The public perspective of High School & College athletes is a negative perspective when it comes to their intellectual capacity. People criticize the population of athletes by referring to them as "Dumb-Jocks." In High School I played Soccer, Basketball and Baseball, so I heard the stereotypes towards my friends and teammates and sometimes towards myself. I've always wondered why we were put in the category as being not educated so I felt it's time to research it. .
The "Dumb-Jock" stereotype originated in the 1930's when a football player at Ohio State College needed to pass an economic test to be able to play in the big game, so the whole class got together and tutored him for a week straight so he could play in the game. A classmate painted a portrait of this incident and called it "The Football Player." But during the 1930's athletes weren't perceived as uneducated, it wasn't until the late 1980's that statistics could back up the theory that athletes are treated differently and get admitted to college before an at-large student.
The first statistic you need to look at is Athletes" admission into college. In 1976 the smallest percentage of students being admitted were athletes. In 1999 48% of admitted students are athletes, and the next highest percentage is 25 percent which are legacies. These percentages should make the population ponder on what the primary mission of these colleges or Universities is. This statistic isn't enough evidence to support a theory for admissions, so I researched SAT scores. And I found once again that athletes are getting very favored treatment. In Division 1A schools the average SAT score of a high profile athlete is 917. That is a 237 point different to a student at large, and they are still dominating college admission. The SAT score however does not back up a Marymount University athlete. The average SAT score of a high profile athlete at a Division III University is an 1126.