Some interesting and great news I came into.
The subject is summer school and how critically important it is to college athletics but I will focus on football being the most important since the biggest factor to me in all of this is the workout aspect and the difference in strength and intensity from high school to college.
Many of us can remember years ago there was what seemed to be a battle to get our football team (all of them) to stay in NOLA during the summer to workout together. It was not that kids did not want to stay here but if you were not from NOLA and not in summer school it was financially hard for most to be able to stay in NOLA over the summer. There used to be X amount of room for all student athletes in summer school and that X was divided out among the different sports and then the priority obviously went to those kids that needed to get their GPAs up. That was just among current players on the team and didn't even factor in the incoming FR class. The only guys of that group that would be in town to workout (learn the playbook, do 7x7's,, etc) were local kids or kids that had families that could support them financially to be here. Then we slowly moved to a place where we could get a large amount of current players if not most of them here for the summer by getting them in summer school. Then in the last few years we have been able to get basically all of the current football team to remain in NOLA for the summer in addition to being able to get just about all incoming FR enrolled in classes for the second session of summer school. That was huge. They would be able to get here and workout/learn playbook for about 4-6 weeks before the official start of Fall camp. It also would allow them to get adjusted to college classes while it was not in season and hopefully get them started off on a high note with good grades.
Now the good news, no great news! I found out that this year that just about all incoming freshmen will now be enrolling in summer school immediately. That means when the first session begins this week all of them (or 98% of them) will be here working out/learning the playbook, taking classes, etc. That is freaking huge. Now, we may behind the 8 ball on that compared to the bigger programs but it is undoubtedly a huge step in the right direction. These guys will now get 12-14 weeks of working out with the older guys and learning rather than what used to be around 4-6 weeks if anything at all. This makes a huge difference in my opinion. Think about Fall camp when kids report and all the FR have to learn the playbook. All the team has to then blend, get familiar with each other and learn any new things in the playbook. That is in August with just about 2 weeks before a game. Now that all starts 3 months before Fall camp so when camp gets here they are working more than they are learning. They are getting better, improving working on the details instead of just trying to figure out what the hell is going on - not thinking about missing their mommies and their girlfriends. They have already adjusted (hopefully) to being away from home and the change of pace. Even for local kids it is huge because many don't realize that being Uptown at Tulane is nothing like where most of them live.
Does it make a difference in how many wins/losses we will have next year, I don't know but ask any football coach in the country how important this is and I bet you my dog they would say it is simply essential to the success of a program.
Folks, this is about as big as you can get in my opinion in so many ways. This is just downright fantastic.
Now for some lagniappe I also heard that this same deal might be holding true for other sports but not 100% sure so don't quote me on that. I am almost positive about it being the same for some of men's basketball rookies.
I know we want the wins to show the changes are there but there are so many little things here and there that have changed that all point in the right direction if you ask me. It is only a matter of time before we take our rightful place headed towards the top. There is absolutely no reason why Tulane & New Orleans should not have a top notch football program and I really think things are lining up for a bright future.
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