The mis-education of the black athlete
| It’s that time of the year
again, college graduation season. This is the time
after four long years (five for some, shout out to
the Super Seniors), when students are getting
prepared to walk across the stage and make their
family proud. When it comes to a large percentage of
black athletes this day will never happen. They have
been advised to make that jump from college to the
pros early; due to “how high” they can go in the
draft, and how much money they can make. A lot of
these students take the jump, and unfortunately a
lot has to do with their living situation. For nearly 50 years, the NCAA has debated its minimum academic requirements for first-year students who hope to compete in big-time college sports. In its various attempts to ensure an acceptable level of precollegiate learning and skill competencies, the NCAA has vacillated between lowering and raising entrance standards, seemingly unable to determine the correct balance. |
|
In its most recent set of
reforms, in 2003, it established new standards for initial
eligibility. Responding to charges of the disparate impact
on minorities of standardized-exam requirements, the new
rules afforded minority athletes greater access to higher
education by creating a sliding scale for grade-point
averages and standardized-test scores, while abandoning a
minimum requirement of a composite 17 on the ACT or 820 on
the SAT.
After several years of trial and
error, it is time to examine the outcomes of those relaxed
initial eligibility standards. The verdict? Having led to
only modest gains in both African-American participation and
federal graduation rates in the most visible sports—men's
basketball and football—the 2003 changes have failed to help
achieve the NCAA's stated goals of increasing the number of
minority athletes who graduate from college. Even more
important, the academy has been diminished in the process:
The lower test-score standards, combined with high-school
grade inflation, have led to greater numbers of athletes who
qualify with very low test scores. Those students possess
inadequate skills to manage college academics, creating a
greater need for academic-support services at institutions
already struggling with strained budgets, staffs, and
faculties.
Since the onset of the program,
in 2003, gains in minority access to higher education
through big-time college sports have been negligible. The
NCAA's "Student-Athlete Ethnicity Report" tracked the
participation rates of self-reported ethnicity
classifications, by team, each year from 1999 to 2009, and
showed that since the change in initial eligibility
standards, only a slight increase has been realized in
African-American participation in the sports of basketball
and football in Division 1 athletics—even though in the
four-year period leading up to 2003 reforms, there was a
steady increase of minority participants who met the higher
standards of a minimum test-score requirement.
During the several years before
the NCAA's academic reform, from 1999 to 2002, the
African-American participation rate in Division 1 men's
basketball increased 2.9 percentage points, from 55.0 to
57.9 percent. But it rose only three points, to 60.9
percent, between 2003 and 2009, after the reforms. The same
growth trend was evident in football: African-American
participation increased steadily from 39.5 percent to 43.8
percent, between 1999 and 2002, but only two points, to 45.8
percent, from 2003 to 2009. According to the NCAA's reports
on Division I federal graduation rates of African-American
student-athletes, the most recent data for men's basketball
revealed a one-point decline in the 2003 cohort, to 43
percent, and football increased just one point, to 48
percent, over the previous year.
Finally, there is the financial
impact on colleges. In addition to the reduced academic
requirements enacted in 2003, the NCAA assigned punitive
actions—including the elimination of a team's
athletics-related financial aid, banning from postseason
championship participation, restrictions on NCAA membership
rights, and public censure—for institutions whose teams did
not meet retention, eligibility, and graduation thresholds.
Basketball Hall of Famer Kareem
Abdul-Jabbar recently suggested that in order to earn an NBA
paycheck the required age must be 21. If they aren’t
educated about business, etc., will it really help? You see
the stories of the bankrupt athlete, but is it their age to
blame? Is it their agents? Is it their lack of education? Or
is it their upbringing? I think it could be slightly all of
the above, mixed in with the strong attraction of fame. What
I always see is that it’s always focused on the black
athlete, when you also have white athletes who leave school
early, mismanage money and have children out of wedlock. So
how about we put the focus on the broader picture? The
bottom line is it’s about the money, as long as there’s
plenty to be made, education will fall in the background. I
say this about not only the black athletes, but about any
athlete. Yes you have the talent; yes you have the money,
but don’t let society “play” you for a dummy (I did not mean
to rhyme LOL). Get that paper…not just the green.
Statistics from predominately
white schools have reported close to 70% of white athletes
graduate, compared to the 20% of black athletes who achieve
commencement. It seems Historically Black Colleges and
Universities (HBCU’s) are left off this list where the
majority of their athletes do graduate. When you have a
Black athlete who is interested in pursuing a degree, a lot
of times he is discouraged from staying his senior year. So
they take the money and leave. There are some who decide to
finish school. I’m sure a lot of us remember Vince Carter,
then with the Toronto Raptors, going to his graduation and
being ridiculed for it because he had a playoff game.
Playoffs? Playoffs? True, the Raptors lost the game, but
isn’t basketball a team sport? Maybe, he had an off game (a
la LeBron…*ducks from Nikes being thrown by Cleveland
Cavaliers Fans*).
In an interview with
USA Today,
Secretary Duncan suggests that the NCAA should use its own
standard as the metric to measure tournament teams and
proposes bans for teams with an APR lower than 925, which
predicts a graduation rate of roughly 50% of a team’s
players.
“The math on this is not
complicated,” Secretary Duncan stressed. “If you can’t
graduate one in two of your student athletes, I just
question the institutional commitment to academics. And I
think if the NCAA were to draw a line in the sand, you’d see
this behavior change very rapidly.”
Additionally, new analysis
released March 17, 2011 by the
Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics
shows that nearly $179 million, or nearly 44 percent, of the
$409 million the NCAA awarded for basketball success in the
past five tournaments was earned by teams failing to meet
minimal academic standards.
According to Bloomberg, the
Knight Commission, which was formed in 1989 by the John S.
and James L. Knight Foundation in response to more than a
decade of highly visible scandals in college sports,
recommends that colleges on track to graduate less than half
of their team members should be barred from competing. The
Knight Commission also recommends that the NCAA should alter
its payouts for the men’s basketball tournament to reward
schools with higher graduation rates.
According to a similar
study
conducted on female NCAA basketball teams, white female
basketball players on tournament-bound teams graduate at a
rate of 92% compared to 84% of black players on those
teams—a 12% gap. In addition, researchers found that 0% of
the women’s teams graduated less than 40% of players,
compared to 10% of the men’s teams.
“The NCAA, university presidents
and coaches have to stop rounding up the usual suspects to
explain away the poor academic records and indefensible gaps
in graduation rates of white and black players on a small
number of men’s basketball teams,” Secretary Duncan said.
The NCAA insists that its
academic reforms are working. It announces its manufactured
Academic Progress Rates and graduation-success rates each
year with much fanfare. But that self-congratulation should
be tempered by the very real costs to institutional
integrity and to the athletes themselves. When higher
graduation rates come at the expense of underprepared
athletes, who squeak through college after being guided into
majors with an abundance of elective hours and little
discernible preparation for life after sports, the costs are
excessive. When we admit athletes who cannot read or
understand college textbooks and who lack the necessary
skills to compete in the classroom, the costs are excessive.
When athletic departments pressure admissions committees and
routinely appeal denials to college presidents, the costs to
institutional integrity are out of balance.
One has to question the motives
of those who designed the NCAA's latest attempt at academic
reform. Did the NCAA sacrifice academic integrity in the
interest of improving the entertainment product? That has
been the result, intentional or not.
The NCAA must re-establish
freshman eligibility standards for athletes that ensure a
minimum skill set to compete in the classroom. In addition
to reinstating minimum standardized-test scores,
incorporating an additional measurement of reading and
mathematics skills may be necessary. The NCAA and college
presidents must be certain that every athlete is equipped to
take advantage of a college education; to do otherwise is an
empty and unfulfilled offer. For every time a college
president caves to a coach's appeal to admit a woefully
underprepared athletic phenom—holding the winning
aspirations of the coach over the well-being of a student
who would be a better fit at another institution—that
college suffers an irreparable blow.
“A well-informed mind is the best security against the
contagion of folly and of vice. The vacant mind is ever on
the watch for relief, and ready to plunge into error, to
escape from the languor of idleness.” -Ann Radcliffe
For more information, visit
any of the links below:
ACADEMIC PROGRESS RATE -
http://www.ncaa.org/wps/wcm/connect/public/NCAA/Resources/Research/Academic+Progress+Rate
| NOTE: We are proud to announce that for the entire month of May, S.C. Fitch Enterprises, and all of its affiliates including Amateur Sports News Network, ASNN365.com, and Amateur Sports Gallery will be honoring May as National Teen Pregnancy Prevention Month. This Campaign was founded in 1996 to work exclusively on decreasing teen pregnancy in America, and at the outset challenged the nation to reduce the teen pregnancy rate. Unplanned pregnancy is at the root of a number of important public health and social challenges. Click here for more information. |
|
We are always looking for additional personnel.
Click here if you are
interested.
I
FOLLOW US...
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |