by Bob Edwards
I am a college sports fan, but I feel college athletes should be fully qualified to do college work. Athletes who are given passing grades for classes they were not required to attend are not students. Universities that condone such practices are not worthy of respect as institutions of higher learning. Professional football and basketball should establish a farm system similar to baseball’s minor leagues for athletes unable to do college work. This will likely result in diminished quality of talent in college athletics, but it will also bolster academic integrity and give greater value to one’s college degree. I am proud that The Bob Edwards Show has drawn attention to academic fraud and the exploitation of athletes on college campuses.
Our documentary, Dropping the Ball: The Shady Side of Big-Time College Sports, demonstrates that many college administrators have lost control of their football and basketball programs. The program was brilliantly produced by Brigid McCarthy who once played #2 singles for The Georgetown University Hoyas varsity tennis team while earning her BA in history. Brigid went to class—and it shows.
Finally, someone finally understands that college football and basketball are free farm systems for the NFL and NBA respectively. If we need to pay college football & basketball players let them play in minor leagues for NFL and NBA and let them be the pros they all want to be. At least the kids that don't make it to the majors will get their years of pay that they'll deserve.
This story was so upsetting. My heart goes out to Mr. Doughty and others like him who've been exploited this way. Is there any organization that provides assistance to them? Certainly the colleges should do much more than they are doing for them. It's really a disgrace the way they just chew up and spit out young people. But since they are not acting fairly or honorably, is anyone aware of an organization or group stepping in to fill the gap?
I heard this story three weeks ago, and my response has been bubbling around my head ever since.
I've been a university English instructor for 12 years, and I've had dozens of athletes come through my classes. Many of them have been excellent students, but many have been unprepared for college-level reading/writing/speaking. In those cases, there have always been support services in place for those students, those support staff being employed by the athletic departments. I can't speak to the quality of that support outside of class, as it's never been shown to me. I've always been discouraged by my administrators from talking directly to athletic support staff. Inside my class, that support has manifested as surveillance – i.e., I have to fill out periodic progress reports for the "at-risk" students. Presumably those reports are read and acted upon. I'll give the athletic support folks the benefit of the doubt there, because the ones I've met do seem to care about the students beyond their athletic performances.
That being said, I have also seen precisely the phenomena your report mentions – athletes signing up for classes based on practice schedules rather than interest or fit, missing classes for games, being exhausted in class. In an ironic reversal of high-school stereotypes, many non-athlete students look down on the athletes and marginalize them from team activities. For their part, the athletes usually make the best teammates.
More disturbingly, I've had several former football and basketball players in my classes who have either quit their teams during college in order to graduate or have come back to college after leaving without graduating. At my former school (PAC-12), I met two basketball players that had returned to finish their degrees after NBA contracts fizzled. At my current school (ACC), one of my students had actually played in the Super Bowl – and made a game-changing play – but was back in school because his NFL team cut him a year later.
What these experiences – and your report – showed me is a system built around the exploitation of these young peoples' talents and ambitions. A system in which the athletes are not paid, while countless numbers of coaches, trainers, tutors, marketers, and of course administrators and universities reap massive monetary rewards. A system in which, at best, the students are "rewarded" with a college diploma for their efforts. And some free shorts, I guess.
I suppose you could compare college athletics' economic setup to that of professional internships: the student is paying the employer for the privilege of a realistic work experience. Maybe you could argue that all of college is like that.
In this educator's opinion, a student should pay for his/her education – it's a symbolic but also real gesture of "buying in" to the learning, of honoring your teachers. Of course, each student should only have to pay what they can pay, to achieve some measure of equal opportunity in this country.
And students' labor in school should only benefit them. If the student is doing labor that benefits someone besides him/herself, that student should be paid. Period. The only exception might be service learning classes, where students work for nonprofits; but even those clients ideally should pay something for the service. Most of them just don't have the money to. But you can bet that the universities and their corporate sponsors have the money. Just look at the stadiums.
To find this system repellent is to pay only partial attention to it. It's horrific. Would any reasonable person argue that it should work this way? Anyway, our silence must end. To remain silent about this is to succumb to the intentions of the criminals that keep the system running. (And yet, notice how even I have avoided naming names – I don't have tenure.)
It is time for those of us who work in universities to demand more on behalf of our students.
Mr. Edwards et al.: I'd be happy to talk with you more about my experiences, if you're interested.
This is an important story. I have a nephew who is currently being heavily recruited to play football at a major universities. I think any one with a kid looking to play big time college sports needs to listen to this story and understand what they are getting into. I am not saying people should not play, but they need to understand what is really going on and make sure they are advocating for the teenager whose only interest is playing ball. It's up to the adults to make sure the kid is getting what they need out of the institution and the opportunity.
As disturbing as the information is regarding college athletes, I have to wonder how the athletes in question ever graduated from high school. Seems to me the problem is bigger than just the college venue.