Basketball fans will focus tonight on the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s men’s championship game, but amid the excitement of such competition, attention must be paid to how big-time college sports still operate in ways counter to higher education’s aims. Although the NCAA celebrates rising graduation rates in Division I sports and the results of other academic reforms, many of those changes have inadvertently led to other thorny problems. What’s urgently needed are far-reaching changes that only the greater involvement of faculty members can bring.
The recent economic downturn has exacerbated the long-term tensions and issues surrounding campus athletics. While the NCAA considers expanding its money-making postseason basketball tournament from 65 to 96 teams and renegotiating its television contract, a growing number of students and faculty members are questioning the cost, purpose, and appropriateness of the intercollegiate athletics enterprise. Most major athletics programs operate with a deficit and drain their institutions of revenue. Students who face constantly rising tuition are beginning to ask how much of their money is being used to support athletics programs as opposed to their education.
Some institutions have decided to drop programs, move to less competitive (i.e., less costly) divisions, or eliminate football, by far the most expensive sport. Yet on many campuses, spending continues unabated, facilities are made more lavish, coaches’ contracts continue to escalate, and, according to the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics report “College Sports 101,” only 20 to 30 colleges can support their athletics programs without direct subsidies, typically in the form of institutional loans and student fees.
In addition to piling up debt, many athletics programs are awash in academic scandal. The NCAA credits its academic-reform efforts for the rise in its “Graduation Success Rate” of 78 percent. But the fact is that student-athletes generally do well in their studies, with the glaring exception of those in men’s basketball and football—the two “revenue sports” associated with almost all of the publicity, visibility, notoriety, and fraud in intercollegiate athletics. Binghamton University, for instance, part of the State University of New York, recently spent close to $1-million to investigate academic improprieties related to its men’s basketball program. The arrests of players on felony charges involving drugs, assault, and shoplifting led in part to the suspensions of six players, the resignation of the athletics director, and the suspension on paid leave of the coach. An adjunct sociology professor, asserting she was pressured by coaches to give preferential treatment to basketball players, was terminated and later reinstated by the university. In January 2010, Georgia Southern University was placed on two years’ probation for academic violations that included a men’s basketball coach taking an examination for a player—which, in academic terms, might be considered a capital crime.
Paul Dee, chairman of the NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions and a sports-law professor at the University of Miami, has expressed his concern about the growing number of academic-fraud cases that his committee sees. It seems that cases of academic dishonesty and fraud have actually increased in tandem with the NCAA’s attempts at academic reform. In fact, since the beginning of such efforts at reform, in 2003, as many as 33 cases of major infractions related to academics have occurred.
How might NCAA reforms and academic fraud have a cause-effect relationship? To increase access to higher education for economically disadvantaged student-athletes, the NCAA, albeit well-intentioned, has created the possibility of essentially open admissions. That has resulted in many of those students’ being academically unprepared for college. As “special admits,” prospective high-school student-athletes can now qualify for eligibility without correctly answering a single question on a standardized examination. And many admissions officers fear rampant grade inflation on the transcripts they review. Yet, according to the findings of a Knight Commission study released in October 2009, most college presidents are reluctant to unilaterally impose controls on athletics or raise standards, because of pressure from popular coaches, donors, and trustees who fear their teams might be put at a disadvantage. Some coaches have even threatened to leave if their institutions do not lower admissions requirements to match the NCAA’s initial-eligibility rules.
Once at the university, underprepared, at-risk student-athletes often feel as if they are impostors who do not belong among students far better prepared for the demands of college work. At-risk student-athletes are often caught in the twin pincers of underpreparedness and increased demands for academic performance in order to remain eligible to compete.
Is it any wonder that such pressures result in academic misconduct? To limit the risk of the NCAA’s imposing penalties on them for not progressing academically, at-risk student-athletes often cluster in majors likely to ensure athletic eligibility, or sometimes engage in cheating, plagiarism, and other forms of academic fraud. The entire culture surrounding big-time sports encourages such actions. The student-athlete is usually aware that officials of his college, beginning with the coach who recruited him, are engaging in a deception designed to use his athletics talent for entertainment purposes, often regardless of whether he gains the broader benefits of higher education. But every time a student is admitted under essentially false premises, the institution gives away a small piece of its integrity—an action that is inimical to the long-term well-being of the institution and of higher education in general.
The NCAA, understandably, represents its own interests and those of its athletics constituents, not the educational interests of colleges and universities. Thus it can’t be depended upon to make the fundamental changes that are needed. True athletics reform requires a new and better model of shared decision-making, one that calls on faculty members and faculty senates to participate far more in the debate on athletics reform on their campuses and on the national scene.
Specifically, faculty members should:
Gain more control over special admissions. Professors should ensure that student-athletes accepted by their institutions bring the necessary competencies to the classroom. That is not to say that colleges should do away with special-admissions options, but rather that they should ensure that admissions decisions reflect more than the interests of the football and men’s basketball coaches. If faculty senates do no more than establish appropriate athletics admissions standards for their own institutions, that could go a long way toward real academic reform.
Select the faculty athletics representative. That important appointment should no longer typically be made by the president, but by the faculty senate or another body that reflects the faculty’s will. In addition, term limits should be put in place. In some instances, the representative remains in that position for decades, when five years might be a reasonable period for any one person to serve. Apart from other considerations, it seems unreasonable to expect a person to spend years being entertained by the athletics department, yet at the same time remain uninfluenced by athletics interests—especially when they run counter to those of the institution.
Work more forcefully through independent faculty-based organizations. Those groups include the Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics and the Drake Group, which represent a variety of positions on important topics such as academic integrity in athletics, athletics-related financial aid, and athletics-department debt.
Further, whomever is selected to lead the NCAA should engage its member institutions and the faculty-based organizations in determining how intercollegiate athletics can better support both campus priorities and student-athletes. The aim should be for the athletics program to serve the institution, not the other way around.
Athletics reform has not achieved its desired goals, but is not too late to reshape a more responsive and responsible intercollegiate athletics. The inclusion of the academic side of the university could offer a refreshing redirection for competitive big-time college sports. Expenditures for athletics facilities would take their place in line with other campus priorities, understanding that donors will always have preferences as to how their dollars are to be used. A student-athlete who is a step slower in the 40-yard dash but better prepared academically could compete with the expectation of graduating, reaping the benefits of a college education, and enhancing his life and the life of his community.
Meanwhile the games would remain competitive. Ohio State University and the University of Michigan would still battle on the last Saturday of the football season.
And the Final Four basketball fans would still come out in throngs.
Gerald S. Gurney is senior associate athletics director for academics and student life and an adjunct professor of education at the University of Oklahoma, and president-elect of the National Association of Academic Advisers for Athletics. Jerome C. Weber is a professor of education at the university.