Football and Engineering

T

TULAUS

Guest
I hear kids say they want to go to a place with good academics. I even hear them say they want to get a degree in engineering and will pick a school that has a good engineering program.

Really...

I was in engineering and I don't see how anyone could devote the kind of time it takes to play D-1 football seriously and stay eligible in engineering at a school like UT. It's very easy to fail out of engineering even if you don't play football. Unless you are a genius, you have to study all the time to do well.

So - do you know of any Big 12 starters who actually graduated with a degree in engineering? How about a degree in any challenging subject? I think kids who think they can are in for a dose of reality, but I'd like to hear of examples proving me wrong.
 
Well they have a lot more academic resources available to them then the typical student. But yeah it would be tough. In chemistry there were a few semesters where I had labs 4 days a week which took up the whole afternoon. We lost so many "normal" students junior year during physical chemistry, you would have to be a very bright person to manage the school work and football at the same time.
 
I think it would be very difficult but doable. With the motivation and resources I had, I would say hell no. But you have to remember the schedule they are put on and the resources they have available. The schedule is a double edged sword. Sure you have a lot going on football related, but your mandated schedule doesn’t allow for the time you (or at least I) took to dick around and watch TV or drink a beer. How many times did you procrastinate and wait until the last minute to do something making it a lot more difficult? They way I understand it the players have a few hours a day of mandatory study hall with tutors available. How much easier of a time would you have had with someone making you study and a tutor to make you study efficiently? I am by no means saying it’s easy, but I think if the person is smart enough (at least as smart as me and I’m not that smart) they could handle it. Just for reference I got my BSCE in 1999.
 
Seems like I remember a few guys with Petroleum and Electrical Engineering majors around the late 90's....seems like a big dark haired lineman was one of them but since I got my Mech Eng degree back in the 70's, my memory is not so good any more! It would not have been possible for me to graduate in 4 yrs or 5yrs if I had played one of the major sports.
 
Do place kickers count? Raul Allegre, I believe, completed his Civil Engineering degree from UT in the '80s and then played in the NFL for almost 10 years. I found this interview where Raul talks about how difficult it was to balance his studies and football commitments.
Boca Raton News Article
 
Craig Krenzel got a degree in molecular genetics...which can't be too easy.

It would be damn tough, but football players get whatever tutors they want and if they're willing to give up some of their spare time for studying rather than partying like most athletes do, they could do it.
 
I don't know about football, but I know that we had a PE student starting on the B-Ball team in the late 90's who finished his degree. Did quite well from what I remember.
 
Chase Patton, the back up QB for Mizzou was going to school to be a dentist. Not sure how challenging that degree path is, but I'm sure it wasn't easy.
 
I think Doug Dawson was a PEN major way back in my time on the 40.
 
I had a couple of classes with Dawson (don't know him at all) and I thought he was shooting for a business degree. Back then, petroleum engineering was like the sinking ship from which all the rats were escaping.

Not to imply anyone was a rat. I just couldn't think fo a better cliche.
 
I know someone who did electrical engineering premed at UT and graduated with 180+ hours (~6 yr of hours, but I think he came in with ~40 hours), did 2 semesters of internship, volunteered, did research, shadowed doctors, part time job, had way to much free time and graduated with a VERY good gpa... in 4 years.

So if someone has the "engineering mind" and also happens to be a great athlete... definitely doable.
 
I think Marcus Meyers (FB/LB) from the VY era was a EE major. Richmond McGee (P) was a petroleum engineering major. I believe Bryan Pickryl (DE) was a biomedical engineering major.

Gabe Muoneke was also a petroluem engineering major while he played basketball for us. I was an ME major but had a few classes with him. He was quiet in class, but from what I could tell he seemed like a smart guy. I think his father is a math professor at Prarie View A&M.

Wasn't Connor Wood talking about majoring in petroleum engineering?
 
Lamont Hill (Grant's brother) was a Petroleum Engineer in the early 90s.

Richard Walton was pre-med although not engineering. I thought he finished up with whatever degree he was getting for pre-med (biology?).

BTW, that story of the guy graduating with 180 hours in 4 years with a high GPA even with a 40 hours headstart is crazy.
 
texasflag.gif


If I'm not mistaken, Brett Robin graduated UT pre med and passed his entrance exam, all while he was working his *** off for our football team.












cow_rose.gif
 
I taught an elementary physics class (mainly for premeds) in 1976 at UT. Almost the entire starting backfield and some D-players (e.g. Ray Clayborn) took the class. The athletics dept would contact me every 2 -3 weeks and check to make sure they were doing OK. They would want to know whether anybody had missed a class, and whether anybody was at risk. When I identified guys who might be at risk, the dept arranged for them to get additional tutoring (not from me, but they had other tutors) to bring them back up to speed. I don't know what the penalty for missing a class was, but it had to be pretty tough because the football attendance in that class was close to 100%.

In the end, the ball players got B's and high C's. I was quite impressed with them, and more impressed with the effort the athletics dept put into making sure that they did not screw up.
 
About a decade ago when I was at UT, some top football prospect listed academic quality as one of his determining factors. He wanted to be a EE. He visited UT and said, basically, that he was disappointed with the engineering campus. I took that to mean it looked crappy, to which I agreed.

Said prospect selected Tennessee a few months after that. I don't know what major he selected once on campus.

I want to say the prospect was Michael Munoz but I'm not sure.
 
Unless they have done some serious remodeling work in the past 10 years, then the engineering campus is crappy. The EE building looks like it was built in the 50's and hasn't been updated since.
 
You could do both, but you'd be super busy, and would either have to be very smart, or have your grades suffer during the fall. The travel time of leaving on Friday, and getting back either Saturday night or early Sunday would be killers for your study time.

You'd have to slack some in fall classes, try to take easy classes then, and make up for it during the spring, and also take summer classes to take the classes you avoided in the fall.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Weekly Prediction Contest

* Predict HORNS-AGGIES *
Sat, Nov 30 • 6:30 PM on ABC

Recent Threads

Prediction Results Threads

2024 Schedules

Back
Top