The Birmingham News provided a look at the debate over athletic dorms for student-athletes. Who were the biggest proponents? Football coaches. Coaches like Pat Dye.

Here’s what the Auburn legend had to say:

“I don’t think you have to go any further than just look at the service academies,” he said. “I would say you get as high a quality education at the Naval Academy or at West Point or the Air Force Academy as you can get anywhere in America. Those are very disciplined environments.

“They supposedly made this ruling because they wanted the student-athlete to mix and mingle with other students on campus. You can take a swimmer or a football player or a golfer competing at the college level and you can try all you want to make them a normal student, but they are not normal students. They are up at 5 in the morning swimming or on the golf course all afternoon.

“Some kids are mature enough and come from a disciplined home environment and are perfectly capable of living in an apartment and doing what they are supposed to do,” Dye said. “Another percentage of them … fall into bad company and end up doing some bad things.”

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Opponents of athletic dorms? Academic types. Tommy Tuberville. And UA’s media relations.

Here’s a sample of what they had to say:

Doug Walker, the University of Alabama’s associate athletics director for media relations, said the athletic department supports the NCAA’s decision about mainstreaming athletes.

“We do believe in the principle that mainstreaming is good for the student-athlete,” he said. “No matter how you house people or what policy you create, ultimately behavior is up to the individual. We try to help them do the right thing and to help them have the right influences around them.

Right. Anytime someone says, “We support the NCAA’s decision…” you can smell the BS.

And Mr. Tuberville’s stance on the matter:

“I’ve been through full athletic dorms and 50 percent athletic dorms and it hasn’t made a lot of difference,” he said. “We let the older players live off campus as a reward. The ones who we think need a little bit more supervision academically may live in the dorms.

The BS detector should go off here too. Tuberville says the demise of athletic dorms hasn’t made a difference, yet in his own statement he affirms he requires borderline students to live in dorms—in an environment more controlled than off campus.

So, which is it Tommy?

I think the UA statement and the AU statement are simply products of the current environment. Neither school wanted to take a stick to the anthill known as the NCAA.

But listening to what Dye has to say is important. You get a lot of borderline characters at SEC schools. (Yes this includes Auburn. And all this pompous nonsense about AU recruits persons of character will one day wash away in a spate of arrests—*cough*Clifton Robinson*cough*.) This is the nature of modern college football. It is the nature of modern sport.

If you are going to hold coaches accountable for the behavior of their athletes, you should give them the tools to control those athletes.

32 thoughts on “More on athletic dorms”

  1. It must be nice to never be accountable to anything, and all your troubles are someone elses fault. I suggest looking up the “Fundamental Attribution Error.”

  2. And what did that have to do with what Pat Dye said? Nothing. You are so busy trying to say someone (by that you mean Saban) should be held accountable for this. How do you know he did anything wrong? You don’t. You just know he is a “bad” person. Ergo, it must be true. Sounds like you are making that attribution error. You come here with your a priori opinion that Saban is evil, and therefore did something wrong. You don’t need no stinking facts…..or have any need to engage in an actual dialogue about the situation.

    Why not explain why Pat Dye is wrong? Why not explain why mainstreaming student athletes is good?

  3. Why is mainstreaming athletes good? So they can live off campus and become drug dealers **cough cough** Jimmy Johns or maybe they can rob other students at gun point?? What the hell is the point of this article??? What are you trying to say??

  4. Redneck Barnie, you’re nothing more than the proverbial gnat in our ass, just like 99.9% of the backwoods barnie family.

    What is the purpose of your pointless responses? All you try to do is contradict everything posted by YOUR ENEMY on AN ENEMY WEBSITE! I understand your problems of inferiority (and you claim you’re a soldier). But dear God, there comes a point and time where enough is enough. Seriously guy, are you unemployed? Obviously so seeing how you troll our website up like a 12 year old kid does My Space, every minute of the hour. If you’re in dire need of trolling up something in particular, why not troll up your parents’ phone line for raising you to be an Alabama PolyTECHnic Institute fan. Don’t take your enviously jealous feelings out on us, just because you’re not us.

  5. BamaNY

    You know just as well as I do we’ll never hear from this sidewalk redneck ever again, after all of his hopes and dreams aka the streak, is said and done with.

    Let him enjoy his fun in the sun. Hell, it’s not likely Bama will undergo NCAA sanctions anytime in the near future, so they won’t come close to tasting success like this again for another 4-5 decades.

  6. I have noticed a pattern with you guys. Step 1: Downplay UAT’s problems; Step 2: post more AU blogs than UAT blogs on your website and suggest, somehow, that AU fans feel inferior to UAT; Step 3: when all else fails and there just is no way to spin the facts, resort to name calling.

    You’ll notice that I intentionally did not single out Saban as the only problem, rather, I simply pointed out that you guys immediately start pointing fingers at someone else instead of looking at yourself (i.e., coaches, administration, recruiting practices, & UAT culture). There is a reason why some schools have more discipline problems than others, and it most likely isn’t the NCAA. I also concede that almost all schools will have some discipline problems, however, I think most reasonable people would concur that UAT has had far more than their share.

    capstonereport, I have tried multiple times to engage in dialogue about the FACTS, and it has only resulted in name calling.

  7. Aren’t all Barnies/Aubies/AUtards/Aubbos considered frivolous trolls?

    Anyway, as was said, student-athletes will never be regarded as typical students. It’s like considering a president (not Bush) as your average American. It just doesn’t fly. Never has and it never will!

  8. NEWSFLASH: ALABAMA POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE FANS AUBSESSES OVER THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA!

    What’s new? They AUbsess over us when they win, and they AUbsess over us when they lose. It’s a literal shame, but walk a mile in their shoes and we’ll sympathize their inferiority.

    The difference between UA and The API is while our focus has always primarily centered around national attention, API’s focus has always primarily centered around UA. Nothing has changed, nor will it ever change. They could care less if API won the national championship; they’d rather know what Nick Saban or Dr. Witt is doing at the current moment.

    When you’re second-fiddle to a particular program, jealousy will always follow.

    They’d rather see Tommy Tuberville die, than see Alabama win — even if it’s against a different opponent. That’s how pitiful those poor, trailer trash kings and queens are. Just be thankful you’re not a member of the dysfunctional Barnie family. It’s a blessing, not a coincidence.

  9. Joker and Bammer NY- Typical Bammer fans. All you can do is downgrade me. You can’t talk about your team because they are in the toilet so the only thing you can do is talk about Auburn fans. Typical. Why not bring up some of that tradition we always hear about. I do work all day long protecting people like yourself. Get a real job yourself joker, why not join the marines with me? I will be waiting for you at Paris Island. Come on down boy and say those things to my face.

  10. Cap-

    Tubby said that the lack of dorms have not made a difference when it comes to kids getting in trouble off the field, but he makes the kids that need more ACADEMIC supervision live in the dorms. Can you not see a difference in the 2?

    Glad to see you are still spinning…keep up the good work!!!

  11. GW- Go on over to al.com. Click on the sports section, then click on Auburn football– read the blogs and you will see for yourself that there are so many Bammer fans on there it is not funny. TMC frequents the site. He can’t stay off it. But of course bammer does nothing wrong and they do not go blog on Auburn sites.. oh hell no. Why would they? What do they have to blog about? It is people like you guys who give bammers bad names. Your program is laughed it because fans like you get out and proclaim over and over and over and over.. you’re back.. well are you back yet? When will the winning start??

  12. Prime example: every gas station, convenient store, novelty shop, souvenir shop, restaurant, etc. in Aubarn, Alabama, focuses more on Alabama than it does Aubarn, opposed to Tuscaloosa, where every gas station, etc. etc. focuses on ALABAMA as well!

    Also notice that 3/4ths of every Daniel Moore painting (Aubarn) has something to do with an Iron Bowl victory.

    That town is nothing but a rejected Alabama system school that simply couldn’t hang with the premier universities of the state. Not to mention 100% of their student body wasn’t accepted into UA, after dreaming of attending school there, which is why they hate Alabama more than they love Alabama Tech!

  13. TylerPorter05UCFalumn: That response above HAS said it all…has NO idea what he/she is talking about… typical bammer fan.. LMAO!!!

  14. mike–

    So academic trouble isn’t trouble off the field?

    Of course a student who needs academic supervision is in academic trouble.

    Tuberville’s position is contradictory. But as I said in my post, I think that has less to do with what he believes than what he feels like he should say. At least his comments weren’t as lame as Alabama’s. 🙂

  15. Is that so, guy with the name who symbolizes every Aubarn fan? I guess my eyes were deceiving me while living in that shit-hole for three years of my life (What a waste). Every other shirt is anti-Alabama. And as was said, EVERYTHING IS ANTI-ALABAMA! Aubarn would be a much happier place if they evolved more around themselves, rather than something else.

  16. TylerPorter05UCFalumn: Like was said before.. typical bammer fan. Trash it all you want but at the end of the day you are still a bammer fan you can’t help yourself little boy. We are laughing at you.

  17. And believe you me, I’d much rather be a “Bammer” than a “Barnie”. Wire Road trailer park(s). Redneck frat parties. A rundown, four foot downtown area. NO STRIP! Less bars than a dry city. Absolutely no clubs whatsoever. No famous people ever tour through your town. Egotistical redneck students who actually believes their mud riding trucks are prettier than Jennifer Love Hewitt. You’re not considered cool if you don’t drive a jacked up truck with a deer decal on the back window. Woods, woods, and more woods. One two-lane interstate crossing through the entire county. Hunting. Fishing. Cow Pastures. Chicken farms. OEPLIKA! Your campus is your city. When school is out, the population drops immensely. And seriously, when will you guys realize the great depression is over?

    Seriously, how can you be proud of that place? I’m embarrassed to say I actually lived there. I’m embarrassed to say it’s an American city. That’s what you call the stereotypical southern town.

    Sorry to disappoint, but the joke’s all on you, Redneck Aubarn fan…. Or actually, your city!

  18. Tyler-

    I have a great idea…keep your trashy ass out of Lee County and we will all be happy:) I live in Auburn and love it. Granted it is not as busy as some other places I have lived, but I am also not into partying every night or sniffing coke. Call me carzy, but I also enjoy hunting and fishing over partying on the Strip, buying drugs from football players or getting held at gun point by football players.

  19. TylerPorter05UCFalumn- I agree withy mike- keep your candy ass out of there. You can actually sit there and down Auburn and honestly say all those things when you have Tuscalooser. Tell me.. when was the last time you were in “downtown” Tuscalooser? Apparently you have never been there. Exactly how many interstates run through Tuscalooser? Jeff Foxworthy (making fun of bammer fans,) Ron White (same thing), Clint Black, Garreth Brooks, The Cure, GOO GOO Dolls, James Taylor, Jimmy Buffett, the list goes on and on of people I saw in concert ON CAMPUS while attending Auburn. Your comments really show your ignorance.

  20. By the way.. how old are you?? 12? And yes comments like you made above only makes us laugh harder. pathetic.

  21. Cap-

    Sure, academic trouble is a form of off the field trouble, but it is viewed differently than the type trouble that has been going on in T’town.

    BTW, athletic dorms are a thing of the past and are never coming back. Way too many privileges were used and abused inside those dorms.

  22. Bama Fan In N Y C Says:
    June 30th, 2008 at 7:53 am
    Redneck Barnie, you’re nothing more than the proverbial gnat in our ass,
    Your regurgitated stuff i c, ya know if you go back and look at this blog you will see the truth! im not gonna point it put cause i hurt peoples feelings around here but read each blog and look at yourself in the mirror and BLAME ME!

  23. Honestly, I hate to be the bearer of bad news for all you envious AUtards here, but unfortunately for you, none of your feeble attempts, or attacks, will ever change the fact that you represent an afterthought of a school, who’s forced to operate under the dark, unbearable shadow, which Alabama casts upon you.

    Just accept that fact and move on with your life. If you could stop polluting our website with your envious hate then maybe, just maybe, you can lay your head down for once knowing you went an entire thirty minutes, at the least, without suffering from the humiliating misery that all rejected little brothers suffer from.

  24. I like to touch little children in ways that make them feel inwardly uncomfortable.

    I also take pride in my extreme occupation: peeling potatoes on the USS Opelika!

    War Eagle Hey!

  25. Don’t feel bad redneck tider, I once liked little children myself as well… WHEN I WAS SEVEN!

  26. Auburn as a whole is a disgusting place to live. The town reeks of fresh cow manure (courtesy of the fresh smell wafting throughout the college) and fresh cut grass. Plus there’s no bar scene worth while. I even have friends that attend AU who says UA has a way better party life. Personally I don’t see how anyone could be proud of that place either.

  27. Keep right on partying AMY FOR ALL OF UA
    thats what gives folks like JIMMY JOHNS A JOB SELLING HIS WARES! I BET YOU SAY STUFF LIKE >>>THATS HOT!!!! idiot broad!!!

  28. Amy 4 UA…. Actually the smell you refer to is 6 years worth of an elephant getting the shit stomped out of it. Also, by the way you refer to a lack of a bar scene, and how Tuscaloosa is Party Central, grab your phone book and look up the nearest AA meeting place. As you drive to the meeting place, look off the side of the road, maybe in a ditch, and take Stabler with you…before he kills somebody.

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