Florida State Testimony Reveals Embarrassing Detail

I’ll just say up front that I did not make it past page 35 of the 684-page PDF detailing the investigation into Florida State, but it appears some enterprising person (people?) from the New York Times made it at least far enough to find this wonderful bit of information.↵↵⇥Brenda Monk, a learning specialist hired to work with athletes who had learning and physical disabilities, was accused of improperly helping students type, edit and write their papers. Monk, who testified that some of those athletes had a second-grade reading level, was accused of committing academic fraud. In one case, she was said to have let students use a study guide that had answers to exam questions for an online music course.↵↵↵The emphasis there is mine, but ... second-grade reading level? That’s not only an indictment on Florida State, but also on whatever high school these kids came from. To be fair, there’s no indication as to which sports these athletes came from. And that’s tough to really figure out, because the case involves 61 athletes across 10 sports. ↵

↵↵To say that any athletes were functioning at a second-grade level ranks up there with details, at least from an academic standpoint, that are about as damning as they come. I tried to run through my mind for anything remotely like that, and the best I could come up with was former Auburn/Cincinnati Bengals running back James Brooks, who could not read court documents in 1999 because he was illiterate. The judge wondered how a person who graduated from high school and went to Auburn for four years would possibly be illiterate. “I didn’t have to go to class,” Brooks told the judge.↵

↵↵So don’t worry, Florida State, you’ve always got James Brooks to bail you out in the Hall of Academic Shame.↵

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