Category: Cal Poly

Cal Poly and their foibles

Posted on

Next Time… run over the damn dog!

another student makes a great decision at Cal polyI don’t always read the local paper the San luis Obispo Tribune very often… I really — as they say — don’t care who turned 100, what shrub is now endangered or how green which politician is… once in a while a story or two pops up that says… IDIOT!

Well, here’s what happened:

“…when he swerved to miss a dog that wandered onto the road, according to the CHP.The car spun out of control and hit a large tree, impacting the right-front door, the CHP said. Mariano was taken to French Hospital Medical Center, treated for major injuries and released. Viernes was taken to Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center, where he died, the CHP said.”

So, what was this guy thinking? Save a dog, lose a friend is a good trade? He’s not alone, I have a female relative…. a d-i-s-t-a-n-t relative… who tumbled and totaled her car in a ditch and almost bought the big one in order to miss a ground squirrel. Hmmmm, maybe these two could find each other.

The next story is very cool by Jeff Carlton of the Associated Press entitled: ” In case of a gunman in class, Texas kids taught to fight back”. It’s about time!. It seems like Robin Browne ( a Major in the British Army reserve) is teaching students ‘they can win’ against an armed attacker. This could only happen in Texas!

Remember how the Amish boys ran away and let the girls get wacked? Had they been prepared mentally … maybe, they could have prevented it all from happening.

I remember hearing teachers and others in responsibility preaching that we must cooperate with our rapist, attacker, murderer or even worse thnigs might happen… like what? …. and, yes, we must — while driving — avoid all ground squirrels even if it means taking out a family of four riding in the opposite direction….

In any event, courage — as we should teach our children — is not the absence of fear… but the mastery of fear.

Roger Freberg

 

 

Posted on

Level the Playing field!….. 5th Year of Eligibility is Fair

Here I am as a young track & field athlete.... if you look closely, Laura is in the stands!It does seem like a lifetime ago that I was a scholarship athlete at UCLA… but I do remember coming home, eating my dinner and then falling asleep. Somehow, I still managed to graduate in 4 years.

Since then, times have really changed for both students and student-athletes. Today, graduating in 4 years is a real challenge for many. It could be that economic times are tougher or maybe students are just dragging their collective heals; however, more often than not it is the university itself that slows the graduation rates. Sometimes, just getting 1) the required classes in majors whose unit requirements have inflated over the years and 2) obtaining the prerequisites in a timely manner slows the process to a crawl.

When I was at UCLA, I almost completed a triple major but opted to graduate ‘on-time.’ It is clear that by today’s hurdles and requirements, I would never have been able to be so adventurous and my graduation date would have been stretched out. With students taking longer and longer to complete their degrees often due to no fault of their own … it seems only logical that we reevaluate the support we offer student athletes with a fifth year of eligibility. Here’s a link and a copy of a letter I wrote to the Daily Trojan:

 Unequal standards

A favorite topic – by some – is to pick on athletes who struggle through the academic requirements set by the NCAA (Athlete graduation rate lags, Oct. 6, 2006). I always ask myself, “How many ‘regular’ students make progress to degree completion in the time allotted by the NCAA?” You’d be surprised to know the answer.

In the non-football powerhouse, academic community in which I live (San Luis Obispo), the “average” student graduates in 6.5 years. This is more of a pain to the parents than it is to the university or the NCAA, but it points out the fact that athletes everywhere are held to different and, in my opinion, unfair standards.

The unintended expectation of the NCAA academic progress regulations is that athletes are required to outperform their non-athletic peers, but this is unreasonable given the time, energy and recovery demands of Division I athletics.

Every effort should be made to aid athletes and non-athletes in earning their bachelor’s degrees. A big, positive step for athletes in reaching this goal would be in offering a fifth year of eligibility.

Roger Freberg
San Luis Obispo, Calif.

This is not to criticize the NCAA. The NCAA has made great strides in supporting athletes over the years… in particular , allowing athletes with remaining eligibility to continue through graduate school ( as did my daughter Karen) is a wonderful tweak to the system for the best students in the student-athlete mix. The addition of a fifth year would help everyone else towards earning their bachelor’s degree… which is the point, isn’t it?

As for me, I really did have an unfair advantage… I married my tutor.

Roger Freberg

Posted on

USC over Washington in last 2 seconds!

USC Beats Washington in the last 2 seconds! NOTICE: everyone stayed well past the end of the game to celebrate!I’ll leave all the forecasting and second guessing to the ‘pigskin prognosticators’ and the ‘experts’ everywhere. All I can say is that it was a great game to watch… especially if you were lucky enough to be in the historic Los Angeles Coliseum!

I took this picture right after the game ended and if you check out the giant screen, you will see a close up of the two opposing coaches after a tough fight.

I guess the picture of Coach Pete Carroll really impressed me… in fact, most ‘SC coaches show real class in handling victory or defeat… of course, at a top division 1 school like USC and Washnigton Head Coach after the Game‘SC, you don’t get your contract renewed if you don’t win…. and as they said in ‘Ghostbusters’, “I’ve worked in the private sector… they expect results!” Nevertheless, having coaches who show class and win is a real credit to the guy doing the hiring.

It does look like Pete Carroll is giving the Washington Coach a kiss on the nose… but the noise level necessitated close contact. It felt like row 2 in a Rolling Stones Concert… only louder!

There were plenty of complaints from bloggers who thought some of the new rules sucked… but then it was their team that lost. Some complained about the officials… but I observed something else.

Southern Cal has been hampered this year by a wide range of penalties… and it just seems to me to be a way that officials are using to ‘level the playing field’. If you add ‘SC’s penalties back into the mix… the games aren’t close. For example, if you were a Washington offensive lineman, you never got called for ‘holding.’ Hmmmm…. I haven’t seen this sort of thnig since the ACC officials won the Florida game for Florida State some years back.

Here’s what others think:

Fight On!

Roger Freberg

Posted on

Athletes do better before, during and after college

Preparing athletes for their next life

 

There has been a discussion on college campuses on what is considered a viable major for students and student-athletes. It is basically a smokescreen for falling standards overall.

There have been majors that many athletes gravitate to…. it may be because the subject is interesting… such as Psychology or Business…. or maybe…. gasp!… because it is easy.

USA Today reported that athletes do tend to congregate in certain subjects:

“When the Auburn football team’s defense heads into the huddle, the players probably don’t talk sociology. But seven defensive players on Auburn’s 2003 football roster are majoring in that field. Overall, 10 of the 38 Tigers football players whose majors appear in the team’s media guide are in sociology.”

Another article describes a similar tale:

“A review of ASU’s 2003 football team revealed that the most popular major is interdisciplinary studies, a degree program widely considered by students and faculty to be among the university’s easiest. A full 18 percent, or 17 of 94, team members were in the program this past fall.”

Some folks on and off campus grumble about any efforts to give athletes what they consider ‘preferential treatment.’ You know these guys, they were picked last in grade school:

“NCAA Commissioner Myles Brand announced sweeping academic reforms, aimed at increasing dishonesty, cheating, and preferential treatment for student athletes.”

Well, bad stuff happens….. but for most student-athletes this is a rare experience. With the changes in NCAA rules, athletes can continue their athletic performance in graduate school…. for those academically gifted to continue.

It should not escape anyone’s notice that many of the top academic schools in the country are also the top athletic powers as well. The reason for this is obvious, a rich alum makes a donation to their athletic program and then turns to donate funds for a new Physics building. it happens all the time. Some of the best college presidents have recognized this from the beginning… athletics brings in the supporters that can be massaged into donating something more.

Take a trip on U.S. News and World Report and check out the top colleges… you may be surprised to see how many big bowl colleges are top ranked academically!

Research Medical Schools:

# 3 — University of pennsylvania
# 6  — Duke university
# 7 — Stanford
also #7 — University of Washington
# 10 — Baylor Continue reading “Athletes do better before, during and after college”

Posted on

For Some… it’s Back to school!

Karla whipped up this little diddy to wish her mom a good day on her first day of school in over 6 months…. yes, Karla thinks of her mother as a ‘hummingbird.’

Mom back ni class again!

At Cal Poly, professors are contracted — in general — to teach 3 of the 4 quarters a year. Laura always enjoyed teaching over the summer as it allowed us to travel in the spring for college graduations and track meets.

Laura took off Spring as usual then elected not to teach this past summer… which accounts for the 6 months off. Rough life?

Ah yes, the paychecks keep rolling in… which has my daughters convinced that being a college professor is the only way to go! Kristin and Karen were razzing their mother a bit as they have — let’s just say — very busy lives, too. The point wasn’t lost on the girls either, work hard in your youth and you may live to enjoy an easier life when you too are 54.

Sometimes it’s not how much money one makes that’s important… it’s how much time off one gets to do other valuable things… like wave at the neighbors as they go off to work. However, Laura did ‘invest’ her time well as she revised her “Discovering Biological Psychology” textbook for it’s second edition.

Have a good day, hun. I’ll keep the coffee warm for you.

Roger Freberg