A college education is a privilege, not a right, and it is truly one of the biggest investments one will ever make in their lifetimes. It is an investment that must be made, and managed, wisely.
Also, as a father of seven children, there is a personal side to this story as well. I have a step-son who spent six years getting a Music Technology degree from a state university up here in New England and graduated with tens of thousands of dollars in debt. Nearly two years after graduation and an ill-fated attempt to make it in L.A., he is still unemployed. My soon to be ex-wife cosigned on several of his private student loans, and he defaulted on them without any notification from the lender to her that he was behind in payments. She found out while applying for a mortgage. Her credit is now completely f***ed. The chances of him making enough money with that degree to pay off his (and her) investment in his education were extremely slim. This was a point that was brought up at the time of his decision to pursue his major, but it was what he wanted to do...job prospects be damned.
'Edited for grammar'
This post specifically illustrates why countries that are moving toward making college education a right are leaving the US in the dust in terms of education. Having students shoulder the financial burden of higher education is not the best model. There are too many factors in the American system that dissuade potential students from pursuing higher education, and punishing them economically if they do. It's a broken system and it's harming this country.
College education is a right we make it a right, and a privelige if we make it a privilege. And if we continue viewing it as a privilege, we're just shooting ourselves in the foot.
I see your point, and respect it. However, in your model, would the public through increased taxation finance every high school graduate's right to a college education? I for one am not interested in doing so. While I'm certain there would be a number of "rags to riches" success stories of kids going to college who would not otherwise be able to afford to go, there would also be the likely result of tens of thousands of unemployed Music Technology (or other non-supportable discipline) graduates whose educations were funded by increased deductions from our paychecks. Yes, I was using my own painful example to illustrate that point.
The whole college and university system is flawed and filled with bloated infrastructures. The costs of higher education have increased over 500% in the last 30 years, which is a far greater rate than the CPI, starting salaries, etc. I know I'm old, but when I enrolled at Tech in the mid-70's the cost of tuition, room, & board for an in-state resident was less than $1,700/year. With all the books & supplies I needed, it was still around $2,000/year. What is it now? Anybody want to calculate the % increase in cost, then compare that to the increase in starting salaries, or the cost of a home during that time period? Some textbooks alone are in the hundreds of dollars. Are you shitting me?
IMHO, before too much thought is given to increased public funding of higher education, wide scale "slash and burn" cost cutting measures need to be taken from the ground up at EVERY public college and university. And no, I'm not an expert or going to opine on where all the bloat and fat is, but I don't think one would have to look too hard to find it.
The United States is specifically problematic for provided education. It is damn big and has a lot of students. While the average quality of education may be going up in other countries it is largely because those student's have had better education all their lives. The USA university system is still regarded as the best research venues in the world and this is because it is a market based system.
I don't think we could support a "right to education" system fullstop. And I don't believe our current system is doing anyone favors with it's mountains of debt. IMO I would like to see performance related rates. If you excel in school you are rewarded with no interest loans or even just grant money to further your education. Because the problem is that a lot of our best and brightest come away with an insurmountable obstacle that derails what good they could be producing in the time following school. It's a killer of dreams for individuals and our nation.
Reward those that succeed to enable them to succeed more.
There is a lot of merit to this idea. In fact, some folks in the private student loan sector have been doing this for years. In the mid-90's my company and a private insurance company started tiering borrower fees & interest rates not only on credit quality, but also where students were going to school and what degrees they were pursuing. It was simply a factor of the risk we were taking in loaning them money. While the data wasn't perfect, it was relatively easy to determine that a student going to Tech to pursue an engineering degree was a much better risk than...ummm...let's see...my step-son going to his school for a Music Technology degree.
To make things like a college education a right in America you would have to repeal the 13th amendment. When you say that someone has a right to something, you're saying that someone else can't refuse to provide it, or essentially that a professor has to work for you at whatever rate you/the government decide, regardless of whether they think it is fair compensation for their time.
In general rights are either natual rights that come from your status as a human being or civil rights that come from your citizenship and/or nationality. Natural rights are things like freedom of speech, while civil rights are things like voting (Citizens) and due process (citizens and nationals).
Understand what you mean, but education is thought of as a natural right in many countries. Some even give the students money for school instead of the student giving money. I know... crazy
There are many examples of countries with large numbers of unemployed college graduates between the ages of 22-30. Giving someone a college degree does not get them a job or a future. Also flows into he why does everyone need a college degree? We still need ditch diggers and farmers and skilled tradesmen. The people who should be getting free or discounted education are the people willing to take on skilled labor trades or public service jobs.
I hear what you are saying but I think you are confusing the "right to an education" with "the obligation to be educated". Take Scandinavia for example, they have great education programs which do include giving money to students, effectively paying them to be educated. But that doesn't mean that everyone MUST go to university and be educated. In fact many don't and become tradesman or enter other non-degree fields.
I do have a good story about tradesmen and degrees though. I went to grad school in Australia, and outside my apartment building I would take the bus into the city or wherever. And this window cleaner would park his car next to it. The cleaner only did street front windows. He was a nice guy and we eventually became conversational. So naturally I asked him how it was to wash windows. He said fantastic. I was expecting the fresh air and sunshine reasons which he did provide but then he told me that he quit his job as a corporate accountant for it. Wow... I asked if it was due to stress. He said no. One day he was having a coffee on the street and saw a washer and asked how much he makes per window just randomly. Then he figured out that if he and his brother quit their jobs in corporate world to be window cleaners they only needed 8 streets of 2km length to make nearly twice they made combined. In Australia cities have ordinances for store fronts to be cleaned regularly. It was easy money. he said, though anyone could figure it out, it was the fact that he had the accountant taught into him that he could put that information to good use. Essentially his degree helped him become a very profitable tradesmen. And to top it off, he and his bother would work 2 weeks on and 2 weeks off, with 1 full month vacation each, and just trade work time.
This is such a great example. Let's say the Australian government paid for his education in accounting (whether they did or not is irrelevant, let's say they did for this example). That education enabled him to have the skill set to be a ridiculously successful window washer. He made way more than an accountant can make because he went to school to learn accounting. There's no predicting that outcome, but you can't argue that paying for that guy's education doesn't have a significant ROI in a way no one would ever imagine.
Absolutely! College is not for everybody, nor is it needed to succeed. While I have both a BS and an MBA from Tech, of my five kids who are of age to have gone to college:
-one went and dropped out of 3 different art schools (now one of the most talented tattoo artists in the country...booked 2-3 months in advance)
-one graduated from college then enlisted in the Navy
-one enlisted in the Army right out of high school
-one never went to college and is a music producer
-one graduated from college and is unemployed (ahem, Music Technology)
You did the dad thing right, BTW...
I agree that skilled and technical laborers should get free education, but I don't agree they're the only ones who should get a free education. I also don't think that making college free to the student will eliminate unemployment, but I do think that every dollar investec in education (both college and skilled/technical/vocational) will generate more than a dollar's worth of positive economic impact.
Of course there has to be oversight. A sliding scale of financial assistance based on academic performance is a great idea, as is requiring service hours or work within one's chosen field that provides a community service after graduation. Whati don't support is selective financial assistance based on course of study. My father majored in physics and minored in Russian, and he had a very successful career working for a high end office furniture company.
The one restriction, of course, is that it would have to be a public university, so if it's not a degree offered at public universities, you're on your own. That would fairly well eliminate the OP's example of a "money pit" degree, by and large. But outside of that, the best strategy is to let people pursue their passion, whether it be as a welder, an electrical engineer, or a political scientist.
Soapbox: my biggest issue with the way college and education works in the U.S. is related to pay ceilings because you don't ah e an advanced degree. We see WAY TOO MANY advanced degree earning people in jobs where they don't truly need it. On the flip side we have a huge lack of trained skill workers, it's to the point where a trained skilled worker can earn more money in a year and spend less money to get that training than someone who is required to get an advanced degree.
Exactly. But I think there is a perception that trained skill workers is somehow a lesser job in this country, which is completely false. For example, everyone hears car mechanic and they think of their local dirty shop with a couple guys who know how to fix cars or at most the guys at the dealerships who work on cars. A buddy of mine's cousin decided to forego college and go to a technical school to learn how to a car mechanic and get the certifications. He likes working on cars. He now works for BMW's race team fixing their race cars making aroun $90k a year in pristine working conditions. But technicaly he's a car mechanic and people don't have the picture of him in their heads when they hear that. Same for other skill jobs as well. There is always a higher end that most people probably don't think about.
Yeah, 100%.
A skilled stainless steel sanitary weld guy or similar type of high skill work can do very well for himself.
My youngest brother bounced around taking classes at community colleges for a few years, and it just wasn't for him. He ultimately ended up going through an apprentice welding program, finished top of his class. Was accepted into another program (that only took about 12 people), and he had 5-6 good job offers before he even finished his certification.
Now he works for a natural and compressed gas company making really good money, has no debt, and is getting certifications for underwater welding, which can raise his pay grade significantly.
This brings up the point of, what function is university education supposed to serve? There are tons of technical professions that provide better entry level income and competitive lifetime earning to fields requiring college degrees. But universities have a core curriculum for a reason. A friend/mentor of mine once told me, you don't go to college to learn a job, you go to college to learn how to think. Now to a degree, I think some of that self-aggrandizement for the college crowd, but I know my own outlook changed pretty significantly while I was at college.
You go for the education but, they've become technical schools for many careers.
Let's take something like Beer brewing as a career, for instance.
In order to be proficient, you need a very good background in several disciplines of chemistry - General or physical, bio, organic and water in particular. Some thermodynamics from a practical application standpoint.
You don't need a degree in this, though some do go there, but you need more than your high school chem class.
It's amazing the people I am in contact with that want a very good paying job in the brewing industry (which are not particularly common) and yet don't want to spend any time with a book or class at the community college or any extra time after work learning more science behind the job.
Brewing apprenticeships would be perfect but many people are not that interested.
When I do open my own brewery, I plan on having an apprenticeship type program. But it's going to be rigorous, the learning curve is steep and sharp and demands daily attention. I'm just not finding people that are prepared for a career but want career money because they have student loans. but their University degree does not prepare them for the job unless it's a degree in brewing at one of the few and far between Universities that offer brewing degrees.
This is very true, and kind of troubling, IMO. The idea that education's role is to prepare your for a specific career is a recent development, and the value of a well rounded general educating is diminishing. That scares the hell out of me, because a strong society needs a foundation of skeptics and critical thinkers.
The flip,side of that is we have many people with some knowledge about a lot of topics but few people with a lot of knowledge in critical areas. The issue is the push towards everyone getting a college degree and a lot of people getting advanced degrees. My child's daycare, preschool age, required teachers there to have a bachelors degree and a masters if they wanted to be the lead for the age group. It's preschool, associates and bachelors should be more than enough. I've also met several people recently who have PhD's in obscure fields and their only reach option is to,go into teaching, so basically they were taught to teach other people how to get the same degree and continue the cycle.
I don't even know if this is the flip side. This is actually what I was trying to say. In your example, they're treating bachelor's and master's degrees as certifications, and they aren't. I'd rather have program directors with multiple years of experience and certifications in the latest preschool curricula than a fresh master's holder. (And yes, a curriculum for preschool is important, but that's another topic.)
The local community college just got approval for a brew master degree program.
Which one is that?
I always thought that was a good idea.
In my considered opinion it should be heavy in bio and chem, especially lab work and have math, business, food storage and processing, OSHA and safety, and writing, researching requirements as well as some requirements to learn how to do permits.
http://www.hgtc.edu/academics/academic_programs/culinary/brewmaster.html
Horry Georgetown Tech
That's outstanding.
Though their intro talks about jobs in SC and Myrtle Beach, I wouldn't limit it to that.
Breweries around the country need technical people, just don't expect a lot of cash and DO expect to work weekends, especially in the summer.
I wish I had some guys technical enough so that when I say I need 500 L of water with calcium at 50 ppm and 70C, I don't have to do all the calculations for them, every single time.
And know how to operate a microscope and count how many billions per ml of yeast I have.
Stain for vitality and give me a %.
And scan to see if you spot any other organisms.
They know why you can't discard acidic solutions down an iron drain and how to setup a proper eyewash station.
Learn to ski, that's when you'll have weekends off.
Sounds like a good time to me, personally!
Me too. I quit a good career to start this one.
I've worked in the industry for nearly 8 years now, and you don't need a degree to be a brewer, but the industry is certainly suffering from a lack of qualified individuals. Most guys think since they've brewed some homebrew before that they're qualified. Usually, they don't know the first thing about sanitary practices, and most have a rudimentary understanding about most textbook brewing concepts that don't require 4 years of studying. There are certainly some schools like UC-Davis that have good programs, but in general, most of the guys I find coming from Siebel and other programs of the like leave a bit to be desired from my perspective. For reference, I graduated from the Food Science Department at VT and went through the Master Brewers Program at UC-Davis. Everything I learned at UC-Davis can easily be obtained by reading a book.
With that being said, the German brewing industry definitely works on apprenticeships for the most part, and they have great success. Over here, the proliferation of breweries is happening so quickly, that most people would rather jump at the opportunity to run a place than learn the ins and outs of the industry before making the jump. I don't blame them, but I fear what will ultimately ruin craft beer is craft beer...the industry was built on quality, and at some locations it seems to play second fiddle unfortunately.
I agree with everything you just said.
I see this every day.
I do not have a degree. I have a solid technical background supplemented by 20+ years homebrewing, 4 years commercial and studying my backside off on my own, supplemented by Seibel. And I think I'm not quite ready to run my own place yet., but getting there.
A lot of these guys don't have the basic understanding of algebra and lab tools or why your grain bags need to be stored off the floor and away from the wall., the difference between cleaning and sanitizing.
It is amazing the proliferation but, yes, many will fail due to lack of business savvy and lack of consistent quality.
Knowing who you are, I'm sure you know what I faced when I got to where I am.
The juice is definitely worth the squeeze. I couldn't be happier in the industry I'm in, and if there's one positive about competition, it's that it traditionally makes everyone raise their game. Don't get me started about basic math skills...
If I can offer once piece of advice, it's to always ask questions, be inquisitive. I want my guys to know the rhyme and reason on why we do things, not just because it's SOP. Those are the guys that are incapable of thinking outside the box when the need arises.
Actually, I think you go to college to prove to OTHERS you can think. You could be one of the smartest people on the planet, but when you apply for a job, people won't even look at you if you don't have a college degree anymore. Case in point, I work with several people in the mental health field who were here before they had the requirements they do now. Hence, they don't have the "college education" but they have the experience of actually working in the field for 10-20 years. However, because they don't have a degree, they will never be able to "qualify" for a higher position, regardless of the fact they have more experience and knowledge than someone who just graduated college with a lot of book knowledge.
My reply to Egbert above ties into this. Undergraduate and postgraduate degrees are becoming increasingly viewed in the same light as licenses and certifications within specific fields, and I don't think that's necessarily a good thing. In general I think college-educated employees will do better over the course of their careers than non-college-educated people, just by virtue of the value of education. But requiring degrees for advancement rigs the system. It's unfair to employees who entered the field before the focus on degrees reached current levels.
It also ensures those who are poor stay poor. You need $$ to pay for college, and the only way to get that $$ is to have a good, well paying job... most of which are now converting over to situations where you need a college degree to even apply. Even worse yet, those who are poor who do get themselves into college end up saddled with so much student debt that its impossible to save up after graduation ensuring that you never pull yourself out of being poor despite the degree. And those issues compound themselves with every step up the ladder (GED, Bachelors, Masters, PhD). And what's getting even worse is that this epidemic is now filtering its way into the grade school levels, where the quality of education in public schools is eroding so fast due to a variety of reasons (teacher salary in the shitter, teachers being handcuffed into what they're allowed to teach and how they're allowed to teach it, teachers being required to pass students with no regard to actual abilities, uninterested and all around poor teachers, etc) that in the near future, private school might be the way to go to ensure that your children get the education needed to actually have a successful collegiate career so they can go on to the jobs that would help them pay for the student debt they're acquiring, so now not only will parents be paying off their own student debt, but now being asked to take on the debt of their own children. And the cycle continues.
The quality of education in America is something that I could talk about at length, but I'm worried I'd risk breaking some of the community guidelines. I'll leave it at this: if we don't make some big changes to ensure a quality primary and secondary education and an affordable college education, the American worker will be at a significant disadvantage in a competitive global marketplace. There are other countries out there that are eating our lunch in this regard.
I could write a book-length post on the whys & wherefores, but it would bore the hell out of everyone and definitely break the board rules.
So I'll just repeat the single thing you wrote that distills it all down for me:
And would say that it's not just at the university level. Until students and their parents take back control of their education, the screw-jobs are just going to continue.
Yeah it was Craig James' son that Leach got fired over. I remember when it happened vividly actually. Not saying the kid wasn't a punk, but Leach really comes across as a skeevy, kinda creep. He apparently locked the kid in a shed because he was unsatisfied with the fact that he had a mild concussion. The whole thing sounds like a he-said, she-said thing, but the direct quotes from Leach do not exactly make him look like the good guy here.
LINK: The battle between Mike Leach and Craig James at Texas Tech
I'm admittedly conflicted about this. The injury in question, a meniscus tear, is pretty common. That's doesn't mean it isn't potentially serious, though. A lot of football players play through the injury and wait for reparative surgery after the season. I can't think of specific names, but I know there have been Hokies who have done the same.
Still, it's a knee injury, and just because some players play through it doesn't mean that anyone should be compelled to. If this account is accurate, I do think Beckman crossed an ethical line by trying to convince him to play when he judged the injury sufficient to be pulled from full contact. It does seem that Beckman has established a toxic culture at U of I. I'd be surprised if it isn't prevalent in all of P5 football.
The athlete should make the call on when an injury is sufficient to require season ending treatment. Having said that, P5 football is one of the most competitive sports, and the athlete has to know and accept that packing it in means risking losing your spot on the depth chart. Injury should not, however, result in a loss of scholarship.
This is a gray area. Football players play hurt all the time, and they do or for reasons other than just the love of the game. IMO, it's the responsibility of the NCAA and its member programs to ensure that the decision to play hurt is made without coercion, and after providing the athlete with the best possible medical advice, including all prognoses. In that regard, I think Coach Beckman and U of I failed, and there should be consequences.
As for unionization, no. A third party oversight committee with binding authority would be a better solution.
Think you answered your own question:
IMO a coach's #1 job is to care for his students. Wins, money, nothing should come before a student athlete's well being.
It can be difficult for a coach to figure out an individual.
Remember the VT coaches this spring when they described the 3 types of injured player?
One type needs a push to stay off the field, one type needs a push to get back on the field and regain confidence in the injured part and the third is an animal, like Rogers?
Maybe the coach thought he was type #2?
Devil's advocate, you are also operating under the assumption that Beckman gives a shit about the well-being of his players. Based on the way he handles injury and medical licensure of staff, that seems to be a pretty big assumption.
There's a big difference between "one type needs a push to get back on the field and regain confidence in the injured part" and rushing/skipping recovery.
at some point in this whole discussion this came to mind.
USA Today
The ACC Network fell in love with that story almost as much as the infamous "well Chuck, you do know that kid behind center is 6'6, 260."
I actually referenced that in a post above without seeing this. The player was comfortable doing that. If he had come out to get medical help and the coaches tried to force him back in with an injury like that, that is a whole different story. It is a tricky situation after the sport has been breeding guys to ignore pain.
It's not so much training guys to ignore pain, adrenaline is a very strong drug and can allow you to not feel it.
Also, sometimes it's quite obvious when something is just painful or when it's potentially debilitating.
As my high school coach loved to say....You can play hurt but you can't play injured.
He was like an angry John Madden. The things he used to say and do would never fly today. He'd be labeled abusive.
Whatever "abuse" this guy is whining about is nothing compared to the guys who played and made this sport what it is today. Even up until the 90's Im sure there were high school teams doing stuff harsher than what a D-1 football player is complaining about today. If you cant hack it, you cant hack it. Move onto something else in life. If you quit, you really cant blame anybody else.
And sports medicine has made huge advancements since the early days. We understand injuries and how to rehabilitate them way better now, and not just concussions. A blown ACL, once a career-ender, is now a relatively routine rehab with a high success rate. With that increased medical knowledge has come a better understanding of how to approach playing and practicing the game. And we know now that the way we did it for years was really fucking stupid.
It's not quitting to say I want to make sure my injury is properly rehabbed and that my long term health is the primary driving factor in all decisions regarding my return to play. But by this account, Coach Beckman acted as though it was. With what we know now, there's no excuse for that.
This.
Training Harder and Training Smarter are two different things. The goal is to maximize one's quality/skillset - It's important to bust your ass on practice field, but not to the point of detriment.
I thought you were goin to say they were abusing his last name...
I love how this thread went way off topic and into a way more interesting topic.