They were well-organized at it.
There was a time pre-academic counselor time at OU when the only real supervision was Port Robertson. There was no academic support program, per se. From what I could gather, tutors were sometimes provided, but I saw no organization of it.
A program called Project Threhold became the academic tutorial support for athletes in the early seventies, just before the idea of academic counselors went full bloom. Designed to deal with some students who were borderline on meeting academic requirements due to background, the program offered academic and other counseling. For a time, while in graduate school, I was a sometimes tutor for various subjects in the program. I worked with a lot of football players and track athletes, no wrestlers nor basketball players. Since there were no specific designations, I might be tutoring one student in English grammar and another in math. Since most weren't in advanced classes, it didn't require a math major to deal at that level.
It was fairly well-known at the time that there were certain courses with certain professors or instructors that were "easy-A" courses, or that attendance was not actually required. Most, but not all, of these were around the PE department. There were few standards in place at the time, and there were still seniors who were in University College.
This doesn't mean that the student-athletes were not serious. Some were very dedicated to getting an education and worked very hard. There was one sophomore starting nose guard who came to me almost every day, just to have someone to report to. He worked hard. You do become involved with the students, and I was invited to more than one wedding by young men who were happy to have someone care about them while they were struggling to survive, which some are. Sometimes, it is difficult to be macho when you are scared.
The "easy-A" classes were few and far between, and I don't know if there were enough to influence graduation rates very much. I got the feeling that nobody had had more than one or two.
