The Chronicle of Higher Education, May 30, 2003
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[Two Articles on Sports]
We Should Speak the 'Awful Truth' About College Sports ...
By GEORGE H. HANFORD
and
... or Does the Public Like the Status Quo?
By MILTON GREENBERG
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We Should Speak the 'Awful Truth' About College Sports ...
By GEORGE H. HANFORD
A recent survey by The Chronicle suggests that the public
supportsintercollegiate athletics programs far less than most
college leaders believe and that the time has come when
serious change in college sports might actually be possible.
But can we truly reform college sports? For years, we have
attempted that and failed, as I know only too well from
personal experience.
Three decades ago, in 1973, Alden Dunham, then an officer at
the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and I, then the
executive vice president of the College Board, had several
informal conversations bemoaning the sorry state of
intercollegiate athletics: its crass commercialism and growing
"win at any cost" professionalism. Carnegie had issued a
seminal report on the subject in 1929, and Dunham thought it
was well past time for a reprise. He proposed that I conduct
an inquiry into the need for a national study of college
sports on behalf of the American Council on Education.
With the support of Carnegie and the Ford Foundation, several
colleagues and I spent six months exploring all aspects of
college athletics and submitted our report, totaling some 397
pages including appendices, to ACE in April 1974. We
identified a number of critical problem areas, among them the
advent of Title IX, the exploitation of minority athletes, the
growth of professional sports, the influence of television,
and the trickle-down effect of the competitive excesses in the
major big-time sports on the "minor" collegiate ones and on
secondary-school athletics. We concluded that an extensive
follow-up study was needed to find solutions, and we prepared
a proposal for ACE to submit to Carnegie requesting
$1.8-million to undertake the task. It did not take long for
the disillusionment that I have experienced over the years
since then to set in.
The reactions to the report ranged widely. The National
Collegiate Athletic Association complained that, while the
report was motivated by good intentions, it was based largely
on fantasy or preconceived opinions -- that we were outsiders
who didn't know what we were doing. The president of a
big-time athletic power commented, "Amateurs shouldn't get
involved in things they don't know anything about." (His
institution happened to be on probation for rules violations
with the NCAA.)
At the same time, it was hard not to get a swelled head from
adjectives such as "powerful," "landmark," "brilliant,"
"penetrating," which appeared in news publications, books, and
personal letters. The press-relations officer at the Carnegie
Corporation observed that no single Carnegie-sponsored project
had generated more business for its newspaper clipping
service. The author James Michener, who was then working on
Sports in America, wrote, "In every area Hanford pinpointed
the hot issues. ... His slim report should be published for
the national audience ... and no one should make decisions in
this field without consulting it."
But some reviewers thought we had pulled our punches -- that
we had been far too easy on the intercollegiate-athletics
establishment. Richard Margolis observed in the November 1974
issue of Change magazine, "He [Hanford] is less polemicist
than administrator -- which may be why he presents us with a
'balanced' analysis that never flies. ... Page upon page of
pros and cons, all equally weighted. No maladies are deplored;
no remedies prescribed." In fact, even my wife told me that I
had failed to "tell it like it is."
Yet we had been asked to produce an analytical treatise, not
an expose. It did not seem to make sense, then, to offend the
educational establishment with which I was associated. In
other words, while we called attention to 15 specific examples
of excess, all of which had been previously reported in the
press, I chose not to sensationalize them. Nor did I think we
needed to uncover some more new dirt; I felt that what we had
reported was sensational and dirty enough as it was.
The Carnegie Corporation's response was most disappointing.
While the staff was excited about the prospect of sponsoring
the study we had recommended, the trustees were not.
Influenced by the Eastern-establishment bias, they simply
could not accept the proposition that anything as messy as
big-time intercollegiate athletics was an important part of
the nation's social fabric. Trying to clean up that mess just
wasn't worthwhile to them.
Ultimately, they voted to set aside only a meager $200,000 to
match whatever ACE came up with. And, for their part, many of
the institutional presidents in ACE's membership weren't
interested in looking for a philanthropic match. They believed
they had more compelling needs on which to spend money -- a
clear signal that they wanted to let sleeping dogs lie.
Such developments following the publication of our report led
me to three disillusioning conclusions. One, the NCAA was not
about to admit that anything was seriously wrong with
intercollegiate athletics. Two, presidents were turning their
backs on the problems in their sports programs. And three,
foundations were not about to dirty their hands dealing with
anything as unsavory as college sports.
Thirty years later, has anything changed? Is the NCAA in
control? Not by a long shot. In the last decade, the almighty
dollar has reigned even more supreme, as bowl games have been
manipulated, conferences have been realigned, and coaches'
salaries have escalated. At the same time, officials at the
athletic conferences are not interested in having the NCAA
invade their increasingly lucrative turf. Furthermore, it is
not the healthiest of circumstances when a single agency, the
NCAA, acts as the primary organizing body and legislative
authority, the police force and the prosecutor, the judge and
the jury in overseeing the conduct of college sports in
America.
Are the presidents in control on their own campuses? The
litany of rules violations, as reflected in the number of
institutions on probation with the NCAA, suggests that they
are not -- that the chicanery indulged in by trustees, alumni,
athletics administrators, and athletes persists under the
not-so-watchful eyes of many college leaders. Like their
predecessors, today's chief executives want to avoid the whole
bloody mess; they do just enough to ease their consciences and
appear sufficiently involved to keep critics at bay.
And what about the Knight Foundation Commission on
Intercollegiate Athletics, which issued its first report in
1991 and a second one in 2001, and which now plans to
reconvene, yet again, in the near future? According to its Web
site, it has pursued an agenda built around a central
recommendation: presidential control of college sports. But
while many of its suggestions are reasonable, they treat only
the symptoms of the problem, not the root causes. That should
be no surprise. The commission has always been heavily loaded
with representatives of higher education who have vested
interests in college sports. Moreover, like the NCAA, having
members of a fraternity judge the integrity of its brothers
doesn't make sense.
There are many reasons why college sports remains in serious
disarray, but one of the most important is that no one has
been willing to call a cancer a cancer -- that is, to decry
the rampant commercialism of big-time college sports, the
denigration of academic values in the interests of athletic
ends, and the unethical means that "friends" of a given sport
(coaches, faculty members, alumni, and local businessmen)
employ to recruit and financially support athletic talent. I
know. I had the opportunity in 1973 and 1974 and did not. I
worried about offending the educational establishment with
which I was associated and instead created the impression that
what I knew to be a cancer was perhaps only a headache.
My own experience aside, it is difficult to speak the "awful
truth" about big-time college sports. Those programs have the
public's eye and generate loyalty and support among people
throughout the country that is akin to patriotism. That is why
it is hard for any individual or commission within higher
education to generate much more than palliatives, not real
reform. The recent Chronicle survey gives new hope, however,
that the public may now be much more interested in change than
many higher-education leaders may have realized.
But to begin to find the cure, we can't look to the same old
organizations and groupsthe usual suspectslike the Knight
Commission. We need to establish a truly independent, unbiased
body outside the educational and athletics establishment that
could take a serious, in-depth look at big-time
intercollegiate athletics within the context of the role of
sports in the broader society. That last qualification is
crucial. Sports are said to reflect the societies in which
they exist, and many problems that attend intercollegiate
athletics are manifestations of similar ones that exist in our
society today. They should be dealt with in that context.
For instance, is not the crass commercialization of college
sports but one manifestation of society's worship of the
dollar as evident in the case of Enron or WorldCom? Is not the
star basketball player's perfecting his slam dunk instead of
focusing on teamwork akin to the corporate executive's leaving
a company that nurtured him for a more lucrative post
elsewhere? In the matter of social equality, is the
preponderance of black athletes in big-time football and
basketball evidence of the success of the civil-rights
movement or the exploitation of minority students? What about
Americans' physical health? One of our society's problems is
obesity, which comes in part from sitting around watching
sports, not participating in them. These are just a few of the
ways that the abuses in college athletics are connected to far
broader societal concerns.
Any group established to deal with those issues from that
broader perspective should therefore include not only
representatives of the professional, collegiate, and
secondary-school athletic establishment, but also recognized
leaders from the fields of sociology, philosophy, psychology,
medicine, law, business, and religion. It should be chaired by
someone with impeccable credentials, like a Supreme Court
justice, and include public-spirited individuals with enough
credibility and stature that college leaders and the public
would truly listen to them. An organization like the American
Council on Education should once again take the lead in
organizing such an effort and seek sponsorship from a major
foundation.
Almost 75 years after Carnegie's first report, we must finally
come to terms with intercollegiate athletics. Before it's far
too late, we need people who are willing to speak the truth
about college sports -- and to take the heat for having done
so.
George H. Hanford is president emeritus of the College Board.
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... or Does the Public Like the Status Quo?
By MILTON GREENBERG
As a sports fan, I have taken note of almost daily bad news
about collegiateathletics -- the seemingly endless stories of
rule breaking, violence, drugs, and outright corruption, as
well as the excessive expenditures (known as the "arms race")
for teams, facilities, and coaches. It seems that the way that
we as a society attempt to deal with athletic excesses
resembles the war on drugs. No one really believes that we can
eliminate drugs or big-time athletics, so we occasionally
penalize certain behaviors, cry "shame," and merely tweak the
edges of the problem.
In the case of drugs, we alter marginal rules like how much
marijuana use constitutes illegal behavior. Similarly, in
athletics, we have an encyclopedia of rules -- for grades,
test scores, and behavior -- that we amend every few years,
and then pretend to have allayed the problem. Meanwhile, we
continue to satisfy the perverse urgings of colleges and
universities for the prestige, publicity, and money that
sports programs supposedly bring.
That's why I read with particular interest the results of a
national poll of public opinion, conducted by The Chronicle
recently, in which two-thirds of the respondents said that
"four-year colleges anduniversities place too much emphasis on
athletics." Barely more than a third of those surveyed said
that sports were somewhat or very important for colleges and
universities. And, when asked to select among 21 goals for
colleges and universities, people ranked "play athletics for
the entertainment of the community" dead last.
Do most people really think higher-education institutions
focus unduly on their sports programs? Do they really want to
change and reform intercollegiate athletics? The enormous
commitment to intercollegiate athletics by most of the
nation's highly rated institutions, large and small, would
indicate that academics and athletics are very related.
Otherwise, we wouldn't do it, right?
The question of whether big-time intercollegiate athletics is
in conflict with, or connected to, the best expectations of
college life in America has so intrigued me that, well before
the publication of the Chronicle poll, I ventured forth on my
own totally unscientific survey. More than a year ago, I began
to engage friends, neighbors, e-mail contacts, athletes,
sports fans at games, strangers on planes, and even telephone
solicitors ("Say, let me ask you a question ... "). And I
found that people just love to talk about this topic.
"Tell me," I'd begin, "how does intercollegiate athletics
serve the purposes of higher education?" With few exceptions,
the first answer was, "It builds school spirit." Academic
sophisticates phrased it as, "It builds a sense of community."
Then I would ask, "Assuming that to be true, what does that
have to do with higher education?" Blank stares were followed
by a look that asked, "Are you weird or something?" That was
followed by a stumbling, "Well, you know, it's fun. I mean,
you know, it's like what college is all about: It makes you
feel part of something."
I learned that at Duke University, students are so "spirited"
by the basketball team that they have to wait overnight in
tents supplied by the university for the few tickets available
to students. When a neighbor's son visited Duke as a
prospective freshman, he asked (at my suggestion) whether that
was true. A high-ranking university official proudly told him
that it was true and that "it was part of the spirit-building
at Duke."
I read that the University of Memphis, winner of men's
basketball's 2002 National Invitational Tournament, with a
student body of 18,000 and a basketball arena seating 20,000,
has sold more than 17,000 season tickets to "nonstudents."
That leaves only about 2,500 for spirited students. One could
conclude from such data that most students are scholars and
not basketball fans. Yet what colleges rarely comment on, but
what is widely noted, is that many of those 2,500 student
tickets at Memphis, like those at Duke and elsewhere, are so
hard to get that they are scalped for hundreds of dollars,
openly advertised in classified ads.
Isn't the "spirit" argument a bit overdone? After all, many
outstanding colleges and universities have mediocre to poor
athletics teams, and the overwhelming number of people attend
institutions where athletics is barely on the radar screen. I
confess that I went to such a college, and all I remember is
that during the only football game I attended during my four
years there, the punter on our team kicked the ball backward
over his head. (I hasten to add that our basketball team was
jailed for fixing games, so we were not entirely out of the
shenanigans loop.)
The next most frequent response to my informal survey was that
sports raise a lot of money for higher-education institutions.
That makes sense, but unfortunately it is not true. What is
especially not true is that success in athletics encourages
alumni and other fans to donate money to regular academic
programs.
The NCAA estimates that college sports earned about $3-billion
in 2000 but spent $4.1-billion. Many colleges would close down
with a cost-benefit ratio like that for their academic
programs. Very few institutions, including those in Division
I, make enough to cover the costs of their athletics programs.
At about 50 top powers, enough is available from football and
basketball to support other sports teams and to embellish
athletics facilities. But more typical is the University of
Minnesota-Twin Cities, one of the largest in the nation, which
has subsidized its $41-million budget for athletics programs
to the tune of well over $10-million a year from state and
university funds. In fact, the athletics-department deficit
has been projected to reach $21-million in the next five
years. Academic purists might be alarmed to know that,
according to the Star Tribune, Minnesota athletics units
employ about 70 people in administrative positions, and that
the university buys parking from the athletics department for
$1-million a year.
People who answered my informal survey unfailingly turned
next, and aggressively, to what they felt was a clear academic
plus: "A lot of young people who ordinarily would not get an
education are given an opportunity." Many compared athletics
scholarships as similar to those given for musical talent.
(Surely there must be a better example than music, but that
was the only one mentioned.) From there it took just a few
seconds for people to add, "and so many of them are minority
students who might not otherwise get admitted." This was
usually followed by a "gotcha!" smile.
"That is a point that may make you feel good," I responded,
"but instead of raising and investing millions of dollars in
athletics plant, promotion, recruiting, and staffing, why not
use those billions to give need-based scholarships to
minorities who can choose or not choose to play a game, just
as an academic scholarship does not require you to major in a
specific field?" I haven't gotten an answer to that one yet,
except for that stare that says, "You gotta be kidding."
I tried to get a rise out of people by equating athletics
scholarships with affirmative action, but few took the bait.
Many of the people I spoke with knew that the graduation rate
for athletes at universities with big-time sport programs was
poor (zero in some cases of Division I basketball teams). They
also had read of the special courses and tutoring for
athletes, as well as the pressures on professors to give them
unmerited good grades. But few seemed offended because the
players allegedly "do so much for their schools." (Build
spirit, raise money, I presume.)
Moreover, those I spoke with frequently pointed out that
intercollegiate athletics are demanding, and student-athletes
don't have time or energy to study. To the millions of
nonathletes who worked their way through college, this
probably sounds like so much palaver. Nevertheless, I found a
sincere belief among people that athletics does demand
extraordinary commitment and requires athletes to be off
campus several days at a time.
Next in line of responses was something like this: "Sports
teaches sportsmanship, team building and sharing, winning and
losing, prepares you for the real world and stuff like that."
But shouldn't you be taught most of those behaviors at least
by grade school? If pushed, I noted that it is clear that the
notorious basketball coach Bob Knight missed kindergarten
because his sportsmanship skills feature screaming
obscenities, manhandling players, and throwing furniture.
I always hated to ask this obvious question, but I did: "What
would happen to a history or biology professor, or a clerk in
the registrar's office, who cursed at students, put them in a
stranglehold, or threw a chair?" A smirky smile and sigh of
disgust accompanies the typical response: "Well, that wouldn't
happen, and anyway in sports you get caught up in the emotion
of the game and so much is riding on it for the coach."
Really? And how does that benefit higher education?
In a search for better answers, I called and wrote several
times to the NCAA and asked for any material they had or could
recommend that indicated the benefits of intercollegiate
athletics to higher education or demonstrated its consistency
with academic values. A senior official -- who will remain
unnamed, but who was direct and honest -- finally called me
back. He essentially told me that magazines and newspapers,
especially The Chronicle, are anti-athletics and only print
the bad news, and that claims by some in higher education
about "academic values" are largely undefined and illusory (to
put it nicely).
The NCAA official also contended that complaints about the
poor academic performance and class attendance of athletes can
be compared with the poor teaching of some faculty members and
their own frequent absences from campus. In addition, he
pointed out, a coach who doesn't win is fired -- the only such
victim on a campus. Finally, he said, the model of physical
education in schools and colleges has given way to
professionalism of sports as a skill and livelihood, bolstered
by huge financial considerations -- "just like most academic
disciplines."
The last point is most important. Don't we all go to school to
improve our chances for a livelihood? Aren't colleges and
universities expected to adjust to new and growing career
fields, like information science, and isn't sports one of the
richest business enterprises in the world? Support of the
economy is clearly one of higher education's greatest
contributions.
One need not be an economist to appreciate the place of all
levels of sports in the national economy. Just consider its
role in construction, manufacturing, tourism, transportation,
media, entertainment, and advertising. It is huge and
unstoppable.
While few college athletes make it into the professional world
of megadollars, many do get jobs in coaching, community
health-and-recreation programs, and the business world. Such
results are not without merit nor unworthy of academic
support. What is wrong with wanting a career as a professional
athlete? Or a related enterprise? We could offer more academic
majors or minors in various aspects of the sports world that
could rival many existing academic majors or minors. Then we
could grant credit, and perhaps modest pay, for playing on a
team while in college -- much as we do for internships in
other fields.
But do I hear any meaningful cry for change from the NCAA, the
athletics conferences, the presidents of colleges and
universities, the boards of trustees, the faculty members, the
students, the legislators, the media moguls, and the millions
of fans who watch and bet on games? Of course not. They may
pay it lip service, but I find their meager utterances
unconvincing.
That's why, whatever people may say in polls and surveys,
we'll just keep reading articles like one in The Chronicle
quoting Tonya Moten Brown, then vice president and chief of
staff of the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, who bemoaned
the deficits generated by her university's huge athletics
program and the movement toward eliminating minor sports like
gymnastics, golf, tennis, wrestling, and swimming: "There is a
sense that we are eliminating opportunities in those sports
that still retain what is noble and pure about amateur
athletics, at the expense of dealing with sports ... that
every day look more and more like their professional
counterparts." She hoped that someone would resist the
pressure and "stand up and take this on."
Sorry, Ms. Brown. Many people have taken it on -- and they
like it just the way it is.
Milton Greenberg is a professor emeritus of government at
American University.
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Copyright 2003 by The Chronicle of Higher Education
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