Does Basketball make you stupid? Or do you have to be stupid to play it? ESPN investigates FSU.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/otl/news/story?id=4737281

As the learning specialist working with the most academically challenged athletes at Florida State, Brenda Monk was confronted each year with recruits who would seem to have little chance of surviving on a college campus. Their deficiencies were laid out in transcripts and psycho-educational reports submitted during the admissions process.

Sometimes, the athletes knew exactly what they were up against. She recalls a conversation with one such player in her office at Doak Campbell Stadium.

"You might as well know right off the bat, I can't read," he told her.

"Then how are we going to get through these college classes?" she asked

It's easy," he responded. "You get to read to me."

And so she did, Monk says, spending about 20 hours a week by his side, turning classroom texts into passages to be absorbed orally, and making flash cards to improve his memory. He qualified for the help, she says, because he was learning disabled, or LD.

Or perhaps he meant "help me cheat" since she was forced to resign

Indeed, Monk, who was forced to resign from FSU in 2007 after six years, is accused by the NCAA of academic fraud and unethical conduct -- accusations she has asked the NCAA Division I Infractions Appeals Committee to overturn -- for allegedly doing too much work for athletes.

....more than a third of the football team, and three-quarters of the basketball team, had learning disabilities.

By comparison, experts estimate that 5 to 10 percent of the general adult population has a learning disability.

Football I can understand with all the potential for "head trauma", but what is it about basket ball that makes you more then TEN times as likely to be learning disabled?

That you don't need gear to play it.

A lot of "learning disabilities" are just based off the fact that people are poor and didn't get the right kind of teaching/care/nutrition early on... and are far behind in age.  Learning disabilties are much more prevelent in the poor. 

Well that and it even makes sense for genetic learning disabilities... since people if people in your family have a hard time learning... chances are they aren't going to be the people who are getting advanced degrees.

If your a poor inner city kid... which sport are you most likely going to be able to get a lot of practice at?

The one with all the padding, helmet and you need like 25 people.

The one where everyone needs a mit, a ball and you need 18 people...

Or the game you can play with as little as 2 people and only need a ball and a hoop?

Okay I'll just be the first to say it

racism warning:  you have to be black to play basketball

My topic title was meant to be a bit tongue in cheek.

The real story is that many colleges, and FSU seems to be a worse then average offender, is recruiting students for college sports that should not have passed the eigth grade.

I feel these borderline retarded mostly Black basket ball players are primarilly stealing college spots from more deserving blacks that wish to persue academic learning.