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The study is looking at BCS schools which is going to be skewed completely by the fact that a percentage of those athletes leave school early, and also transfer and those things are not taken into consideration in relation to the graduation rates at the BCS schools. Once again BCS schools make up such a small fraction of college athletics that it's almost insane to analyze BCS schools and major conference schools and completely overlook the number of schools at the low major D-1, D-2, D-3 (non scholarship) NAIA and JUCO schools that are graduating college athletes at a higher level than Black non athletes graduate. There is a reason all reports ONLY look at revenue generating schools and it's because it makes better conversation about the failure of athletics. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/10/29/graduation-rates-athletes-hit-record-high While most research has a position and the NCAA has a position where they have to make themselves look better, their research has not been refuted. You can use the above link to look into the research on the NCAA website. You can focus on the most desirable programs, but doing so means that you are focused on the negative because those schools make up such a small percentage of the scholarships available for student athletes. It completely discounts over a thousand programs at all levels to focus on 20-30 schools. So when you say there is a problem and it can't be debated or shouldn't be debated, that's not right. The problem is why is all of the research focused on the revenue generating schools? Are those schools more important than the non revenue generating programs that have a lot of Black students. I've posted a link below that discusses the NCAA stats and what's surprising is that of all sports the lowest graduation rate is among Wrestling programs. Those programs tend to be White. We both know that Black students who attend college are not performing and graduating at the same rate as their peers, but when you dig into the stats across the board, not just at the revenue cash cows/BCS schools that your report focuses on we also know that student athletes graduate at a higher rate than their Black non athlete counterparts. http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/research/academic-success-rate-asr So what exactly are you attempting to establish? That sports aren't working for Blacks and they should place their focus elsewhere? or That sports at BCS schools aren't serving their purpose for Black students? Because to look at BCS schools solely would mean that you are going to have to factor in students transferring which happens more often at BCS schools and students leaving for the pros which happens more often at BCS schools. Now, you make the suggestion that people don't know. Troy, I think that is the most positive thing you've written because it gives people the benefit of ignorance. I'm unlike you in this regard because I think people know, they just don't give a damn. People know visiting AALBC is good for AALBC, but people are freaking haters and don't want to support the site because that would be supporting you and giving you an income. I think Black folks suffer from so much self hate that we tear down each other through inaction. In other words, I will give you lip service and lipstick support, but I won't support where it matters most because I'll be damned if I'm going to give your black ass a dime. I will give you a dime when I think it will benefit me, but outside of that I ain't paying. The decline of the message board in my opinion is not anti-intellectual. It's anti you. On a daily basis when I'm around Black folks in the street and even at corporate styled events I here these words, "Fuck that nigga." It's under the breath and whispered in conversations between people. I've seen people standing when they don't think they are being heard and they say outright, " (insert name) thinks they are doing big things." Sabotage happens through a lack of effort as much as it does through ignorance. Schools are failing Black students. PERIOD Not just Black athletes, Black students. The reasons actually align with why this message board isn't half as busy as when I used to lurk. Our people are a monolith in that when it comes to having an issue with seeing the success of our people we have half of us pulling for each other and a quarter of us, waiting on failure and that other quarter isn't interested at all. It's like the issue with students we talked about. The good students get support, the poor students get support, the kids in the middle get left to figure it out. This message board and Black students are left to figure it out.

OK, Facebook got me today. Every time I log in to Facebook to reply to responses to my posts, I see photos posted from several years ago; from a time when I actively shared personal shots on the platform, appear at the top of my wall. The two images below were there this morning: Both shots were taken in a brownstone (a large townhouse, attached on both sides) I owned in Harlem for about 10 years. During that time I hosted a number of events. I held film screenings in my backyard, a reading series called the Brownstone Series, and for over a year I hosted a photography exhibit. The image on the left is me giving a tour of the photo exhibit of Black writers. The image on the right was taken about 7 years ago, but it could have been taken 15 years ago or today. My morning routine is largely unchanged; a cup of coffee, the newspaper, and me parked behind the screen of a computer. I've sacrificed the brownstone, a well-paying corporate gig, to be able to run AALBC.com full time, so I don't host events now. Money from a good paying job, hosting events, and a big home are nice too but these would be sufficient to motivate me to dedicate the time and energy needed to run an AALBC.com. For the past year, I've probably put in 60 hours a week or more to upgrading the website. I would never have done this for a corporation. While I've had some interesting corporate gigs over the years, I've never cared enough about any of them to put in the amount of energy I put into AALBC.com. I know part of my motivation is freedom. Since I've been running AALBC.com I have pretty much-done anything I wanted to do. In recent years this has meant some financial pressures. But what is the alternative? To get another 9 to 5? One could make a good argument that would be a great idea and that I'm spoiled. No one has ever said that to me; it is an internal battle. The culture judges folks not by what they do, but how much money they have. Over the course of running AALBC.com, I've met many brilliant people who were close to being impoverished. I know brilliance is not a function of the amount of money one has amassed, but being part of the corporate world for over two decades, this is a mentality that I've fought hard get rid of over the years. I also know how much one makes is definitely not a function of the relative value they provide. Indeed many, particularly in financial services, cause great damage while reaping tremendous personal wealth. Still, people are judged on wealth regardless of how it was acquired. More importantly, money is also a source of power, without it, you can't accomplish much. Money has to be a function of what I do, but again it is not the driver. I also know I'm motivated by doing something that is positive for Black folks. I know some Black folks like to say, "Black people are not a monolith." To me, that person is trying to communicate that they are not part of larger Black community, that they are somehow different, better perhaps. Meanwhile Black owned business disappear and the opportunities for poor Black to escape their situation go the same route. Black folks have to be a monolith if we are ever going to do something for not just ourselves, but the most impoverished amongst us. Hmmm... all I intended to do was post a couple of photos and keep it moving, but looking at them conjures up these thoughts and more. If you've read this far thanks for indulging me.

I think we are in agreement on the college issue and we've written some good info so I will let that one go. I make a statement in almost every video or lecture I do on small biz, "You don't have a business until the people you don't know buy your product." The guy who called that interviewed you asked me a similar question about Black people and family support. I've had decent family support for my business, but I don't have a very big family. My peer/friend support is not very good at all. As far as Black people, I've all but avoided the tag of Black owned footwear company, because it has done very little to help me grow. As a matter of fact when I did very well, the people sending pictures of themselves in the shoes were primarily of different races. When I say it's hating on you, it's not you personally, it's the idea of you. You are not living the life that other people are living. People have to acknowledge what you do and face the fact that they aren't pursuing a dream when they share your information. Instead of sharing your info they ignore and that way they don't have to support you or your dream. You get what I'm saying? I may be wrong and I know I'm being negative about this, but I really do think people are willfully ignorant. They want to be uninformed because then they don't have to build you up and see you succeed. I have a deep desire to see people win so I make it a point to break bread with people who are in business at least once a year financially and if not financially with my time as often as possible. We are the exception, not the rule. People really do think that they diminish their opportunities by supporting you. Like you said, we choose not to use the power we have. White folks use it and thrive. I could give examples, but you probably know what I'm saying.

Chris I completely understand the difference between the two types of schools. I've sent kids to Syracuse University (SU) and The College of WIlliam and Mary (W&M), both schools have D1 football programs, both schools send athletes to the NFL. But the two program have insignificant differences: Tickets to an SU game can cost students over $100. Tickets to a W&M game are free for students. SU spends perhaps an order of magnitude more than W&M to maintain their program. SU, with there 50K seat domed arena, is analogous to a professional team in the region. I've seen high school with larger football stadiums than W&M's; W&M is more like an intramural program in comparison to SU. For these reasons and more I'll argue that W&M serves the Black student athlete better than SU, Yes, I'm talking about schools with the top programs. Because they have the best teams, are televised far more often, and are the programs most desired by high school athletes. I'm also talking about these school because they do the most damage, as the data shows. Yes! It is these schools, focused strongly on generating revenue, like an SU, that are the problems. I'm not talking about schools than don't give athletic scholarships, or run intramural programs, or don't otherwise exploit Black students. I'm not painting all college programs with the same broad brush. Can we draw that distinction here? I was a D1 athlete. I think athletics are great when it is not exploitive, as the top football programs in the country are. I prefer to use outside sources when looking at this subject. The NCAA's information is propaganda, generated to make itself look good--naturally. In fact Chris, you pointed out some differences in the way the NCAA tracks graduation rates. Of course this differences tend to make graduation rate look better and mask the problems I'm pointing out. But after reading what you wrote as far regarding the BCS schools, and they being the minor league for the NFL, I see we are on agreement for these programs. Players in the de facto minor leagues should be financially compensated--especially if they are not going to be educated. The Message Board This might sound like a jacked up thing to say, but if I depended upon the support of my family and friends for the success of this site, I would not have a business. But while I'm sure some of it is because of "hate," I think most of it is due to a simple lack of interest in Black literature or books in general. Now could more of my family and friends could go out their way to promote the site to those that might have an interest in the site's subject--even though they have no interest themselves, of course. Some do, but the vast majority don't. Are those that don;t haters? I dunno...maybe. Maybe they are just lazy. Some suggest that I should tell my family or friends, more frequently, or aggressively, what they need to do to support the site if they care anything about me. But making the that kind of appeal, to my family and friends, more than once, is not in my nature. @CDBurns how supportive of your businesses have you family and friends been? Do you find the kind of hate that you feel plagues me? FORTUNATELY, I do get a great deal of support from folks who I don't know, for from people I'm only acquainted with, or from people I've discovered through the site. You, Cynique, Pioneer and Harry, for example, have been for more supportive of this site than anyone outside my nuclear family. And you have all been for more supportive of this discussion forums than ANY of y family and friends. You still make these forums interesting, and by extension you help make the discussion forums possible--which benefits other writers and readers in ways Ihe may describe in more detail in another post. The ability to aggregate support from those outside the immediate influence of family and friends is what makes the web so powerful, and it sadly is a power we largely choose not to use.

I join Christopher in congratulating you for your devotion and dedication to AALBC. Indeed, it is appreciated!

For those of you interested the behind the scenes activities... I finally migrated all of my film reviews to my website's new format. Basically the web pages for the old film reviews, indeed all of AALBC.com web page were static web pages. They were essentially MS Word documents, so if anything needed to be changed I had to open the document up and edit it directly. This is cool for a handful of pages, but it is entirely impractical for large websites like AALBC.com. As I added new content the problem just became progressively worse. To make any site wide changes like converting to https, or optimizing for mobile devices, just became very labor intensive. Today changing the format of a film review is trivial. The design of the web pages and the content are completely separate. This ideal is not exactly a revelation in website design, but for a site started in 1997, keeping pace has not been trivial, but it is the only reason AALBC.com has survived and grown over the past two decades. Every Wordpress blog is designed the same way, to keep content separate from the design. This is why you can click a button and dramatically change the look of an entire Wordpress website. But a Wordpress site, as flexible and easy as they are to use, would be too limiting for AALBC.com. I employ very different designs for different types of content; the design of a film review page is completely different than a book club page, or an author page, or a book review page as an example The other trick is that I have not broken any of the old URLs. They all continue to work even through the pages now have new URLs. This is critically important so that I don't lose any of the benefits I've gained in SEO (search engine optimization) over the years. In fact with the site redesign and the changes I made in the page's meta tags (the stuff read by search engines) I should actually gain some benefits in SEO.