'Past generations of Arizona's football and men's basketball teams wrote the headlines, but when essay assignments arrived, your high-profile athletes took a hit in the loss column. [The reporter for the University of Arizona newspaper is a freshman who writes pretty well. Naturally, though, SOS has some suggestions...] [...For instance, generations would be better than past generations. Past is implicit when you refer to generations. And while SOS is about to notice and more or less admire the flamboyant language throughout the piece, she will also issue a caution about overuse...]


Both teams held the worst graduation rates in the Pacific 10 Conference from 1997-2000, according to the NCAA's Graduation Success Rate report released Oct. 3. For the third year in a row, Arizona football occupied the Pac-10 cellar with a 41 percent graduation rate of players earning a degree within six years of enrollment.

This year, the men's basketball team joined the basement party with a backboard-shattering 25 percent graduation rate - less than half of the national average of 61 percent. [Basement party's nice, and backboard-shattering's great, but when you put them together you get a mixed metaphor.]

The McKale male ballers may have grabbed plenty of rebounds in March, but when it came down to snagging a diploma on the hardwood, three of four players shot the air ball in May. [Peppy, peppy. But a little over the top with all the sports metaphors.] Wonder if 25 percent from the free-throw line would be an acceptable performance on the court? [Very good. But I'd tighten it a bit: Would 25 percent from the free throw line look good to you? Something like that.]

Then again, look who's laughing now, sitting pretty with multi-million dollar bankrolls. [Look who's laughing now is a walloping cliche... But SOS has pointed out before on this blog that sports writing is cliche writing, so there may be no way out of this...]

"For the elite-level kid, basketball is everything," said Josh Pastner, a UA men's basketball assistant coach. "Why do you think Mike Bibby came here? He came here to get ready for his chosen profession."

Pastner believes the NCAA data is skewed, since the numbers penalize student-athletes who leave school to turn professional. [Um, in what way is this skewed? It's exactly what the numbers mean to reveal.] The percentage also fails to credit former players like Mile Simon, who left Arizona in 1998 but returned to finish his degree outside of the designated six-year period.

Can you blame current NBA superstars Bibby, Gilbert Arenas and Jason Terry for walking away from Tucson to cash contracts combining for hundreds of millions?

"Make Gilbert Arenas stay four years - I want to hear how they're going to do that," said Jim Rosborough, UA special assistant to the athletic director.

In his 18 years as an assistant coach for Olson's Arizona men's basketball program, Rosborough ensured his players attended class. But since the new mindset in athletics drastically evolved into dollar signs, academic priorities evidently fell down the ladder. [Rewrite this sentence, getting rid of drastically and evidently, and choosing between dollar signs and ladders for your images.]

Through the eyes of an elite athlete, turning professional is a continuous fixture [Continuous is redundant. And I'm not sure fixture is the best image. How about saying fixation?] from youth basketball up through high school. Rosborough said those attitudes develop from parents' pressures to become great.

And as Pastner said, "In the NBA, they don't require you to have a degree."

The debate boils down to one simple argument: stay for an education or leave for financial freedom. [That's two simple arguments.] Eat at Which Wich, or own a Which Wich franchise? [Nice example.] In senior cornerback Antoine Cason's case, his education remains priceless.

Despite opportunities to enter last year's NFL draft and prognosticators pegging him as a first-round pick, Cason believes his tough decision to stay was a "gut check," showing dedication to finish out something he started. [Writer did well to highlight "gut check." It's a good phrase.]

"You can't duplicate your college experience," Cason said. "Graduation is one of my goals, and that's what I want to do."

Rocky LaRose [Great name!], a UA associate athletic director, believes being last place in the Pac-10 is irrelevant, due to the diversity of public and private schools in the conference. [Huh?] She compares athletic graduation rates to the entire UA rate, which she said has exceeded the school percentage in the past. [Confused sentence. Problem starts with the word which. Rewrite for clarity.] The recent decrease, however, dips athletes below the university percentage.

LaRose, who forecasted such a downfall, seeks an optimistic future after the football program went through four head coaches in five years between 2000-2004, leading to multiple player transfers. [Futures can't be optimistic. Only people can be optimistic. Find a better word.]

The academic unit now reports to the university side, rather than the athletics department.

More changes include a revamping of the C.A.T.S. program that Pastner describes as "the best in America" and the MVP of McKale Center. From life skills to academic help, C.A.T.S. provides athletes with the proper resources to succeed in the classroom.

Pastner stresses the significance of the term "student-athlete" over the common mindset of an athlete-student.

Hopefully Wildcats today and beyond bear down and take that to heart. [Hopefully always comes across as a bit awkward - and a bit rhetorically weak - when used in this way. It's particularly limp in the context of what's just been written. Most of the staff has just told him they don't give a shit whether athletes graduate. So the hopefulness seems exclusive to the reporter.]'

---the wildcat online---

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