Here’s a nice tidbit from Gentry Estes’ piece examining Georgia’s academic policy which Caleb King ran afoul of:
… Alabama’s written policy uses positive and negative points, with one point issued for “A missed class, tutorial appointment, mentor appointment, counselor appointment or study hall obligation,” and suspension being automatic when the total reaches 10.
UA also gives itself the flexibility to award positive points for, “Demonstrating special effort in the classroom, putting forth extra effort in study hall or by meeting proactively with faculty members.”
Does “demonstrating special effort in the classroom” mean something more than showing up? Beats me. You also kinda have to wonder how much input a certain head coach has into the points awarded process.
At LSU, they don’t bother with any pesky window dressing.
… Some are perhaps even less stringent. Asked for its class attendance policy, an LSU official responded, “We wish to advise that the LSU Athletic Department does not have a written student-athlete class attendance policy but does monitor class attendance.”
Before some of you get riled up and start in the comments section with talk about how Georgia shouldn’t put itself at a disadvantage with its rivals over something like this, let Mark Richt shame you back to reality.
“I just think it’s another way to tell our players, tell the players’ families, tell our recruits that we’re serious about academics,” Richt said. “We have a plan for them, and if they follow it, then they’ll be fine. If they don’t, they’ll have to suffer the consequences for it.”
It ain’t, pardon the expression, exactly rocket science we’re talking about here. Maybe when Mike Slive gets done making sure that no kid tied to NCAA violations gets left behind playing in a BCS game, he can turn his attention to leveling the academic playing field in his conference a wee bit.