For some, institutions of higher education are pointless without athletics. A football, basketball or hockey team is the defining factor of a university, not its academics. Therefore, the players on those teams are viewed as nothing less than gods. They are idolized, objectified and elevated to the delight of fans across the country. However, this Madonna-like existence comes with it an incredible amount of pressure. Athletes are expected to perform excellently in every endeavor. On the field and off, their behaviors are scrutinized, but academic success, the primary goal of a university, is often overlooked.
The NCAA is seeking to change the stigma around athletes and their often less-than-stellar academic records. In a Thursday press release, the NCAA announced that it would be restructuring its distribution methods, focusing on providing revenue based on academic excellence. The restructuring came as a result of a $1.1 billion multimedia rights deal with CBS/Turner, according to an Inside Higher Ed article. The revenue will be monitored by a point system, where points are earned when a school achieves a high overall single-year, all-sport academic progress rate, a graduation success rate of 90 percent or higher and “a federal graduation rate at least 13 points higher than the federal regulation rate of the student body at that school,” according to the Inside Higher Ed article.
“The creation of an academic distribution unit underscores the NCAA’s commitment to putting its money where its mission is — with students,” NCAA President Mark Emmert said in the release. “We’ve distributed funds to assist schools whose students need help in the classroom, but this is the first time revenue distribution will be determined by a school’s academic achievement.”
The most important aspect of this announcement is that universities, and the NCAA, take academics seriously. It is often very easy to assume that athletes are dumb jocks who sort of stumble through school — that they’re enrolled in classes, but perhaps not fully committed.
Unfortunately this stigma is perpetuated by specific examples of athletes acting less than studiously. At the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, a scandal involving fake classes wracked the athletics department. For 18 years, over 3,100 students, mostly athletes including football and basketball players, took fake classes in the Department of African and Afro-American Studies. The classes themselves never actually met, and most students scored well.
Examples like these show that athletics often take precedence over academics, proving this initiative by the NCAA is necessary to reinforce the true reason athletes are enrolled in institutions of higher education.
Yet, athletes do not always deserve this stigma. As outlined above, they are under an enormous amount of pressure, particularly at Division I schools that require an enormous amount of someone’s presence. You must be physically fit, mentally tough, incredibly skilled and now have a 4.0 GPA to boot?
Resources like private tutors and mandatory study hours give athletes the assistance they need and deserve, but a definite downside to the revenue restructuring is just another point of pressure. However, “student” precedes “athlete” in the identifier “student-athlete, and this identity should not be forgotten.
Another point of contention arises with the actual distribution of the revenue. How is it being distributed currently? The release said, “For the first six years of the new distribution that starts in the 2019-20 academic year, 75 percent of the annual increase in the broadcast rights contract will be used to create an academic distribution unit, similar to the units now associated with the Division I Men’s Basketball Championship.” While it clarifies the amount of the $1.1 billion being allocated, how is this occurring? The point system is valid, but once awarded, what investments will be made? Will the funds go to more tutors to write more papers for college athletes before the big game? Or will they go to actually assisting learning?
As an initiative, the priority of academics is always a positive thing to see, especially coming from the NCAA, but do we want college athletes to be more “college” or more “athlete?”
