Uneasy alliance

Schools, teams must work together to educate athletes

Last Sunday The New York Times published a very solid story, written by Mike Freeman, detailing the academic gymnastics undertaken by Ohio State University last year to help star running back Maurice Clarett, then a freshman, pass his classes. Freeman's piece did much to underscore the inherent problems that exist in trying to recruit, educate and keep eligible big-time athletes.

On three occasions during the nine years I have covered Division I-A college football (and sometimes basketball) for Sports Illustrated, I have worked closely enough with a (pick a term) ... player, student or, ahem, student-athlete, to be in his presence during a tutoring session. These individuals were from three different conferences: Southeastern, Big Ten and Pac-10. I won't name the schools, because other than at Duke, Stanford and Vanderbilt, I do not think their experiences are unique.

In each case, the "tutoring" done would almost qualify as remedial. The tutor would highlight and explain pertinent sections of the text for the athlete, essentially cribbing the course into a manageable load. (It should be noted that many students often do the same thing -- make large amounts of information simpler to deal with. The significant point here is that they do it themselves.) I wasn't outraged at what I witnessed, I was saddened. In two of the three cases, the players were genuinely interested in working on the material, but it was very difficult for them. In the third case, the kid could not have cared less.

I believe it's almost impossible to field a high-level Division I-A football team and educate all the players on the roster. Too often, the needs of the program and needs of the student are at odds. Too often, the student-player is unqualified to attend college and will struggle to succeed, even if he is given help. In all cases, the head coach, who is usually the highest-paid employee of the university, has a far greater interest in winning games than educating players. That's why he was hired, lip service to the contrary be damned.

There are four types of "students" in most Division I-A football programs.

1. Those who are strong students and would have been admitted to the school and gotten an education had they never played football (e.g., Ohio State quarterback Craig Krenzel, a molecular genetics major with a 3.75 GPA).

2. Those who are pluggers and might have been admitted, and who will work hard and do reasonably well.

3. Those whose high school performance would not have earned them admission to the college in question, but who will work hard enough to overcome their handicaps.

4. Those who are much like No. 3, but who aren't interested in working and are simply biding their time in hopes of playing in the NFL. This is often an unrealistic goal, and, at any rate, it usually will not happen simply because of the difficulty in earning a spot in the competitive NFL.

Obviously, the third and fourth cases are the problem. Clarett is either one or the other. According to the Times, and according to people I've interviewed at Ohio State, he was sometimes motivated and sometimes not. Many football players could be similarly categorized, with one foot in the land of the hard-working and one foot in the land of the clueless.

This is an old problem. Someday, perhaps, universities will begin fielding teams comprised entirely of athletes who could gain admission even if they were not athletes. However, this isn't even done in Division III, where elite schools routinely reject ordinary students who score 1350 on the SAT, but accept football players who score 400 points lower.

At the Division I-A level, the issue has immeasurably deep roots. At Ohio State, the football team plays seven home games a year in a huge stadium that seats more than 100,000 people. Revenues from these seven games are the single biggest reason the school can field dozens of other teams in non-revenue sports. This is the case at many I-A schools. Moreover, as long as major college football is the NFL's minor league, athletes will treat it accordingly and will not look at a university as a place to get a free education.

The most common proposed solution is to take away scholarships from coaches who don't graduate their players. But how can the NCAA fairly determine percentages at large state universities where more than half of entering freshmen take five, six or even seven years to graduate? How many coaches stay at a school for seven years?

There is no silver bullet here. Big-time sports and academics will always live together uneasily. Fans, boosters and media will have to find a way to understand that not every player belongs in college and not every player will embrace the free education. It is everybody's job to keep the number of these athletes as low as possible. But that number will never be zero.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Tim Layden weighs in with a Viewpoint every Friday on SI.com. Click here to send him a comment.

 

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