Why should we have to go to class if we came here to playFOOTBALL, we ainât come to play SCHOOL, classes arePOINTLESS. (Clayton 2012)
In 2012, then-freshman and third-string quarterback Cardale Jones of Ohio State University posted this message from his Twitter account. As a freshman (first-year undergraduate), Jones was new to being a college student. As a third-string quarterback, he was not receiving playing time as he would need. Two injuries (to the two quarterbacks ahead of him on the depth chart listing who gets the bulk of the playing time at each position) would give him the playing time and to be noticed by professional football (NFL) scouts. Years later, he claimed this tweet was born out of frustration for how he had done on (of all things) a sociology exam, and he became their starting quarterback. Jonesâ tweet highlights a discrepancy for many student-athletes, and serves as the catalyst for this book, which focuses on how student athletes have to be proficient at both academics and athletics, and the obstacles they face succeeding in school.
In 2014, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill reported that more than three thousand (3000) of its undergraduate students, including student-athletes, had been funneled into so-called âpaper coursesâ (Ganim and Sayers 2014), in which little, if any, work was required to pass the class. These courses allowed student-athletes to remain academically eligible for intercollegiate competitions, as they artificially inflated studentsâ grade point averages. As a result of an investigation by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the University of North Carolina received accreditation probation for one year in 2015. While the university was exonerated in 2017, following its own investigation into these classes, the mere fact that these classes were offered was a source of concern and potential embarrassment for the school. Student-athletes were funneled into majors like Swahili, but when asked if they could speak or write in Swahili, many said no. Effectively this meant that students, especially student-athletes, were graduating with degrees, but had not improved on their academic or professional skills, and were lacking both skills and knowledge. While North Carolina provides a high-profile example of an institution promoting its student-athletes for minimum effort in the classroom, it is hardly the only school in which non-students helped student-athletes remain eligible by completing assignments or tests them (Wolverton 2014).
College sports are a lucrative business, especially if one focuses on football and basketball at âpower-fiveâ schools. The power-five is the collective name for the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), Big 10, Big 12, Pacific (Pac) 12, and Southeastern Conference (SEC). The member schools for each conference can be found in Appendix A. As of 2020, NCAA makes almost one billion dollars in ad revenue from the annual menâs basketball national tournament (âMarch Madnessâ). This is in addition to the lucrative television broadcasting rights for the tournament on national television, along with individual TV deals that member conferences have for broadcasting regular season games, and from gate revenue and merchandise sales (Lisa 2020). The basketball money (mainly generated from the March Madness tournament) is added to the money produced from football, and is distributed to participating schools. On its website, the NCAA boasts it awards roughly 3.5 billion dollars in athletic scholarships to more than 180,000 student-athletes (NCAA.âorg), but only began rewarding academic achievement in 2019â2020 by increasing the amount schools receive from television broadcast rights (NCAA.âorg). Prior to this, academics took a clear back seat to sports, with only $25.1 million allocated to âacademic enhancement.â This money was divided among all 65 teams in the tournament, meaning each school received between $350,000 and $400,000 for academics. For smaller schools, this money is a nice boost, but it pales in comparison to the revenue spent on the sports themselves. Student-athletes are pressured to succeed, especially those competing in high-profile sports and at high-profile schools. This pressure comes from media attention, zealous fans, intense coaches, and the players themselves. On the other hand, academics take a back seat to sports. After all, fans are not watching these student-athletes take tests or give class presentations, and coaches do not get contract extensions when their student-athletes ace classes, nor are they fired if a student struggles in a class. Coaches are rewarded with contracts or extensions for winning and or penalized and fired for losing games.
While the NCAA invests heavily in athletes, fewer than 2% of the undergraduate student-athletes go on to play professional football (NFL) or basketball (NBA) in the United States, and while others have professional athletic careers overseas in basketball or in other sports, the overwhelming majority of student-athletes embark on careers other than âprofessional athlete.â
What Do We Think We Know About Student-Athletes?
The academic literature paints a rather bleak image of college student-athletes. Studies done from the 1980s through early 2000s explain that student-athletes begin college with expectations of doing well in their sports and school, but their various experiences on campus, such as being talked down to by their professors or classmates, push them away from school and into their sports, where they are treated as more competent than in the classroom. These studies suggest student-athletes have little control over the courses they take, with academic advisors choosing âeasyâ classes for them, in order to give them a way of staying eligible (Adler and Adler 1985; Benson 2000; Watt and Moore 2001).
This led to continuing the stereotypes that student-athletes either could not handle academically-challenging courses, or that they did not care about doing well in classes, choosing instead to focus on their sport. What fueled this further is student-athletes perceived their teachers as not caring whether they attended class, because roll was not called, and assumed they could do extra-credit work if they fell behind in class, because of their status as student-athletes. This led to student-athletes not being taken seriously by their professors as students, compared to their non-athlete peers (Aries et al. 2014). In schools where student-athletes dorm together, they create a subculture in which academics take a back seat to sports (Engstrom and Sedlacek 1991; Sedlacek and Adams-Gaston 1992; Gayles 2009). Because of this subculture, and feeling their efforts in the classroom are devalued by classmates and professors, student-athletes are reportedly more focused on establishing a reputation and identity as athletes in their sports, and their personal relationships influenced their commitment to their sportâas respect and validation rose, so did sport commitment (Comeaux and Harrison 2011).
In addition to the academic literature referenced above, there are examples from popular media that illustrate the problems with collegiate sports. Documentary series such as At All Costs and Last Chance U on Netflix show the high-stakes world of youth and collegiate sports, placing the spotlight on the sports but downplaying academics. Last Chance U shows community college football players who are competing at a lower level, with less media and fan attention, in order to transfer successfully to a four-year school, preferably a power-five school with a scholarship. Student-athletes shown in the series are woefully unprepared for class, needing their advisor (Brittany Wagner, in the two seasons filmed in Mississippi) tell them to bring pencils and paper to class, and likening class attendance and participation to practice in terms of being prepared. During the showâs third season (first season filmed in Kansas), the head coach exhorts his players to do well in their classes, angrily yelling at players who are struggling in their classes by having players who are late to class or skipping class do extra exercises at practice (e.g. lunges before running plays), starting practice before sunrise, or announcing playersâ failing grades in the locker room in front of all of the players and coaches. It is unclear whether the struggling students are singled out for struggling, or whether the problems of being underprepared are widespread. Nevertheless, the struggling student-athletes on Last Chance U are not alone in having difficulty in their classes. The problems may be exaggerated for the sake of compelling watching, but they are real concerns.
At All Costs follows the world of youth basketball, as children as young as seven years old play in Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) basketball in a series of high-stakes auditions, trying to get noticed and evaluated by professional scouts and high-profile college coaches. AAU sports work around academic schedules, with high-profile tournaments taking place over summer. This means that formally, grades are not a consideration for the players in these tournaments. AAU is more formal than playground leagues, and players are constantly trying to stand out individually within the context of a team sport, while having new sets of teammates and new coaches from year to year. In order to stand out as individual stars, top players have to be recognized by their teammates and coaches, and treated as stars (Brooks 2009). This means there is a large social component to star players that is complementary to their talent in the sportâthe recognition of this talent and the placement of the player into a position to show it off. In basketball, star players take more shots than their teammates, because their teammates defer to them, and their coaches structure the offense to flow through these players. In football, star wide receivers have more passes thrown their way than other receivers on the team; in baseball, star hitters bat anywhere from 1 to 6 in the lineup, depending on their speed (top of the lineup) or power (middle of the order), and star hockey players more ice time in games than some of their teammates, especially when their team is on the power play following an opposition penalty. This extra ice time allows more opportunities for star players to score goals and is seen as a reward from coaches.
AAU tournaments are huge opportunities for visibility and publicity for participating players. These tournaments are how athletes âget knownââor get recognized favorablyâby college coaches. AAU basketball is a higher level of competition than playground basketball, and involves offensive and defensive strategies based around playersâ skills and abilities to work together as a collective unit (Brooks 2009). Colleges recruit heavily at these tournaments because they are viewed as high-level competition based on age groups in a centralized location (e.g. Las Vegas, Orlando, Los Angeles). Games in these tournaments have scores and player statistics kept and are refereed by certified officials, some of whom are trying to work their own ways up into the college and professional ranks. AAU teams are coached professionally, with ziprecruiter.com reporting coaches earning an average of around $40,000 for this work. Players get known and recognized for their prowess on the court or field, not for their acuity in the classroom. For some players, sports offer a chance for community recognition, a chance to be supervised and busy outside of school hours (thus keeping them out of trouble), and a highly recognized and visible path to upward social mobility. It does not matter that the odds of making a power-five football or basketball roster are small, and the odds of playing professionally even smaller; sports are on TV, and are seen as acces...