Athletics vs. academics - both sides

Matrix: The Magazine for Leaders in Education, Nov-Dec, 2001 by William C. Friday

Have college athletics become too important, in some cases overshadowing colleges' primary goal? A wide-ranging report says yes, stirring debate in the media and on campuses across the country.

The Bad News is Hard to Miss

It is tempting to turn away from bad news. rib the cynic, corruption has been endemic in big-time sports as long as it has existed. To the rationalizer, reform is already under way and things are not nearly as bad as the critics make them out to be. More time is all that is needed.

But to the realist, the bad news is hard to miss. The truth is manifested regularly in a cascade of scandalous acts that, against a backdrop of institutional complicity and capitulation, threaten the health of American higher education. The good name of the nation's academic enterprise is even more threatened today than it was when the Knight Commission published its first report a decade ago. Despite progress in some areas, new problems have arisen, and the condition of big-time college sports has deteriorated.

Consider as an example some simple statistics: 57 out of 106 Division I-A institutions (54 percent) had to be censured, sanctioned or put on probation for major violations of NCAA rules in the 1980s. In the 1990s, 58 out of 114 Division I-A colleges and universities (52 percent) were similarly penalized.

In other words, more than half the institutions competing at the top levels continue to break the roles. Wrongdoing as a way of life seems to represent me status quo.

That such behavior has worked its way into the fiber of intercollegiate sports without provoking powerful and sustained countermeasures from the many institutions so besmirched speaks for itself. It appears that more energy goes into looking the other way than to finding a way to integrate big-time sports into the fabric of higher education.

Under the influence of television and the mass media, the ethos of athletics is now professional. The apex of sporting endeavor is defined by professional sports.

This fundamental shift now permeates many campuses. Big-time college basketball and football have a professional look and feel--in their arenas and stadiums, their luxury boxes and financing, their uniforms and coaching staffs, and their marketing and administrative structures.

In fact, big-time programs have become minor leagues in their own right, increasingly taken into account as part of the professional athletics system. In this new circumstance, what is the relationship between sport and the university as a place of learning?

The ugly disciplinary incidents, outrageous academic fraud, dismal graduation rates and uncontrolled expenditures surrounding college sports reflect what many have rightly characterized as "an entertainment industry" that is not only the antithesis of academic values but is "corrosive and corruptive to the academic enterprise."

In their book, The Game of Life, William Bowen and James Shulman of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation conclude that the skewed priorities of top programs have infected men's and women's sports at all levels, including, perhaps most remarkably, the ivy League and elite private liberal arts colleges. It all leads, they write, to a single conclusion: "Intercollegiate programs in these academically selective institutions are moving steadily in the direction of increased tension with core educational values and more substantial calls on the tangible and intangible resources of their host institutions. We cannot think of a single set of data that contradicts this proposition ... We are unable to identify any forces inside the system that--without considerable help--can be expected to alter these directions."

There is no question about who is winning this open, ever-escalating war between the academic and athletic cultures. In too many places, the tail already wags the dog. The continuation and possible acceleration of this development is a prospect that demands the engagement of presidents, trustees, faculties and higher education associations. The most glaring elements--academic transgressions, a financial arms race and commercialization--are all evidence of the widening chasm between higher education's ideals and big-time college sports When the accretions of centuries of tradition and the bells and whistles of the modern university have been stripped away, what remains is the university's essential mission as an institution for teaching, learning and the generation of new knowledge.

This is the mission that big-time college sports often mock and, in some cases, deliberately undermine. Big-time athletics departments seem to operate with little interest in scholastic matters beyond the narrow issue of individual eligibility. They act as though the athletes' academic performance is of little moment.

The historic and vital link between playing field and classroom is all but severed in many institutions. Graduation rates for athletes in football and basketball at the top level remain dismally low--and in some notable cases are falling. While graduation rates for athletes subject to the NCAA's more stringent eligibility standards effective in the mid 1990s are not yet available, we cannot ignore these facts: The graduation rate for football players in Division I-A fell 3 percent last year and 8 percent in the last five years. The rate for men's basketball players at Division I-A institutions remained stable during the last year, but fell 5 percent during the last five years.