<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Antoine Wright's college education--or lack of it--will be part of a Bob Costas HBO special Tuesday night. In an examination of the student-athlete, Wright tells Costas about the classes he took in poultry science and floral design at Texas A&M. Wright admits he took them "because I needed a grade" not because he was interested in chickens or flowers. Wright says his high school education at Lawrence Academy in Massachusetts better served him than his time at A&M.</div> Source
<div class="quote_poster">Mercury Wrote</div><div class="quote_post">Source</div> Thats on him and the coaching staff at A&M. He would have gotten more out of college if he took legitimate courses.
Does this really say more about Texas A&M or Antoine Wright? It seems like this article is very revealing of his character.
The thing college did to me was open my horizons. I used to be 100% math centric. I did not care about anything else in the work except math, just as Wright probably did not are about anything but Basketball. College forced me to take all sorts of writing/philosophy classes, in addition to things like theater and dance. Initially, I was miserable because I did not see the point, but eventually I started appreciating all sorts of things available in the world. I think that the article points out the weaknesses of Texas A&M. How can it be Wright's fault if he comes into a college and is simply ignorant about what he can get out of challenging himself acedemically? It should have been Texas A&M that opened his eyes. That is what I think the article and HBO series might be getting at. Do schools value their athletic programs more than educating?
I agree with Voodoo. It's not A&M, it's Wright was being too damn lazy to apply himself to his studies.
It's not A&M. A&M is a state school, so they are funded to provide a wide range of classes for him to take. Secondly, he's in college and legally an adult, if he wanted to learn something valuable outside of the basketball court it's by his own volition to accomplish such. You can't fault a school for providing all the materials when the student doesn't want to use them. It's his fault. I mean, I'm sure the coach played a role in terms of taking up a lot of out-of-class time, but end of the day, if he wanted to learn something, there is no reason he couldn't have. Look at Emeka Okafor, he had a 3.7 in Finance at UConn. No reason Antoine couldn't accomplish the same.
<div class="quote_poster">nextlevelgame Wrote</div><div class="quote_post">It's not A&M. A&M is a state school, so they are funded to provide a wide range of classes for him to take. Secondly, he's in college and legally an adult, if he wanted to learn something valuable outside of the basketball court it's by his own volition to accomplish such. You can't fault a school for providing all the materials when the student doesn't want to use them. It's his fault. I mean, I'm sure the coach played a role in terms of taking up a lot of out-of-class time, but end of the day, if he wanted to learn something, there is no reason he couldn't have. Look at Emeka Okafor, he had a 3.7 in Finance at UConn. No reason Antoine couldn't accomplish the same.</div> I say that it is A&M. A good school in my view is one that mandates a student to take a certain set of challenging courses. The fact that he was not mandated to do Calculus, Physics, Basic Philosophy/Writing coures shows that the A&M does not care. State schools, it has been argued are worse than private schools (think about it, the best schools, the ivy leagues, are all private establishments). Wright is human being, and as one, he will tend to stay away from scary things like seemingly rigerous courses. There are a lot of kids like that. The colleges I've been in had kids take those "hard" courses, and you should have seen all of their horizons opened.
A&M is a fine school. I've had relatives go there and go on to be very successful doctors and lawyers. Don't go blaming state schools cause Ivy Leagues are private. There are a ton of horrible private schools out there. There are great public schools out there and A&M happens to be one of them. If you need other examples, Berkeley, UCLA, Michigan, UIUC, are all great academic establishments. This is coming from someone who attended an Ivy and could easily gotten the same challenge attending one of those schools. I graduated from Cornell, and never felt anyone I met from a state institution in the same field as dumber than me. They worked just as hard as I did and know the same material. Perhaps my professors were more respected in the field, but the material never changed, and it really is by your own choice whether you want to learn it. Not by the professors, not by the coursework, it's all in you. Also, for your own personal note. The best schools are not necessarily always the ivies. The best engineering schools are rarely ever the Ivies. There are great business schools, but you'll find their competition are also state schools. As a society we put Ivies on a pedestal, but come down to it, it's really that much different. <div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Wright is human being, and as one, he will tend to stay away from scary things like seemingly rigerous courses..</div> Human nature is not to run away from challenges if that is the point you're making. That's a coward's nature. I'm not calling Antoine a coward, but that is what you're pointing out right here. I've taken classes where everyone warned me about abrasive professors and unreasonable course loads but took the course because the it is beneficial to me. Does that make me not human? End of the day, college isn't supposed to force you take tough courses. That's a high school's job. In college the responsibility is supposed to shift to your hands. You're in control of your academic path. Sure private schools force you to take certain courses to discover love that you may have never known, but in my opinion that doesn't make private schools better than state. Besides if they forced Antoine to take courses that challenged him academically, any of you really think it would've make him work any harder when he wanted to take the easy way out anyway? I doubt it. College is about taking control in your life. Control of what you do and the person you want to become. You definitely won't have all the answers once you graduate but you should grab hold of the type of person you are by the end of it and what you want to do. If you fail to take opportunities that a university offers thats on you. Like I said before, you're an adult and it's time for you to make your own decisions, not the school.
Wright: My Comments Were About Athletes' Education <div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Antoine Wright now says he meant what he said about his college education but wanted it seen as a comment about the education of college athletes, not just Texas A&M. Wright, a loyal Aggie, also claimed he was misled by Bob Costas, who interviewed him for his HBO show. Wright told Costas his high school has afforded him a better education than A&M and that he was placed in gut courses just to get a good grade.</div> Source
