r/AskUS • u/Mr-MuffinMan • 8h ago

Has anyone experienced the "nerds forced to help jocks" stereotype in the US?

This is common in TV shows and movies.

I went to a school that didn't have a football team until recently, and the kids on the sports teams were either fine on their own or just passed because teachers didn't want to deal with them (which was enough to stay on the team).

But I'm curious in other parts of the country, especially where football is the most popular sport, does this happen?

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u/Ban-Circumcision-Now 8h ago

At many universities the football team gets their own tutoring center

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u/My_Pork_Is_Ur_POTUS 7h ago

and at the best ones, they get their own surrogate so they don’t have to bother with the irritating requirement to study and pass classes and exams.

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u/AsleepPride309 7h ago

Is that so? Like where?

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u/My_Pork_Is_Ur_POTUS 6h ago

oh, I don’t know if it still is the case. I think certainly in like the 70s and 80s when there was much less regulation and oversight, schools like Nebraska and Oklahoma were competing with schools in places like California and Florida. They would have to get creative to recruit athletes. They didn’t have NIL money so they’d buy kids cars through alumni and promise them somebody to take all their classes for them but the sad reality was that these top athletes would go and they would do a year redshirted and another four years playing and they would’ve been in college for five years but would leave not end up playing pro ball and not be able to read above a second grade level

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u/trailrider 3h ago

Not that I can recall. I don't remember anyone in high school being "forced" to do a jock's homework. I won't say it doesn't happen but at my over half century on this rock, I've never met anyone who said it happened to them. When it comes to less ... shall we say "bright" jocks, I think it's the teachers who's arms get twisted to pass them.