One of my favorite parts of watching college basketball games on CBS is when a player goes to the free throw line, and CBS displays the player’s profile — Name, Position, Height, Weight, Year, and the kicker, his Major. It’s here where you learn that there are majors like “Parks & Recreation” at NC State and that practically every single Duke player is a Sociology major. If you’re listening to Dickie V, you might think that each Dookie also scored 1400 on his SATs. He’s wrong. At Duke, they get to bend the rules off the court by taking a large number of their credits as “independent study”. On the court, they catch some breaks, too (see here).

Yes, the state of educating college basketball (and football, for that matter) players is not a pretty one. Most “student-athletes” believe they’re in college to play basketball first, and second to get an education. The only thing class can do for them is to screw up their chance to play basketball. So it’s not surprising when you look at a college basketball roster, and most of the players are majoring in the same thing (a la Sociology at Duke). That major usually caters to the athletes. In the Big East, this phenomena is most prominent at the following schools:

• Cincinnati: Criminal Justice. A whoppping 8 out of 13 players!
• UCONN: Liberal Arts. Of the five non-freshman, five have this major.
• Louisville, Marquette and Pittsburgh: the most likely major is Communications (actually, at Pitt, it’s called Communication and Rhetoric). Roughly a third of all their rosters fall under that major.

Are there any Big East hoopsters hitting the books as hard as they hit the boards? In my research, I did find a single player majoring in something hardcore. I’m not talking about History, Economics, or even Biology. Nope, this dude is majoring in Computer Science! He’s also lived in Hong Kong, China and Taiwan for eight years of his life (and he’s not Asian). “Oh, he must be a walk-on”, you’re saying. Nope. He’s a starter and the second highest scorer on his team. A former teammate said he’s as athletic as Rudy Gay. I’ve mentioned him before on this blog as a major talent. Go ahead, make a guess. His name, after the cut.

It’s none other than Joe Alexander of West Virginia. He’s the next Emeka Okafor of the Beast. Here’s a few stories that have been written about him:

• This mentions his choice of major. Also notes that he was Big East All-Academic last year.
• Mike Gansey is quoted in this article: “I’d put him up there with (Connecticut’s) Rudy Gay. If he gets a breakaway it’s going to be nasty.”
• Other bloggers have noticed him as well.

Categories: Commentary, donald