Inside Higher Ed today offers another hand-wringing piece about the problem of college athletics, this time from the president of Augustana College in Illinois. It's a particularly maddening example of the form, doing a lovely job of running down NCAA Division I schools in comparison to Division III:
But I do worry that Division I sports is ill-serving far too many young people. And I challenge the NCAA to accelerate the reform movement promised in the recent past. What has happened to cries of turning down the volume in college sports? The media won't turn down the volume, so college presidents must exercise their leadership.
I strongly believe Division I sports can learn something from Division III, where the athletes play sans scholarships and typically without the promise of future sports riches. Most importantly, Division III athletes live and breathe not in the rarified air of a sports subculture, but, when they are out of uniform, just like other students on campus.
I don't expect Michigan, Ohio State and UCLA to dismantle proud (and profitable) athletics programs, and I strongly believe that would be a foolish mistake. But I do believe the subculture of today's big-time college athlete is a problem that demands open debate and sweeping solutions.
The problem is, he doesn't offer any concrete solutions, not even the crazily unworkable sort that you find in many of these pieces. He only raises questions, but doesn't suggest any answers.
In an attempt to find something substantive to write about this, though, let me pick up on a point near the end of the piece:
The article ends with a bit of horn-tooting about Augustana:
Earlier this year I passed out diplomas to the 525 members of Augustana College's Class of 2006. Nearly one-third of the students who crossed the stage experienced the joys and challenges of participation in intercollegiate athletics. They included members of nationally ranked teams as well as numerous conference champions and All America award winners. An NCAA postgraduate scholarship winner was among the many Academic All America honorees in the graduating class.
This remarkable group of athletes is noteworthy in part for how much they have in common their classmates who don't participate in intercollegiate athletics. Augustana athletes are just as likely as their peers to participate in volunteer projects, study overseas, or to be admitted to graduate study programs. Likewise, our athletes eat in the same cafeterias, register at the same time as their fellow students and study in the same majors.
When they differ in terms of academic performance, athletes tend to come out ahead of non-athletes. Augustana's athletes not only graduate at higher rates than their peers, but they also exceed predicted GPA based on incoming academic credentials. In short, participation in athletics at Augustana College is a predictor of academic success.
This is the ideal being held up for Div. I programs to aspire to, with no suggestion of how they should get there.
But is this really a fair comparison? After all, the student-athletes at Augustana (which, last I checked, was in the Top 100 of US News's ranking of liberal arts colleges) are not drawn from the same demographic pool as the student-atheltes in your typical Div. I football program ("non-revenue" sports are probably more directly comparable). Does it really make any sense to directly compare the two groups?
A fairer comparison might be to look at graduation rates for student-athletes at big-time programs compared to the graduation rates for non-athletes from similar economic and educational backgrounds. You never see those figures, though, probably because they're both harder to generate, and less scandalous.
The only time I've seen any attempt to do this kind of comparison was a half-remembered Michael Wilbon column several years ago in the Washington Post. At the time, somebody was making a stink about the fact that Maryland's football and basketball teams graduated something like 60% of their players (obviously, I'm making these numbers up). Wilbon pointed out, though, that if you compare their graduation rate to the graduation rate of African-American males in the student body in general, it doesn't look so bad-- I don't remember the exact figures, but I think the rate for athletes was actually slightly higher. The real scandal isn't so much that the athletes don't graduate, it's that the non-athletes don't fare any better.
The problem, as Wilbon pointed out (as I recall it, anyway), is that many of the football and basketball players are from poor families, are often the first in their families to go to college, and have frequently attended poor schools. They're starting in a deep hole, academically speaking, and it's not terribly surprising that they, and their peers off the court, don't do especially well in college. What we really need isn't so much reform at the college level, but a rebuilding of the pre-college educational infrastructure, so these kids aren't starting out at such a big disadvantage.
It's an interesting point, and at least sounds plausible. I'd love to see hard numbers on this issue (though not quite enough to Google for them myself...). And it would certainly take this debate to more interesting places than the usual round-and-round about overprivileged jocks at big schools.
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Div I athletes will have academic problems as long as the major sports use the NCAA as a minor league system. The NBA and NFL need to invest their own money to develop talent rather than pawning off the responsibility on Div I schools. Whether or not this system will work, however, is uncertain. MLB and the NHL both have their own minor leagues, but college baseball players are poorly ranked amongst div student athletes (I'm not sure about hockey players). The NCAA does do a fair bit of player development for MLB, despite the farm systems for major league teams.
The main point is that a professional athlete does not need a college degree. We must disassociate the connection between professional atheletics and college academics.
I think, just from the general buzz (or, if you want a snooty term, zeitgeist) around here, that Vanderbilt athletes actually do a pretty damn good job of graduating. Vanderbilt is a Div. I athletic school. In The Tennessean every fall, there are articles and columns and opinion pieces as to whether Vanderbilt belongs in the SEC. The football team doesn't often have a great record, and some think it doesn't make the cut. Others think that the SEC needs Vanderbilt in order to lend it credibility.
I sometimes wonder what the Securities and Exchange Comission has to do with college athletics.
In more seriousness, I sometimes wonder about the wisdom of tying "higher athletic eduction" to higher intellectual education. I know, shameful to even suggest it, for most college athletes won't go on to be highly paid professional athletes, and they need something else to fall back on. But sometimes that tie is artifical, and may not be doing a lot of good for people on other side.
I do have to say that I have known quite a number of athletes here at Vanderbilt who are excellent students. Those students defintiely benefitted from having a "real" college education alongside their participation in sports. I could name names, but then I might end up in some FERPA-Guantanamo-Bay facility. As such, I object to the stereotype I hear among faculty sometimes that "the athletes" are all a drag in the classroom -- they aren't all. Some are, but so are some of the non-athletes.
-Rob
Individual NCAA schools compiles graduation data based upon race, which tracks reasonably well with socioeconomic status.
The data is definitely out there.
Some statistic I saw a while ago, and therefore cannot remember the source to cite, asserted that athletes are basically average compared to the general population, and therefore ~ 1/2 of them are unprepared or do not have the aptitute for college.
Corrected for that, athletes then actually overperform - ie some of the athletes that would not normally have been admitted to university based on their preparation and academics actually graduate.
This suggests either that some people who don't get into university could perform at that standard given incentives and assistance, or that some students are passed through unfairly. Or both.
Disclaimer: PSU athletes generally outperform the average student body academically, and in my experience the coaches are actually tougher on academic performance than the faculty. Which is good.
Corrected for that, athletes then actually overperform - ie some of the athletes that would not normally have been admitted to university based on their preparation and academics actually graduate
At Vanderbilt, at least, Athletes get massive amounts of academic support that most students don't get. (I think all students could get it, but they would have to actively seek it out, whereas it is foisted on most of the athletes.) They have academic advisors who keep tabs on how they're doing, athletic programs pay for tutors for their athletes, etc. Sometimes the athletic advisors go a bit too far, telling students what to register for and what to take, even when they don't fully know what they're talking about.
-Rob
Vandy is the 1st and only school to disband their athletic dept. The DI vandy athletic programs were incorporated into the same dept that manages the Intramural sports. The are the exception rather than the norm in DI sports.
My bet: Vandy will be out of the SEC in 10 years or less. Possibly out of DI (down to DIAA for football) and into a more appropriate conference.
This episodic hand wringing over college sports never fails to amuse me.
I played DivI baseball, late 70's/early 80's.
I think the athletes pretty much mirrored the general school population. Some of us were F-ups, whereas others worked to juggle sport with academics. Some of us didn't care, whereas some of us were motivated by the fear of losing our scholarships.
Just like a lot of regular students I knew, some of the athletes wandered away from school and never graduated because of personal issues/lack of motivation.
I remember most two things. The lack of money was a constant problem, because, unlike regular students, we didn't have enough free time during season to also hold a part time job. The other thing I remember are the many professors who never cut me an inch of slack when it came to science lab coursework, which frequently conflicted with games and practices.
I lost my chance at a slot in the starting lineup my junior year because of an especially rigorous biochem lab I was required to take for my major, that lasted all afternoon two days a week.
Now I'm teaching at a DivIII school.
The only real difference I see in student athletes is athletic skill level. I see the same general range of aptitude and interest in academics amongst the athletes as I see in the rest of the student body, and not much different from my peers when I was in undergrad.
Some statistic I saw a while ago, and therefore cannot remember the source to cite, asserted that athletes are basically average compared to the general population, and therefore ~ 1/2 of them are unprepared or do not have the aptitute for college.
That's more or less consistent with my experience, both as a student and as a faculty member. Student athletes are as likely to be exceptional, and as likely to be failing, as their non-athlete peers.
But, of course, that's an average over all sports, and I think there's probably also some truth to the notion that big revenue sports (football and basketball) have a higher fraction of poorly qualified students than the general population.
Corrected for that, athletes then actually overperform - ie some of the athletes that would not normally have been admitted to university based on their preparation and academics actually graduate.
As Rob notes, athletes at Div. I schools get a lot of extra support, in terms of tutoring and advising. The school has a vested interest in having them stick around and graduate, after all...
I remember most two things. The lack of money was a constant problem, because, unlike regular students, we didn't have enough free time during season to also hold a part time job.
At the Div. I level, isn't it against the rules for athletes to work during the year? I know that the lack of pocket money is always brought up as one of the major problems with the current system.
The other thing I remember are the many professors who never cut me an inch of slack when it came to science lab coursework, which frequently conflicted with games and practices.
As a faculty member in the sciences, the baseball team is one of the banes of my existence in the Spring term-- their games are always in the early afernoon, and players are always having to miss class, or leave class early.
I try to be flexible, as much as possible, because I remember what it was like trying to get out of lab early to make rugby practices (thankfully, all our games were on Saturdays), but it should be noted that make-up labs are really a big imposition on faculty time, so it's not surprising that some people don't want to cut any slack on those.
Athletes can work during the year, but the rules for such jobs are pretty strict, as are the penalties when athletes and/or employers violate those rules...just look at the plight of the now ex-quarterback at the University of Oklahoma...It wasn't at all against the rules for him to HAVE the job, but it was certainly against the rules for him to be taking money in excess of the time worked. Probably it was also against the rules that he did not report this job to the school compliance office.
As far as the larger problems facing athletes and graduation, I think a big part of that problem rests on the shoulders of the individual athletic departments and the coaches in those departments. Coaches need to be more conscious of the academic requirements on all of their players, and work hard to accomodate those requirements. Many are, but I can name a few that most definately are not. (My sister in law recently got out from under the thumb of a coach who was not only indifferent to her players academic performance, but also saw academics as an obstacle!) I was lucky to have a baseball coach in college who had his priorities in order and put academic performance ahead of athletics...and was still able to maintain a fairly prestigious baseball program. On days when I was not scheduled to pitch, it was not uncommon for me to have to sneak quick glances at the game from the window of our physics lab. Or even to go to physics lab already in uniform so that I could dart out of there immediately afterward to join my team on the field. Yeah, I had to miss some labs for away games, and most of them I was allowed to make up (usually during the next lab session...doing 2 labs at once), but I was lucky there too, in that my coach had worked very hard to earn the resepct of the faculty such that the faculty would be willing to grant 'favors' within reason.
So stop knockin baseball (just kidding, knock it if you want to)...without it, I most likely would not be writing my dissertation right now. I understand that it is hard on faculty to accomodate the needs of baseball players in particular, but it's my opinion and experience that some kind of acceptable solution can be worked out, especially if the student is one that wants to work hard both in the classroom and on the field. Just sit down and talk with them. It's the students who don't want to work hard in the classroom that I can understand not wanting to accomodate...especially if it is an undue burden on your time. But that, in my opinion, also goes somewhat back to the coach. Coaches that listen to the faculty have ways of 'inspiring' their students to work hard in class.
Vandy is the 1st and only school to disband their athletic dept.
From where I'm sitting, I have to say that I haven't really noticed. I've seen lots of hand-wringing, and I've heard some people state for unspecified reasons how horrible this has been for the athletes.
However, there are still high-paid coaches. The athletic programs still have the prominence that they used to. There is still a layer of administration for dealing with athletic stuff. There are still athletic-specific academic advisors. Etc.
Admittedly, I haven't really paid enough attention to the situation to really be an informed commenter-- I'm just a prof. looking at what interaction I do have with athletes. But, given that, it's hard for me to see the "disbanding of the athletic department" at Vandy as anything more than symbolic.
-Rob
The other thing I remember are the many professors who never cut me an inch of slack when it came to science lab coursework, which frequently conflicted with games and practices.
I tell ya, when you've got a class of 120 to manage, and a University that keeps repeating the mantra that "schoolwork comes first", I get really sick of hearing students expecting particular slack to be cut for them because of some activity or another.
If a course is not compatable with your schedule otherwise, don't take it. If you need it, choose your section well. After that, it's the athletic department that needs to make allowances with its practices and so forth.
Call me one of your butthead stickler professors, but there you go. I *might* be able to work with students and deal with individual situations in a small (<20) class, but when it's a class of 100, it has to be the students' responsibility to meet the course requirements-- including coming to lab at specified times, if that is part of it.
-Rob
Chad -- could you edit the last comment? I had a < in there, which evidently the parser choked on.
So stop knockin baseball (just kidding, knock it if you want to)...without it, I most likely would not be writing my dissertation right now. I understand that it is hard on faculty to accomodate the needs of baseball players in particular, but it's my opinion and experience that some kind of acceptable solution can be worked out, especially if the student is one that wants to work hard both in the classroom and on the field. Just sit down and talk with them.
My problem with baseball is less with the burden it places on me to make things up-- due to the way we teach our intro classes, we offer morning lab sections, which minimizes the amount of time the baseball players have to miss-- than with the burden it puts on the students who end up missing things. I've seen some really bright and capable students struggle mightily with intro physics because they end up missing half a dozen classes over the course of the term for games. The extra work for me is fairly minimal, compared to the problems it creates for them.
And, going back a bit:
Disclaimer: PSU athletes generally outperform the average student body academically, and in my experience the coaches are actually tougher on academic performance than the faculty.
Yeah, but how's it going to be ten years from now when Paterno retires?
Also:
Chad -- could you edit the last comment?
Should be fixed now.
Hi Chad, I agree that graduation rate does not seem to correlate nicely with anything (though last week I thought the "clustering" was a clear and unambiguous signal...) but in any event I am curious what is your more general attitude towards athletics, specifically division I athletic programs, is there a problem at all, or is it just overblown? I already mentioned my very strong opinions, I'm curious about yours...