For several years there has been a growing concern for the state of college athletics at the Division I level. It is a rare occasion that one can tune in to an episode of Sports Center or read a sports magazine without coming across a story that captures the scandals and infractions that plague the culture of college athletics. What has resulted is a media frenzy that portrays the attempts made by athletic departments, conferences, and institutions to devise game plans to put an end to this frenzy, once and for all.Lewis Margolis, Inside Higher Ed, campaigns for universitiegs to "Drop the Ball" by abolishing Division I athletic programs, football and basketball programs in particular. The argument is that the flawed state of college athletics costs institutions millions of dollars due to the time and energy exhausted by administrators and lawyers who are in charge of responding to NCAA investigations. In addition, universities exhaust numerous resources cleaning up the mess caused by college athletics and repairing the institutions tarnished public image.
One of the arguments that Mr. Margolis highlights in his article is his belief that universities should refrain from pouring more time and money into institutions that already expose athletes to professional sports opportunities. I do agree that participation in college athletics increases the exposure for athletes who are blessed with an abundance of talent and skills and are hoping to transition their talents to the next level. However, this exposure benefits less than five percent of college athletes in the sports of football and basketball. Do we penalize the vast majority of student-athletes because a small percentage will capitalize on the opportunity to take their skills to the next level?
During my time as a student-athlete at the University of Northern Colorado, I was a member of a team that was known more for its violence within the team than its on-field performance. Our back-up punter stabbed our starting punter in a desperate attempt to gain more playing time. I can recall walking out to practice only to witness the likes of ABC, CNN, and ESPN consuming our practice field. To say that the football team had put UNC on the map for all the wrong reasons was a gross understatement.
Nevertheless, what I remember more than the chaos that ensued was how we, as a team, persevered through a time of trial. How our head coach, Coach Downing, reminded us that we would not let the actions of one affect the positive impact that we worked hard to create in our community. The lessons I learned through that season in particular has served me more than any lesson I have learned in the classroom.
Although I agree that the culture of college athletics is in need of serious reform, abolish it? What message would this send to students? When your problems in life are too difficult to fix, get rid of them, run from them, take the easy way out. Getting rid of college athletics is in complete contradiction to the lessons I learned throughout my time in athletics. Lessons of team work, perseverance, and combating adversity. I can't help but wonder what would be the result if this same plan of abolishing all organizations that have been plagued with unethical behavior was applied to other areas throughout the United States. What if our government adopted this same policy? Would we have a government today? What about academic institutions? A quick search of the web and one can find endless stories from institutions that paint the picture of unethical behavior on the part of students, staff, and administrators. Do we shut down all institutions of higher education?
College athletics, while flawed, should not be abolished. The pros far outweigh the cons when weighing the long term affects of such drastic measures. The leadership skills, work ethic, responsibility, and camaraderie that are leaned through team sports such as football and basketball are lessons that cannot be developed in the classroom. While I believe those who campaign for the death of college athletics have good intentions, they sadly underestimate the long term consequences for students and universities alike.
Those are great questions you raise in the blog. I do not think we would shut down our government for scandal or unethical behavior which makes me wonder. Why would we shut down any other organization (e.g. football/basketball) because of the conduct of others. If that approach is taken I do not think we would have any industry or towns for that matter. The conduct of one should not be placed on a whole group. I believe that mentality is what gives us the larger problems we have in our society.
ReplyDeleteThe one thought I have some dissonance with is that leadership skills, work ethic, responsibility, and camaraderie cannot be developed in the classroom. I would have to say these qualities and skills could be developed through leadership courses and a developmental approach in the classroom.
Great post, Aaron James! (I know that's not enough, Matt :). I totally agree with your arguments, and I hope I can add more to think about.
ReplyDeleteFirst off, abolishing DI athletics can't possibly be the solution to scandals among college athletics. Not to get into too much murky water with personal details of the athletic department where I coached (a DII institution), but in the four years I was there, we had one head coach marry his pitcher, and the assistant AD married a star forward. Did anyone of you hear about this? No, probably not, but we didn't have news vans on campus either. DI sports (most notably tier one sports such as basketball and football) have both the blessing and curse of media exposure. I appreciate how you mentioned ESPN, CNN, and other media channels flocking to your "story-worthy" news, as they do to to other DI schools. Unfortunately, media focus in this area is probably 90%+ focused on scandals or some incredible broken record or "web gem." These are the two far ends of the spectrum. The majority of the time, most student-athletes are gaining the prized skills you mentioned (leadership, responsibility, etc.). Yet, this doesn't interest the media or the public eye...sadly, that's not just sport news, that's any news.
Lastly, universities would risk losing an incredible amount of alumni support, and new student enrollment. How many college tours did you go on where you weren't walked through the athletic facilities? There's a great amount of social draw to attending a game with new friends, cheering for a bunch of your peers in a competitive environment. Need we mention how difficult it would be to get tickets to a UNC vs. Duke men's basketball game? A very large portion of the student body occupy those seats. Students celebrate their athletics, whether they wear the jersey or T-Shirt with the same logo.
Coming from the institution that put athletic scandals in Colorado on the map, I feel empowered to chime in on this topic. I witnessed firsthand the benefits received by a peer of mine who played football. He was, and is, a brilliant guy but it was challenging for me to see him gain so much benefit from his athleticism as compared to his beefy brain!
ReplyDeleteTwo specific situations come to mind regarding how "accommodations" for student athletes can lead to hard feelings from faculty and other students. First, this individual had afternoon football practices so he was excused from attending many of his class sessions. His girlfriend (who was not, to my knowledge, an engineering major) attended classes and took notes on his behalf. Second, he was allowed to drop a difficult course very late in the semester and the general opinion was that it was because he was not going to get an "A" and that would drag down his GPA. In a rare attempt at fairness, the professor offered the opportunity to drop to all students, and I and a few others took him up on the offer in the last week of class! When I retook the class with the same individual, he was asking me for homework help. For reference, his GPA was a full point higher than mine. I was ecstatic to earn a B (or B+?) in that class. He earned a B (or B+) and it cost him from earning a medal at graduation.
I'm sure that by now you are all asking yourselves if I have a point, and I do. This guy was drafted by the NFL, but turned it down because he was smart enough to realize that the average NFL career for someone in his position was just a few years, followed by a lifetime of health problems. Instead, he accepted his Rhodes Scholarship and went to Oxford to get a graduate degree. While it was difficult to be one of his classmates, I now believe that he was a great role model for other engineers who aspire to be great on the field and in the classroom.
One last point - at a workshop today, a faculty member from Duke said that the top reason for students to attend Duke used to be the success of its athletics teams. That has now changed to the success of its service learning activities. So, keep the faith!
I agree with a lot of what you said in your post, Aaron. Athletics helps students build character, learn discipline, develop as a teammate, and teach leadership skills, work ethic, responsibility, and camaraderie. Many of the residents I worked with and students that I continue to work with now have shown development because of their dedication to their team. They keep their grades up to stay eligible, try harder in school, and dedicate themselves to the sport. They develop as members on the team and through the year develop into leaders and active members of the campus community. I have seen a lot of good come out of athletics, but unfortunately we all hear about the bad.
ReplyDeleteThis is similar to the double edge sword that Greek Life holds. Students are supposed to get involved, connect to the university, and find a group of friends, teammates, or brothers/sisters that will hold them accountable and encourage them to persevere through college; however, when something happens in the small community because one student or a group of students messes up, the entire organization suffers. Getting rid of D1 athletics does nothing to help a university and will only hurt them in the long run (for the many reasons stated by Kylie), just like abolishing Greek Life wouldn't fix the "alcohol problem" s often blamed on Greeks. Trying to make these organizations disappear will not fix the problem; universities, media, administrators, etc. will only find a new organization to blame the current crisis on.
As a student-athlete myself, I think that by getting rid of any extra curricular activities, especially athletics, is a horrible decision for many reasons. About six years ago I wrote a paper about the correlation between extra curricular activities and academic success. The numbers showed that not only were grades, and GPA better due to the expectations laid upon them from coaches or administrators during their season, but that given GPA was much lower once those students were out of season or no longer played. Having that expectation from a mentor pushes for students to have a plan of success and be able to manage their time day in and day out.
ReplyDeleteFrom a financial point of view, college athletics is a main driving force for costs at any institution. As seen in the following articles, the amount of revenue received from a football team alone is in the millions, and helps drives other athletic programs to allow them to continue.
http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/sports_college/2009/07/how-much-revenue-did-your-favorite-fbs-school-take-in-in-200708-this-chart-will-tell-you.html
http://www2.indystar.com/NCAA_financial_reports/revenue_stat/show
I think the main concern is to have colleges and universities change their ideals of what needs to take place as far as student involvement and keeping students from making bad or immoral decisions. College athletics has become such a rich industry, that students see how they can be compensated for just "who" they are. That is a much larger topic. What colleges need to do is be able to create solutions that have everyone in mind. As Kelsi points out, abolishing the Greek Life wouldn't fix the alcohol problem, getting rid of athletics I think would actually create more of an academic issue because of people who would normally not have a reason to go to college now will not have a reason to go. I know that baseball was my driving force in high school and college. When I received a 1.7 GPA my first semester and the head coach came to me and said, "you have one semester to turn this around or your done." I turned that GPA around to a 3.6. Without that, who knows what could have happened.
It's easy to always put the blame on something or someone else, but what these institutions need to do is try and find a commonality between all these concerns and figure out a logical way to benefit the schools, and the student-athletes. It's a lot easier said than done.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThe truth is college athletics are too valuable to each respected institution to every abolish. Are there a handful of institutions that profit from their athletic programs? Sure. Do most athletic programs operate in the red and lose money for their institution? In my opinion not exactly. Athletic programs provide an incredible amount of marketing and advertising for their respected institutions. Most students develop an affinity for their alma mater through their association with a specific academic program or through an experience cheering for their college team. How many times have you meet someone and the athletic program of your institution or theirs have come up? How many bumper stickers, decals, key chains and magnets do you see daily advertising colleges athletics?
ReplyDeleteI think the question is how many institutions benefit from other services provided by athletic departments. When a basketball or football team wins their division or championship does enrollment see a spike? My undergraduate institution would receive 10% more FTE if our football team won their rival game. When UNC made their first appearance in the NCAA basketball tournament did they see an increase in private donations? Did their national apparel sales increase? I bought a UNC hat for the first time because I was excited about their achievement and wanted to support my alma mater. It would be interesting to see how many institutions view the cost of operating an athletic program as a marketing and advertising expense.
I appreciate everyone's willingness to share their personal experiences. It seems as though we are all in agreement that there are more rational solutions to the problems we face in athletics than to simply get rid of them.
ReplyDeleteKarla- I appreciate you dissonance to my comment. I did a poor job of accurately stating my opinion as I too believe these skills can be sharpened in the classroom. However, I believe that learning how to apply these skills to the real-world setting is tough to accomplish in the classroom. Participation in collegiate athletics offers student-athletes the opprtunity to put these skills into action.
Aaron, your post was an interesting one to read. I connected with your first hand experience of the scandal surrounding what happened to the UNC football team in the aftermath of the stabbing. That must have been difficult.
ReplyDeleteOn the issue of college athletics, I feel torn. Growing up, I was always watching football and basketball with my Dad on weekends. I loved the game and was invested in my favorite teams both college and pro.
Now that I am grown, and have worked in higher education for 15 years at a range of institutions from Division I to Division III, I have a much harder time loving football and basketball, especially at the college level. I have seen as a conduct officer on several campuses where the efforts to keep the best players eligible to play are underhanded at best and criminal at worst. I have seen evidence of academic misconduct for basketball players to stay on the team and get a B in their class. I have seen the aftermath of incidents of sexual misconduct by football players. I have also seen an administration go against its own hearing officers to protect the eligibility of a football player who beat another student so badly he needed reconstructive surgery on his face. But, to some institutions and athletic departments, it is not about what is right...it is about the starting lineup for Saturday's game.
I believe that College Athletics can be a positive thing. I WANT it to be a positive thing. However, I think that Division I schools do a disservice to their athletes by carrying them through the system with no other accountability than their performance on Saturday.
I acknowledge my deep cynicism on this issue, but I believe that raising the academic standards for Division I athletes will not make them improve academically. I believe that these higher standards will only elevate the efforts by the Athletic departments to continue to carry these athletes through. Especially if that student can get them to a bowl game.
I don't know if getting rid of DI athletics is the answer. Another possible solution is to treat it as what it seems...a farm system for the NFL and/or NBA. If we can be honest about the revenue generation and pay the athletes (not disingenuously masquerade them as students if they are not), we are a step closer to solving the issues surrounding these organizations.
I have seen College Athletics be an amazing and enriching part of a college experience for both athletes and fans. When I have seen that though, it has not been at a Division I school.
Again, I acknowledge my cynicism on this matter. It runs deep. Therefore, take my opinion with that in mind.
I have a hard time believing the idea to drop collegiate athletics would ever cross an individual’s mind. I, like many others who have posted comments to this blog topic, am a former Division I student-athlete and I can honestly say I would not be where I am today without the opportunity to compete in collegiate athletics. The thought of denying that experience to upcoming athletes breaks my heart.
ReplyDeleteI specifically aligned with Aaron’s comment about the message it would send to students: if your problems in life are too big, just take the easy way out and run from them. No one is denying collegiate athletics is free of issues or scandals but that is with any department or corporation in the world. Growth and resolutions really result from facing issues head on. Even if the solution would be to cut collegiate athletics all together, the implications of this would cause issues itself.
Last, Robyn’s comment is a common complaint that professors and other students tend to have about student-athletes. My viewpoint is this: collegiate athletics is considered a student-athlete’s job with the following responsibilities: attend practices each day, weight lifting and film sessions, meetings, community outreach events, frequent weekend travel, etc. While this type of “job” tends to be more fun than the average college student job, it is extremely hard work.
With this said, I do agree with Robyn that these privileges can get out of hand. One aspect, in my opinion, that contributes to this is recruitment of student-athletes. Each program is trying to recruit the best of the best and the more “attractive” coaches can make their athletic program, the better players they sign. In competition with other schools, athletic programs continue to “up the ante” with the extra benefits and privileges their players will receive. While I agree most of the privileges a student-athlete may receive are appropriate, many coaches and universities frequently cross the line. Rules and regulations can be tightened to reduce scandals and infractions but doing away with college sports is not the answer.
I agree with Aaron that simply getting rid of collegiate athletics would be ridiculous. Aside from the points raised by the original author, I think people tend to overlook how valuable athletics are to the student body as a whole.
ReplyDeleteIn an age of higher education where everyone is well aware of the benefits of student involvement and participation, there is no single event, activity, or organization that reaches a larger proportion of the student body than athletics does. While there are hundreds or thousands of athletes on any given campus, there are thousands or hundreds of thousands students and community members that benefit from athletic events during any given week. The only other campus services that come close to reaching as many students, on any level, are possibly campus recreation, residence life, or Greek life, and these are a very, very distant second.
Individuals can be radical and quick to dismiss anything that there are flaws with. The truth is that as current or future professionals in higher education, none of us will ever create the perfect program or experience for students. We should focus on the positives and concentrate on how to improve the negatives, not simply try to sweep it under the rug.