Alabama tracking students' locations to penalize them for leaving games early • Hacker News Board

Re: Alabama tracking students' locations to penalize them for leaving games early

#161

Post by seanmcdirmid » Fri, Sep 13, 2019, 9:20 PM UTC

_match wrote: post #151

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

European universities have lots of intramural sports, including soccer. They just can’t understand our massive commercialization of college level sports, but no one else in the world could either, it is uniquely American.

Yea I think the reason is that Western Europe is historically much more urbanized than most of America.

The way this whole thing started was between very urban Ivies in the USA:

> The first organized college sports club was formed in 1843 when Yale University created a boat club.[4] Harvard University then followed in their footsteps, creating a similar boat club a year later. These boat clubs participated in rowing races called Regattas.[5] The creation of these organizations set the stage for the first intercollegiate sporting event in the U.S. This event took place in 1852, when the rowing team from Yale competed against the rowing team from Harvard at Lake Winnipesaukee, New Hampshire.[4] This marked the beginning of intercollegiate competition and triggered the creation of numerous college athletic organizations.[citation needed] This historic race sparked the venerable rivalry between the two schools, the Yale-Harvard Regatta is considered the cornerstone of intercollegiate athletic competition in the United States.[6]

...

> The first intercollegiate football game between teams from Rutgers College (now Rutgers University) and the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) took place on November 6, 1869 at College Field (now the site of the College Avenue Gymnasium at Rutgers University) in New Brunswick, New Jersey.[citation needed]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_athletics_in_the_Unite...

If you delve into it, you'll find that even Football was pretty much an upper crust ivy league thing until well into the 20th century.

Re: Alabama tracking students' locations to penalize them for leaving games early

#162

Post by cbhl » Fri, Sep 13, 2019, 9:20 PM UTC

I have had a few teachers who allocated points of the overall grade for attendance and/or participation. I don't entirely disagree with this approach; in some cases students can do better in school with the right nudge.

The tracking methods range from the low-fi to the high-tech: from a paper attendance checklist, to a Scantron sheet, to iClicker "student response system", to clicking buttons in an online portal.

But I do feel uncomfortable with the escalation of technology being used to perform this task. Scantron sheets being fed into auto-dialers that can call the wrong parent if the teacher bubbles the wrong line. And now, some schools are now running pilots using facial recognition attendance systems.

Re: Alabama tracking students' locations to penalize them for leaving games early

#163

Post by tacomonstrous » Fri, Sep 13, 2019, 9:38 PM UTC

cosmie wrote: post #145

partialrecall wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tuition rates for Harvard and Princeton in particular are deceptive since if you earnestly cannot afford that tuition, they don't ask you to pay it. Those schools are often actually cheaper than public schools for people without much money. Other expensive private-nonprofit schools may be another matter entirely. But those two are bad examples to use.

> Those schools are often actually cheaper than public schools for people without much money. While this is true on paper, it's not always the case in practice. I was able to get multiple acceptance offers to Ivy League schools, and poor enough to have the sliding scale of tuition slide all the way to $0. But all of them had an estimated cost of attendance[1] so optimistic about ancillary expenses during the school y…

I'm a little surprised by your story. I was in a similar situation myself, except that I chose to go to an Ivy League school, and there were sufficiently many work-study options available to help pay for all my expenses.

Re: Alabama tracking students' locations to penalize them for leaving games early

#164

Post by save_ferris » Fri, Sep 13, 2019, 9:38 PM UTC

hobofan wrote: post #143

grogenaut wrote: post #65

The university I went to is in the top 20 (top 8 when I went)(this is just for context not to start an argument about rankings). The school is also in the top 20 in endowments. When I was there they did an analysis of alumni donations. One thing they found out was that if you did 2 or more activities in high school you were likely to do 1 or more activities in college. (these numbers are ballpark) If did ANY activiti…

Are those millionaire/billionaire alumnis making donations? To me it sounds really strange that "normal" alumni would donate to their university in addition to the already expensive tuition they pay off over decades.

Yes, and quite often those donations come with major athletics perks.

I went to a big basketball school (several NCAAM titles), and I was in the band/drum line which did a ton of entertaining for wealthy alumni during games.

Basically the way it works is that you make a “donation” to the school in order to access blocks of tickets to games. The more you “donate”, the better your tickets are. If you “donate” enough, you even get access to exclusive pregame events that usually entail comped drinks and live entertainment (band and cheerleader performances). Some of the biggest donors even get to travel with the team on road games. There was a small group that would travel with university personnel and get some interaction with players during tournament trips.

Re: Alabama tracking students' locations to penalize them for leaving games early

#165

Post by Porthos9K » Fri, Sep 13, 2019, 9:43 PM UTC

LoSboccacc wrote: post #119

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We let students major in theater, but not in football. There's a big difference.

this is extremely misinformed. there are phisical education and phisical therapy degrees, team sport is essential to character development in children and sport in general done early and constantly is useful to combat a wealth of health related issues including obesity. sport in school is not an USA anomaly, in Italy the school curriculum basically includes for all obligatory cycles as much hours of physical activity…

Do you have any evidence to back your assertion that team sport is necessary for childhood character development? How about your implied premise that team sport does a better job of improving physical health than individual sport or non-competive physical activity?

Re: Alabama tracking students' locations to penalize them for leaving games early

#166

Post by Donald » Fri, Sep 13, 2019, 9:51 PM UTC

pavon wrote: post #149

mikeash wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you do if someone wants to leave without swiping? Hold them there against their will? That would be eight million times more Orwellian than asking them to voluntarily install an app in exchange for some points.

You are free to come an go any time you want, swiping or not, but only people who swipe in before the game starts, and swipe out after the game ends would get entered to win playoff tickets. It would be easier to game (you could leave for part of the game and return), but is less invasive than the app approach.

Students would just give their cards to their friends who were staying at the game.

Re: Alabama tracking students' locations to penalize them for leaving games early

#167

Post by bookofjoe » Fri, Sep 13, 2019, 9:54 PM UTC

dubya wrote: post #152

bookofjoe wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact, Alabama football team members spend far more time doing football-related things — practices, meetings, games, etc. — than any non-athlete devotes to their major subject.

Surely only 20 hours a week, or 8 in the off-season, according to NCAA rules.

Players on Big 5 conference teams spend the night before games in an secure hotel, both at home and on the road. That equals at least 24 hours and in the case of night games perhaps 30 hours devoted to football on game weekends every week during the season.

Add to that travel time to distant cities for road games plus practice and you're closer to averaging 60 hours/week.

Many players practice together unofficially as well both in and out of season.

Re: Alabama tracking students' locations to penalize them for leaving games early

#168

Post by Rebelgecko » Fri, Sep 13, 2019, 9:57 PM UTC

Ididntdothis wrote: post #111

Rebelgecko wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's NFL coaches making twice as much as him while producing significantly worse results. And he's certainly bringing in more than $5 million of revenue and free marketing to the university

Then he should go to the NFL and hang with the big guys. Is he personally bringing in the millions and the athletes nothing?

>Is he personally bringing in the millions and the athletes nothing?

I agree with the first half of your sentence and not the second. But I would argue that Saban is easily 10x more important to Alabama's success than any single athlete on the team. I think Bama's QB carousel backs up that claim.

> Then he should go to the NFL and hang with the big guys.

Financially that might be the best move for him, however I don't agree that everyone's main goal in life should be to maximize income. That said, if someone gave me $3 million to do a job I don't like as much as my current one, I'd jump on the opportunity. But if he's already making $5 million, there's diminishing returns.

Re: Alabama tracking students' locations to penalize them for leaving games early

#169

Post by brewdad » Fri, Sep 13, 2019, 10:01 PM UTC

gffrd wrote: post #130

> the University of North Carolina uses location-tracking technology to see whether its football players and other athletes are in class. Oh my.

But can they track whether the student or the tutor wrote the term paper?

Re: Alabama tracking students' locations to penalize them for leaving games early

#170

Post by diminoten » Fri, Sep 13, 2019, 10:17 PM UTC

RandomBacon wrote: post #146

Jach wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not an invasion when you invite it.

Nothing ever optional became mandatory.

Many optional things never become mandatory, stop the slippery slope fallacy...