Sports
Culture of ambivalence towards academics plagues NCAA athletics
By Levi Lorenzo’19
April 6, 2017
Tags sports
Congratulations to Luke Maye and the North Carolina basketball team on winning the national title. In the Elite Eight, Maye, a former walk-on, scored with 0.3 seconds left to lift the Tar Heels to a 75-73 victory over Kentucky. Maye hit his game winner at approximately 7:00 p.m. on Sunday, March 26 in Memphis. At 8:00 a.m. on Monday, March 27, Maye was present for his Business 101 class in Chapel Hill and received a standing ovation from his classmates. A fellow student took a video and posted it to Twitter. Bleacher Report and Sports Illustrated both took up the story and it exploded across the internet.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with applauding for a classmate who hit one of the greatest shots. In fact, it would almost be a travesty not to. Bleacher Report and Sports Illustrated, among others, lauded Maye for attending class the morning after the game, however. The tweets did not highlight the fact that students applauded for Maye but the fact that he was in class at all, as if Maye attending class was an awe-inspiring, inspirational moment.
In the current culture of big time Division I sports, Maye’s attendance can understandably be viewed as surprising; However, it most certainly should not be news. Maye did not have an excuse to not attend class, and should have been fully expected to be there. Maye should be applauded for his great performance, but deserves no applause for attending class. Division III student-athletes are not given such leeway, and Division I student-athletes should not be treated differently.
The NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament, commonly referred to as March Madness, draws huge publicity and large television audiences. The intense commercialization makes it all too easy to lose sight of the fact that the players are student-athletes, meaning students first and then athletes. In reality, being a student-athlete entails taking on more responsibility, not shifting one’s responsibility from the classroom to the field. Many coaches and boosters miss this fact as well. North Carolina, in particular, is currently ensnared in a long-running controversy regarding academic fraud. Specifically, evidence has come to light that over the course of 18 years, the school’s African and Afro-American Studies department offered over 200 courses that never met and had few requirements but still counted for credit.The University has tried to sweep the issue under the rug. Academic tutor Mary Willingham, whom the University hired to help student athletes, claimed that the University was playing a “shell game” to keep student-athletes from having to seriously study. UNC succeeded in this endeavor: examinations by Willingham of 183 UNC basketball and football players from 2004-2012 showed that 60% of these athletes read at between a fourth and eighth-grade level and that 10% read at below a third grade level.
I do not buy the argument that athletes simply do not have time for a rigorous academic schedule. Plenty of other students take on other extra-curricular activities and, perhaps because their activities receive far less publicity, are not given academic leeway. For that matter, ask Division III student athletes, such as those here at Hamilton, about time commitment. It is not easy to balance sports and school, but it can, and must, be done. Professors should be understanding about athletic commitments but most certainly should not lower standards.
North Carolina is a strong academic school, but Luke Maye is not a superstar academic for showing up to Business 101 on Monday morning after a game. If I had to guess, Business 101 is not exactly organic chemistry. Also, why is Maye, a Business Administration major in the second semester of his sophomore year, just now taking Business 101? I cannot definitively say Maye’s schedule is easy, but I can guarantee that many Division I student-athletes have schedules filled with cupcakes. On top of that, they have tutors, professors give them leeway and academic fraud is widespread, made evident by numerous scandals in recent years.
It is not Maye’s fault that his going to class was heralded as some great feat. The problem comes from a culture where student-athletes are merely athletes, and their only academic goal is to ensure, by whatever means possible that they are eligible to play. A mere 1.1% of NCAA men’s basketball players even get drafted to the NBA. The average career for an NBA player is just 4.8 years. Needless to say, colleges have an obligation to prepare students for life beyond athletics. Even if a student never obtains a career outside sports, colleges and universities educate students to be better citizens and responsible, functioning adults, not just make them more marketable for a career. Coaches, faculty,and administrators need to reinforce that student-athletes are students first, rather than enabling them to skate by. The NCAA has tried to crack down on academic violations, but they cannot change the culture. Sadly, with college sports making more and more money, there is incentive to push athletes to be the best they can be athletically at the expense of academics. At the end of the day, however, this is a disservice to those athletes, to the kids who idolize those athletes and aspire to play big-time college, and potentially even professional, sports and to society as a whole, because these student-athletes fail to receive the quality of education their institution promises to every student.