The Blame Game: CSU's Academic Problem

It's been a while Mountain West fans! When you have a laptop that keeps breaking you're not able to do things like writing articles unless I want to use my phone. That would not have been good for the eyes or very fun. Good thing I graduated because a broken laptop while in college is pretty much the end of the world.. However to switch things to a more serious issue, as many people have heard three mens basketball players at Colorado State have been ruled ineligible for the spring semester. This is a major black eye for a program which just a few years ago was commended for always having one of the top academic performance ratings. A lot of blame has been passed around from the athletic department, to Larry Eustachy. The most ridiculous one came from a Facebook comment in which someone blamed the push for the new football stadium.

The accountability is on the players. They know that you have to get decent grades to stay eligible. All you need is a 1.9 GPA that's not very hard, non athletes need to remain above a 2.0 to avoid academic probation. The fact that the players didn't take school seriously, and now they're missing the entire second half of the season is embarrassing to themselves, the program and the fan base. Every athlete has mandatory study hall in which they can get all their studying done so they could relax once they get home. The academic advisors often times give them the easiest schedules that revolve their practice schedules so they could succeed. So when everything is laid out for you and you're still ineligible who takes responsibility? The students, the fact that these guys are junior college transfers need to realize that they're at a university. Often times they're given a free pass at their previous institutions, and they come into a university believing that the same thing is going to occur. These players were given a major reality check at the expense of hurting their own teammates.

I hope this serves as a lesson to everyone, not just the Colorado State basketball players. I applaud the University for sending the right messages and holding the players accountable. These are the consequences for not studying and thinking you're going to get by just like Junior College. Use this semester off to become better students and be an example for your teammates and future teammates. Then when next fall comes around you can play again and contribute to this team. The blame is on the players. Now its time for them to put plans into action to become not just better players but better students.