In the early 1990s, a newly married head football coach at a major NCAA Division I institution took his wife to the American Football Coaches Association annual meeting. At the awards banquet, according to the coach, a prestigious university was recognized for having achieved the highest graduation rate among members’ teams the previous year, as calculated by the now-defunct College Football Association. An administrator accepted the award on behalf of the university, as the coach had been forced to resign after not winning enough football games. The recently wed coach’s wife, new to the world of big-time college sports, turned to her husband and remarked, “That doesn’t appear to be an award you want to ever win!”
Universities that participate in big-time athletics, along with their partners at the NCAA national office, would have us believe that coaches are held responsible and accountable for everything surrounding their teams and programs, including the academic successes and failures as well as the off-the-field behaviors of their student-athletes. But it’s just not so. The longtime successful football coach Mack Brown told The New York Times recently, “When you hear presidents and athletic directors talk about character and academics and integrity, none of that really matters. … The truth is, nobody has ever been fired for those things. They get fired for losing.”
While defenders of today’s model of college athletics continue to repeat the bromides about the importance of education and developing citizens for tomorrow, from a coach’s perspective the only true measure of success is in wins versus losses and the subsequent cash flow that winning championships brings to the athletic department and university. In that reality, the pressure for academic performance is not felt by the head coach but by the athletic academic-support personnel, whose job it is to ensure the continued eligibility of even the most at-risk student-athlete. Those added stressors no doubt contribute directly to the loss of academic integrity and ethics, and subsequently to the increase in academic-fraud cases we now see across the NCAA landscape.
The blame game for who is ultimately responsible for the academic performance of unprepared and underprepared NCAA Division I student-athletes in football and men’s basketball has generated much angst among people working in college sports. The NCAA’s evaluation metric, the Academic Progress Rate, is intended to compel institutions and their coaches to recruit athletes who better meet the academic profile of their respective institutions, in spite of the low bar of minimum requirements set forth in the NCAA’s bylaws. A failure to achieve those minimum standards can result in a loss of scholarships and postseason competition, among other sanctions.
It stands to reason then that head coaches, who make recruitment decisions, would be held most accountable. However, since the inception of the program in 2003, the onus of responsibility for poor grades has been assigned to athletic academic counselors and advisers in spite of the public-relations campaign by institutions and the NCAA claiming that coaches have universal power and responsibility.
Recent reports of college football coaches’ receiving hefty financial bonuses for their teams’ academic achievement seem to point to this obligation. But while drawing attention to academic bonuses for coaches may indicate some kind of direct link between coaching and academic achievement, it probably does nothing to alleviate the pressure imposed on athletic academic counselors and advisers—and, given the amount of bonus money involved, it may even intensify it.
The academic scandal at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has certainly forced all institutions with NCAA Division I programs to assess their own risks, both in operation and perception. The clustering of student-athletes in particular courses and majors is a clear indication that the primacy of education has been lost to the overwhelming pressure to keep players eligible, in some cases irrespective of the cost to the institution. Athletic advisers, tutors, and learning specialists are most likely well-meaning professionals whose efforts are worthy of commendation and respect, but to expect even an army of academic-support personnel to be able to adequately and appropriately remediate the most underskilled and undermotivated student-athlete is unrealistic at best.
Recent news clearly indicates that the recruiting of academically at-risk student-athletes continues to challenge the integrity and ethical conduct of various institutional personnel. In December, Brad Wolverton described in The Chronicle how a journeyman basketball coach had created a cottage industry of academic dishonesty by taking online and correspondence courses in order for his student-athlete “clients” to attain NCAA eligibility. The coach-turned-fixer conspired with students and coaches alike.
More recently, the NCAA confirmed that it was investigating as many as 20 member institutions for academic fraud and dishonesty within their athletic departments and universities. Early reports indicate that the problem is neither isolated nor centered in athletic academic-support offices. Rather, the broad variety of cases points to coaches, administrators, and faculty members as complicit in the misconduct.
Before 2003, many in the academic-support profession performed their responsibilities by challenging each student-athlete to explore new ideas and concepts, take risks, and develop a true value of his own education. If pressed, many of today’s academic-support professionals might very well admit that two concerns guide how they perform their duties: the NCAA’s minimum standards and the resulting shadow of various sanctions, and the pressure to ensure the continued eligibility of academically at-risk student-athletes. Failure is not an option, regardless of the commitment—or lack thereof—put forth by the student-athletes themselves.
The University of Maryland recently announced that financial bonuses paid to coaches for success on the field might be withheld if comparable success is not seen in the classroom. This type of effort, coupled with the increased spotlight on bonuses paid to coaches for team academic success, may lead to an increase in the recruitment of more academically prepared student-athletes. But this much is clear: Until a truly national effort is made from either inside or outside of the NCAA structure, we will continue to see an uptick in academic-dishonesty cases, all for the sake of winning those valuable championships.
