How a Military Prep School Helped Army Improve in Football

A philosophy major!!! I couldn't be more thrilled. Perhaps a philosopher-quarterback will be a placeholder for a philosopher-king (Hopkins?) to be!

If this article had been about a teenager from the South who had attended junior college and transferred to an SEC school which had lowered its academic requirements to admit him, there would be nothing but condemnation from The NY Times. Congratulations to West Point for decreasing their standards to admit unqualified athletes! Bear Bryant figured it out a long time ago...thanks to Sam Cunningham.

The service academy prep schools should serve as a model for all colleges. Rather than dumb-down curricula, offer gut majors, or put kids on a 6-year bachelors program, colleges should keep standards high and use prep schools to bring promising students up to those standards.

All on the taxpayer's buck!

With Congressional mandated class sizes, there is an opportunity cost to every underqualified player. Every prep school spot a football player takes is a spot some excellent Private First Class or some Sergeant could have taken. Every spot an otherwise low performing athlete takes is denied to some high school student with higher grades, higher SATs, more extra-circular and leadership experience, and very likely just as much varsity time in a different sport. Prep School candidates need only meet minimum Congressional set qualifications. Once there, there is no serious vetting mechanism to pass on to West Point. It is a back door to avoid competition with those with higher qualifications. Historian and retired Colonel Lance Betros documented the double standard for Army athletics: significantly lower test scores and lower grade points and military performance while at West Point. Statistically, they have lower retention rates as officers and are promoted to Colonel – the first rank with a serious cut rate – at lower rates then their peers, demonstrating them to be, on average, less committed and lower performing officers. Using Admissions Department surveys of incoming cadets, Betros also shows false the claim that higher profile football leads to increased name recognition and better recruiting of non-players. In short, the emphasis of football weakens the Officer Corps; it also denies opportunities to more promising enlisted soldiers and high school students.

I want a more diverse officer pool as the face of our military, but why football players? Won't this just perpetuate the stereotype that they're not as smart as their classmates? Is this really a new program? I went through high school with a football player who was recruited, and played, for the Air Force Academy. He did not have the grades or scores to attend. Everyone was surprised, and this was almost 30 years ago.

NAPS ( Naval Academy prep school) only allowed sailors from the Fleet and Marines, until the class entering 1969. It too became a vehicle that brought more athletes into the fold. There was strong opposition to those changes among the alumni, to this day. BEAT ARMY!