Last Chance U

[wdfifteen]

It's a Netflix documentary about Eastern Mississippi Community College's football program. Kids who couldn't make it in an NCAA Division one football program due to discipline or academic issues try to rehabilitate at EMCC. The disfunction among these kids is astounding! They can't handle the simplest things - how are they ever going to get by in the real world? They have earbuds or headphones on constantly, and their language is so bizarre the dialog is often subtitled in English. Even then they use words like "finna" that I have to look up in the urban dictionary. It's worth a watch just to see how deeply below normal society the underclass in our country can be.

https://www.netflix.com/title/80091742

[URY914]

I watched all of season #1 during the last few weeks and now watching season 2. If they don't speak English how can they write English? I can image the academic adviser doesn't make much money but she should be making more than the head coach. The stuff she puts up with on a daily basis is incredible. Those kids cell phones are everything to them. Those kids have no clue.

[berettafan]

Looks interesting, will check it out.

[matthewb0051]

Wow, just wow.

I knew about the CC angle but didn't know it was as bad as described. As much as I love college football, I also see it as a really bad thing due to this scenario. Guys put all their eggs in this basket and don't have a plan B then have nothing later. I guess there is Arena League or CFL...

[legion]

Had a friend of a friend (one of my college roommate's high school friends) that went through this.

This guy gets recruited by a private catholic high school (where my college roommate went to high school) to play football. He got his tuition waved. He played running back and was a standout on the field. Despite the small size of the high school (400 students) he gets recruited by Notre Dame to play football where he gets a full ride.

Freshmen year, during summer practice (or during an early game, I don't recall which), he gets injured. He spends his entire freshmen year on the bench and doesn't play at all or practice much because of the injury.

Now, I get the sense from my friend that because he was such a standout for football in high school, all of the teachers in his high school were "with the program". He got the grades he needed to stay eligible without having to put forth any effort.

From what I hear, even though he was injured and not suiting up, he still knew to visit his football locker at least once a week. The week before classes his books would be in there. There'd always be new clothes and snacks. Sometimes there'd be tickets to local events or video games. He even got a cell phone (this was the late 90's and not everyone had a cell phone back then).

Now, because of his high school experience, he didn't think he'd have to study in college either. He was given free tutors, group study opportunities. His classes were pretty much picked out for him so as not to interfere with football. He took advantage of none of it nor did he really show up for class. By the end of his freshmen year, his grades were in such a state that regaining eligibility was not going to happen the next season.

Sophomore year he was put on some sort of academic rehabilitation program. From what I gather, he was both resentful of being forced to work on his grades, and the coaches were less than impressed with his playing. He got cut after his sophomore year.

Junior year he goes to the college I was at that had a crappy Division IA football program and walks on to the team. He plays every game and does okay. He still refuses to work on his grades (or attend class, for that matter). He gets kicked off the team after junior year is over for academic eligibility issues.

I don't know what happened to him after that, but the few times I met the guy it was clear he had a big chip on his shoulder and all of the bad things that happened to him (like getting kicked out of Notre Dame) were other people's fault and he was just the victim.

[URY914]

Some of the clowns on this season's (2016) team are there from Penn State, Georgia, Florida State Univ. division 1 schools. I believe the Penn St. and Georgia fellas had failed their drug tests several times. The fine FSU transfer QB is the POS that punched the girl in the bar that was caught on video tape a few years back.

One of the players said on the show that when he was in HS that after the season was over he stopped going to class. He only went to HS to play football. At least I think he said that. Kinda hard to understand them when they move their lips and sound comes out.

[berettafan]

Got through a season of it. Wonder who's out there holding hands of non athlete students.

Will continue to watch. The reality of college sports is pretty shocking.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[MRM]

Originally Posted by berettafan

Got through a season of it. Wonder who's out there holding hands of non athlete students.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The honest answer to that question is no one. That's why graduation rates are so low for students in general, and the four year graduation rate is almost a mirage - for middle class kids with a built in safety net. The percentage of kids who start at a community college and end up graduating from a 4 year college within 6 years (the usual benchmark) is something like 5 percent. There was a damning article in The Atlantic a year or so ago that pointed out that colleges are perfectly organized to maximize student admission and spend almost no resources helping kids navigate the system and make progress in their academic journey. Kids whose parents graduated from college can show a motivated student the tricks necessary to get through any school. Kids who were unprepared from the start get left behind like road kill once their student loan check clears.

The kids in Last Chance U are at Last Chance U because they were unprepared and didn't make it the first time around. Its so sad because they're failing not just because they don't know how to follow the rules to be successful, they're unaware there are rules that need to be followed to become successful. No one is teaching them the rules or how to get ahead in life.

I went to a tiny state school with a rural and largely blue collar student body. I took a class on general study habits and academic success, speech, business communications, and many other classes where part of the curriculum was to teach students how to present themselves, from the way we spoke and dressed to etiquette, and general life skills and how to succeed in a corporation. It made a huge difference in my life. I think of my experience and training as I watch students like the ones in Last Chance.

[CalPersFatCat]

Not all college football players are like that.

For the better part of two years I ate dinner pretty much every Tuesday night during football season, with the 1999 UCLA Rose Bowl Offense.

Andy Meyers, Cade McNown, Kris Farris, Shawn Stuart, Mike Grieb, Ryan Neufeld, Danny Farmer, Craig Walendy and Oscar Cabrera were all solid young men and turned out to be productive members of society. Oscar died of cancer in 2013.

Andy Meyers, my favorite of all of them, operates in the same professional space as I do and is wildly successful. Individually, they are all fantastic people.

DL

While tossing football one night right after Cade signed his Rookie NFL contract, I told him that I never want to open the business page and see that he had blown his signing bonus buying a partnership in a string of fried chicken joints. He didn't.

[john70t]

Originally Posted by MRM

The kids in Last Chance U are at Last Chance U because they were unprepared and didn't make it the first time around. Its so sad because they're failing not just because they don't know how to follow the rules to be successful, they're unaware there are rules that need to be followed to become successful. No one is teaching them the rules or how to get ahead in life.

But following the rules never got Steve Jobs or Donald Trump or any other aggressive entrepreneur to where they wanted to be and are today. At least that was one version of the official story anyways. It just forgot the part where Einstein quoted "genius is 5% inspiration and 95% perspiration". That second part has languished in our modern culture. It is human nature to get to a point, claim success, sit on the couch watching tv, and then die of heart attack a year later. Nature reclaims itself, that b***ch. We get lax and step on a land mine in the back yard.

Parents need to go let their kids dig in the dirt, roll in the grass, get bruised and bleed a little without blaming anyone else. Then they also need to show their kids how the adults do it. The responsibilities of bills, how to organize paperwork, how to fight the BS, how to self-audit and reflect on what worked and what didn't.

It's even worse when the highest levels of society tell the kids "rules don't matter"...

Actually it is good for students to follow the rules until they no longer pertain to reality. To have a basis, a fallback, a place of comfort and nurturing that is always they for them when returning home. Rules are similar to any type of social organization. Mother, wife, family, friends, or even one's own skin to be comfortable....until the student understands the basic rules and skill sets they will need to use to venture further they should practice with what they know.

Standing on the shoulders of past giants.
To forgo instant success or validation or distractions. To run the long game.
And then to take off from that vantage point.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_of_Genius_(film)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Short_(film)
Turtle flying across the sky since the dawn of time.

Then success goes to taking the calculated risk venturing into the great unknown like polynesians and vikings. And failing. And learning. And trying again. Until something sticks. Even the slightest at first. Then more. Then validation at the most basic level. Then failure. The bottom. Then starting anew slightly different again and again.

The only thing that should stay consistent is to stay hungry at whatever level they are at.