Athletic Scholarships: A Loan Format

“Every player that I’ve recruited, and they will tell you, I say the same thing: ‘Don’t plan on coming to school for one year. You make a huge mistake.’”

-John Calipari, speaking to Sports Illustrated

  We believe that an important factor to consider in the current dilemma of the skewed student-athlete balance is the role of professional league rules that contribute to issues such as the “one-and-done” phenomenon.  This phenomenon consists of student-athlete basketball players attending college for one year and then dropping out to declare for the NBA draft.  The NBA rule behind the “one-and-done” conundrum was implemented in 2005 and required that players be 19 years of age and one year removed from high school graduation before they could participate in the NBA.25  We have found that NCAA and college coaches join us in disapproving of these NBA regulations because they encourage student-athletes to focus almost exclusively on athletics.  Unfortunately, Figure 2 shows that the number of freshman basketball players at the collegiate level who fall prey to the “one-and-done” spectacle has only increased over recent years.  This is a frustrating trend especially because the NCAA cannot directly directly impact the NBA’s actions in                       promoting such a policy.

Figure 2: Trend in Freshman One-and-Done Collegiate Basketball Players

The NBA is not the only professional league that encourages student-athletes to leave college before they have completed their degrees.  For instance, the MLB allows collegiate athletes to enter the draft after completing three years of college (unless they choose to enter the draft immediately following graduation of high school or play at a junior college).  The NFL also requires collegiate athletes to complete three complete football seasons before entering into the NFL draft.  While this extended three year period implemented by the MLB and NFL allows student-athletes to commit more to academics, it still encourages student-athletes to sacrifice their degrees and forego a fulfilled educational experience.  We believe that the early drafts promoted by professional leagues cause collegiate athletics to be treated as a sort of minor league for some sports.  This concept of college as an avenue for professional recruitment directly combats the efforts of the NCAA to enforce the role of college athletics as supplementary and complementary to academics.

In analyzing the issues posed by professional league draft regulations, we recognized that we cannot alter professional policy directly.  However, we believe that we can reverse the ramifications of these policies by imposing our own policies at the NCAA level.  Our main proposal on this front is to repackage athletic scholarships into a loan format.  Student-athletes that finish their degrees would have the “loan” waived and receive the full benefits of their scholarships.  However, student-athletes that did not complete their degrees would have to pay back the “loan” initially offered and supplied under the title of an athletic scholarship.  We chose this loan format because we foresaw complicated legalities involved with simply taking back a scholarship after awarding it.  We predict that this loan format will encourage student-athletes to finish out their degrees and focus on balancing their athletics with academics instead of focusing solely on being drafted early.  Furthermore, we envision that this policy will lead to high school graduates pursuing solely an athletic career if that’s their priority, or a career as a collegiate-athlete if they truly wish to balance their advancement as students and athletes.  We leave it to the professional leagues to facilitate the pathway for high school graduates who wish to focus on their athletic development first and foremost.

In devising this policy strategy for athletic scholarships, we foresaw that extenuating circumstances could cause student-athletes to forego completing their degrees.  Our goal with this policy is to discourage student-athletes from leaving a degree program to pursue professional athletics, and therefore we do not believe that extenuating circumstances leading to a lack of degree completion should result in a university refusing to waive a athletic scholarship loan.  To accommodate such situations where student-athletes may not be able to finish their degrees, we incorporate provisionary boards into this policy proposal.  These provisionary boards would include NCAA and university representatives that would discuss the student-athlete’s justification for leaving a degree program and determine whether the loan should still be waived.  In this manner, we allow the loan format of athletic scholarships to remain flexible and malleable as it is put into practice.  

Today was the presentation “rough draft”.  Yikes.  It’s always a little scary presenting in front of your audience for the first time when you are presenting in a group for a number of reasons.  Reason 1: There is always the chance another group member will accidentally say something that contradicts your talking points.  Reason 2: You may accidentally contradict your group members.  Reason 3: Your group member may leave something critical out of the presentation.  Reason 4: You may accidentally leave something out.  See a trend here? Basically every mistake you could make is doubled or even tripled as the number of group members increases.  Therefore, I think it is safe to say that presenting in a group provides unique challenges that should be addressed before our final presentation.

Our main issue today consisted of maintaining an organized front throughout the presentation. By an organized front I mean putting forth our policy ideas in a way that was clear and straightforward across the board for each presenting member of our group.  I hope that when it comes time for our final presentation, we have it down so that every talking point is discussed with clarity so that there is no need for further questions from our audience.  I think that today our lack of complete organization contributed to our lengthy presentation time.  We have to cut down our talking time by at least 2.5 minutes in order to hit the allotted time of 10 minutes for the final next week.  This should be easy to accomplish just by sitting down together to establish exactly how we want to shape and mold our ideas throughout the length of the presentation and the transitions from speaker to speaker.

When we sit down together to discuss improving our presentation, we are also going to address the visual aspect of our display.  We want to clean it up and make sure it supports and emphasizes our speaking points.  This can be accomplished by enhancing the flow from slide to slide when pictures or charts are involved.  We can also practice our transitions with the designated slideshow controlling member of our group in order to establish a better correlation between the speaker and the visuals.  Furthermore, we have to check to make sure that we have included all of our sources and that our slides are visually appealing.  Hopefully some simple adjustments will be sufficient to achieve this improvement.  Overall, we have a very clear view of what we need to do to improve our presentation, and we have the tools to be able to fix it.

After experiencing a group presentation of a topic that has many nuances and convolutions that could lead to contradictory statements and varying perspectives, I have come to realize that presenting in groups requires a very special form of leadership.  Obviously the setting of the presentation plays a role, but it seems that blanket assumptions could be made for the leadership involved in group presentations.  For instance, it takes a gentle yet very firm hand to be able to mold the presentation to perfection without offending any members or viewpoints.  This is an extremely difficult balance to find, and is a unique challenge posed to leaders who must work among equally talented and intelligent peers.  If authority is granted to one group member over the others, then this balance may be easier to find.  However, when peers are assumed to have equal authority it takes a very adept and skillful leader to be able to move the group forward toward a final product by setting down the law when necessary, but making compromises and exceptions when necessary.  This seems like a valuable skillset to have, and I hope that this experience will provide me with some of that skillset.

As a perfectionist, I often have difficulty delegating responsibility to others in group projects.  However, in the PLA I am aware that equally competent and innovative peers with valuable views and ideas surround me.  Therefore, it was much easier for me to divide this group project into parts in order for each group member to contribute and make the process more efficient.  I have witnessed first hand how beneficial it is to have a group of people working together whom have differing view points, ways of going about things, and specific talents.  For instance, today Brad did an awesome job of introducing our presentation, Hamsa provided her expertise with Prezi and governance, Remy brought her literary and research skills to the table, and Christian contributed a plethora of innovative policy ideas.  This diversity has presented unique challenges, yet it has also made our policy paper/presentation better because each group member brings a different area of expertise to the table so that we can be successful in multiple areas instead of just one.  In the end, I think we will bring this policy paper/presentation together and end up with a great final product.

IV.  Recommended Policy     

It seems widely agreed upon that the quandary posed by the current state of collegiate athletics cannot be addressed with one solution.  Rather, an extensive list of possible solutions has been proposed, as we have previously discussed.  In researching these proposed solutions, we have come across many viable options and have been inspired to devise our own policies.  Keeping in mind that our ultimate goal is to return the focus to academics and maintain the validity of the “student” aspect of the student-athlete, we have compiled a series of solutions into one policy that we believe provides the most feasible and plausible resolution to the current “problem” of collegiate athletics.

Raising Academic Standards

“College presidents have put in jeopardy the academic credibility of their universities just so we can have this entertainment industry. … The NCAA continually wants to ignore this fact, but they are admitting students who cannot read.”

-Gerald Gurney, speaking to CNN[1]

            The current academic standards required by the NCAA for a prospective student-athlete to be eligible to play collegiate sports at the Division I level are a 2.0 GPA and a corresponding ACT/SAT math and reading composite score based on the sliding scale shown in Figure 1.  Admirably, the NCAA has already established that in 2016 the academic standards will be raised to a minimum core GPA of 2.3 and a corresponding

Figure 1: Current Composite Test Score NCAA Requirements[2]

1080 SAT composite math and reading score or a 93 ACT sum according to the new sliding scale.  Furthermore, the NCAA has attempted to encourage academic achievement by defining three levels of qualification for incoming freshman student athletes after 2016.  The full qualifier can receive a scholarship and participate in competition as well as practice.  The academic redshirt cannot engage in competition.  Finally, the nonqualifier cannot receive any of these benefits during his/her first year.[3]

While we appreciate that the NCAA recognizes the need to require greater academic accomplishment and capability for aspiring collegiate student-athletes, we do not think that the alterations it has promoted are sufficient.  We believe that the NCAA is in fact doing student-athletes a disservice by setting the national academic standard at this level.  Our reasoning behind this statement is based upon the demand placed upon student-athletes by their athletic schedules and obligations.  Universities often admit student-athletes with lower grade point averages and testing scores than their regular admissions standards due to the commercial appeal of increasing athletics revenue or popularity by gaining athletic talent.  Therefore, student-athletes commonly enter into an academic environment for which they are inadequately prepared and incapable of prospering in.  Furthermore, they are required to commit large amounts of time to their respective sports, which only decreases their ability to cope with the demanding rigors of their institutions‘ academics.  This phenomenon has led to scandals and shocking discoveries throughout the arena of collegiate athletics.

One of the widely publicized scandals that shined light on the academic integrity in collegiate sports was the 2012 incident at UNC involving student athletes receiving grades they didn’t deserve.¹ In close proximity, Mary Willingham, a learning specialist at UNC-Chapel Hill who was designated to help student-athletes acclimate to the academic atmosphere of the university, admitted that she took part in cheating by performing acts such as “pulling a paper”¹ out of student-athletes who couldn’t even read or write.  We are extremely alarmed that student-athletes are accepted into universities but are not qualified to undertake a collegiate education.  While specialists and tutors such as Willingham are provided, they cannot replace the academic background that is necessary to thrive in collegiate athletics.  Following this logic, universities such as UNC and UNC-Chapel Hill are not honoring the contracts they signed with student-athletes offering them an education in return for their athletic talent because the student-athletes are not capable of taking advantage of that education.  Therefore, we propose that academic standards are raised for student-athletes throughout the country.

It is our belief that the NCAA should commit to a policy that includes requiring student-athletes to meet the regular admissions standards of the respective university or college that they wish to play for.  This is not a policy intended to lessen the opportunities for student-athletes; instead it is intended to ensure that the institutions they attend are capable of upholding their end of the contract exchanging education for athletic ability.  We believe that this policy would encourage universities to once again focus on the student half of the student-athletes and lessen the sacrifice of academic success for commercial gain.  It would also ensure that student-athletes were more capable of managing the load of academics as well as athletics.  Finally, we hope this would have a trickle down effect to academics at the secondary education level…

To be continued.

Today was a perfect day as far as I am concerned.  Well, at least the weather was.  The sky could not have been bluer, the breeze could not have been more refreshing, and sun could not have been more radiant.  Melissa, understanding how rare this perfect weather is in an place such as “Happy” Valley (aka Antarctica), was kind enough to give us some time during class to work on our policy papers outside.  Consequentially, we had the most productive group meeting as of yet (sorry Brad you missed out).  Yes, it was tempting to go across the street to get some Kiwi, yet we maintained our focus and managed to set down some concrete structure for our paper as well as delegate more responsibilities.  It is quite the relief knowing that we have everything set in place for a successful policy paper.  Therefore, I think that more professors need to take their classes outside.

Think about it, we have our best moments when we are in happy and uplifting environments.  It seems quite plausible then that we would learn and study best out in the sun on a beautiful day rather than in a dreary and depressing classroom with only fluorescent light bulbs to keep our souls from sinking into darkness.  A tad bit dramatic? Yes, but I am also currently trying to finish a lab report as I write this blog so I am leaning to the morose and melodramatic right now.  I bet this lab report would have been finished an hour ago if I was drinking in some quality Vitamin D from the sun to keep me motivated and energized.  There I go rambling on about poor little me with the big old lab report to write.  I apologize for getting off topic, dear readers; I’ll get back to my point.  What I am trying to say (if you can get past my dramatic ranting) is that academic environments should be improved to promote enhanced learning experiences.

The first example that came to mind to support this claim was the example of primary education in the Netherlands.  As one of our speakers discussed, the Netherlands focuses much of its primary education on imagination-enhancing curricula and child-friendly classroom settings.  By child-friendly I mean bright interiors with playful decorations.  Imagine learning basic multiplication in a bright interactive setting verse in a drab monotonous room.  Personally, I think a setting not conducive to childish imagination would drain my energy and excitement to learn.  While this is probably not as applicable to college level education, I think it could still play a role.  For instance, why don’t college courses at Penn State take more mini field trips?  As we talk more and more about engaged learning development, I find it surprising that we don’t just work some of the discussed principles into courses already offered.  I would have a much easier time staying focused and attentive if I were forced to interact and participate in new settings.

One example of the success such an interactive approach could have is provided by PLA.  Unfortunately, I have been unable to attend most of the PLA trips.  However, from my discussions with fellow classmates, I have gathered that such experiences really drive home concepts of critical thinking and leadership that can’t be introduced in a classroom setting.  According to my peers, the trip to Gettysburg last weekend managed to relate history to leadership in a way that would not have been possible in State College.  It’s unfortunate that more courses cannot offer such experiences.  However, I do understand that this approach would introduce new cost considerations and put pressure on an already stretched thin budgeting system.  I hope that as I move into higher-level courses, such interactive experiences will become more common despite cost considerations.

One of the other reasons I have been thinking about more interactive classroom experiences is a conversation I had with a teammate on the soccer team earlier today.  She is geography major, and has had the opportunity to do a lot of fieldwork for her classes.  While I understand that fieldwork is a core component of her major and not as relevant to a biomedical engineering major, I still wish that more interactive experiences could be incorporated into my curriculum.  For instance, visiting hospitals or laboratories where techniques we are discussing are used on patients or for research.  I think such mini field trips would be similar to a lab course in that they would give me a more in-depth understanding of the content material and how it is applied in real life scenarios.  Recently, that has been an issue for me in one of my core courses because I feel as though I have a grasp of the material, yet have difficulty applying it to test questions that ask for real life application of the material.  This seems to be a common theme among many students that I talk to; therefore it only makes sense to me that the education system be altered to incorporate more real life application experiences of the content material.

I think it would have been interesting to be in one of the groups that is discussing general education or alternative education because they have the opportunity to address the issue of making education more interactive and real-life applicable at the collegiate level.  Even better, an institution such as Penn State that has great resources and connections would be the perfect place to start such an education reform.  This type of reform could be applied all the way down to primary education and could have been addressed by that policy paper group as well.  There seems to be so many options for making education better, yet the problem is finding the ones that are actually cohesive with the existing education structure and possible considering the accessible resources and financial/social constraints.

Today Brad and I met with Dr. Joyner to discuss our policy paper.  We’ve had some interesting conversations with people who have been very involved with collegiate athletics (such as Charlie Pittman who I have discussed previously), but we’ve felt as though these conversations have had a shot-gun approach.  Specifically, it feels as though we have asked how people think collegiate sports could be improved, and have then proceeded to react to their comments.  Today, we wanted to take a different approach.  While we still wanted to hear Joyner’s personal opinion on what is wrong in the arena of college sports, we also wanted to hear what he thought about the policy proposals our group has already developed.   Our main proposals, raising academic standards for student athletes and tying athletic scholarships to academic thresholds, were the prime topics of the discussion.  While we think these policies could return the focus to the student aspect of the student athlete, we wanted to get the opinion of someone who is deeply engaged with combining the athletics and academics of a large and highly successful university.  As the Athletic Director of Penn State, Dr. Joyner has experience with the NCAA, is charged with maintaining academic rigor, and is no stranger to upholding athletic tradition.  Furthermore, Joyner himself was an extremely successful athlete and student at Penn State University so he understands the complexities of the role of the student athlete first hand.  Not only did he offer insight into our policy proposals, he also recommended some alternate paths to look at and overall he provided a very beneficial discussion on our policy paper. The first question we posed to Dr. Joyner was how he viewed collegiate athletics and how they could be improved to put the focus back on academics.  Dr. Joyner focused his response on improving the student athlete experience, making sure resources were adequately used to improve this experience, possibly offering a lifetime scholarship, maintaining integrity, providing academic resources to student athletes, and making sure their well-being was taken into account.  Next, we focused in on his opinion of our policy proposals. First, we brought up the proposal of reinvigorating academic standards for student athletes.  As I discussed last week, the minimum GPA according to the NCAA is currently 2.0, which will be raised to 2.3 by 2016.  Obviously, there is a great disparity between this number and the average GPA of 3.0 required by most colleges for normal admissions.  According to Dr. Joyner, Penn State does not lower its academic standards to 2.0 for its student athletes.  Instead, if a student athlete can get into any branch campus, he or she will be admitted to University Park.  When we expressed the desire to make it NCAA required for student athletes to hit the regular student admission requirements for the university they plan on attending, Joyner seemed approving.  He appreciated the reasoning we provided, which was that if student athletes cannot already achieve the academic standard when they enter into a college, they will not be able to handle it especially with the added time constraints provided by athletics.   The second main policy proposal we discussed was tying academic thresholds to athletic scholarships.  Joyner was concerned about the legalities that could be involved in such a policy, but seemed enthused at the idea of using thresholds to encourage student athletes to maintain high standards in the classroom as well as on the athletic field.  This discussion then led into the topic of student athletes paying back their scholarships if they leave before finishing their degree.  This approach would be beneficial in that it would counter the one-and-done occurrence that is seen in college basketball due to the rules of the NBA.  To explain this proposal better, Brad described the rules of the ROTC scholarship that allow a student to exit the program after one year without any ramifications.  This form of a trial year could be incorporated into our policy, but unfortunately would not have an impact on the basketball draft.  Joyner once again expressed the opinion that legality would be an issue behind such a policy, but that it is worth further pursuit.  He also expressed the idea that student athletes pay back their scholarships in other circumstances.  For instance, the NCAA allows student athletes to take lesser course loads under extenuating circumstances, which often entices student athletes to disregard class altogether.  In such an instance, a school could monitor whether a student athlete was taking advantage of this situation and take back any scholarship money awarded for athletics.   Finally, we discussed some of our more abstract and idealistic policy proposals, such as the residential programs and changing the governance of the NCAA.  Joyner agreed that these were a bit far-fetched in terms of enforcement and implication but seemed to believe that they held promise.  Overall, he really harped on the idea of being able to enforce policy.  He stated the opinion that Penn State does a good ob of monitoring the integrity of the academic and athletic interaction of student athletes, and I would have to agree with him.  However, that is not the case throughout Division I colleges, so universities would really have to commit to maintaining their integrity if our policies were to ever see the light of day.  Overall, Dr.  Joyner was a very helpful resource and provided a lot on insight into our topic for our policy paper.

Today Brad and I met with Dr. Joyner to discuss our policy paper. We’ve had some interesting conversations with people who have been very involved with collegiate athletics (such as Charlie Pittman who I have discussed previously), but we’ve felt as though these conversations have had a shot-gun approach. Specifically, it feels as though we have asked how people think collegiate sports could be improved, and have then proceeded to react to their comments. Today, we wanted to take a different approach. While we still wanted to hear Joyner’s personal opinion on what is wrong in the arena of college sports, we also wanted to hear what he thought about the policy proposals our group has already developed.
Our main proposals, raising academic standards for student athletes and tying athletic scholarships to academic thresholds, were the prime topics of the discussion. While we think these policies could return the focus to the student aspect of the student athlete, we wanted to get the opinion of someone who is deeply engaged with combining the athletics and academics of a large and highly successful university. As the Athletic Director of Penn State, Dr. Joyner has experience with the NCAA, is charged with maintaining academic rigor, and is no stranger to upholding athletic tradition. Furthermore, Joyner himself was an extremely successful athlete and student at Penn State University so he understands the complexities of the role of the student athlete first hand. Not only did he offer insight into our policy proposals, he also recommended some alternate paths to look at and overall he provided a very beneficial discussion on our policy paper.
The first question we posed to Dr. Joyner was how he viewed collegiate athletics and how they could be improved to put the focus back on academics. Dr. Joyner focused his response on improving the student athlete experience, making sure resources were adequately used to improve this experience, possibly offering a lifetime scholarship, maintaining integrity, providing academic resources to student athletes, and making sure their well-being was taken into account. Next, we focused in on his opinion of our policy proposals.
First, we brought up the proposal of reinvigorating academic standards for student athletes. As I discussed last week, the minimum GPA according to the NCAA is currently 2.0, which will be raised to 2.3 by 2016. Obviously, there is a great disparity between this number and the average GPA of 3.0 required by most colleges for normal admissions. According to Dr. Joyner, Penn State does not lower its academic standards to 2.0 for its student athletes. Instead, if a student athlete can get into any branch campus, he or she will be admitted to University Park. When we expressed the desire to make it NCAA required for student athletes to hit the regular student admission requirements for the university they plan on attending, Joyner seemed approving. He appreciated the reasoning we provided, which was that if student athletes cannot already achieve the academic standard when they enter into a college, they will not be able to handle it especially with the added time constraints provided by athletics.
The second main policy proposal we discussed was tying academic thresholds to athletic scholarships. Joyner was concerned about the legalities that could be involved in such a policy, but seemed enthused at the idea of using thresholds to encourage student athletes to maintain high standards in the classroom as well as on the athletic field. This discussion then led into the topic of student athletes paying back their scholarships if they leave before finishing their degree. This approach would be beneficial in that it would counter the one-and-done occurrence that is seen in college basketball due to the rules of the NBA. To explain this proposal better, Brad described the rules of the ROTC scholarship that allow a student to exit the program after one year without any ramifications. This form of a trial year could be incorporated into our policy, but unfortunately would not have an impact on the basketball draft. Joyner once again expressed the opinion that legality would be an issue behind such a policy, but that it is worth further pursuit. He also expressed the idea that student athletes pay back their scholarships in other circumstances. For instance, the NCAA allows student athletes to take lesser course loads under extenuating circumstances, which often entices student athletes to disregard class altogether. In such an instance, a school could monitor whether a student athlete was taking advantage of this situation and take back any scholarship money awarded for athletics.
Finally, we discussed some of our more abstract and idealistic policy proposals, such as the residential programs and changing the governance of the NCAA. Joyner agreed that these were a bit far-fetched in terms of enforcement and implication but seemed to believe that they held promise. Overall, he really harped on the idea of being able to enforce policy. He stated the opinion that Penn State does a good ob of monitoring the integrity of the academic and athletic interaction of student athletes, and I would have to agree with him. However, that is not the case throughout Division I colleges, so universities would really have to commit to maintaining their integrity if our policies were to ever see the light of day. Overall, Dr. Joyner was a very helpful resource and provided a lot on insight into our topic for our policy paper.

When we initially began our policy paper, I thought the difficult aspect would be developing a creative and effective policy. However, the real problem has turned out to be choosing the best policy or combination of policies from our ideas. We have come across a variety of external ideas such as paying athletes or offering associate degrees as I have previously discussed, and have come up with some of our own ideas such as Christian’s Residency Program. Now we are stuck with determining the best possible policy, and have come to a sort of stand-still. Luckily, Dean Brady stepped in during class this previous Thursday and suggested we stick to policies that could plausibly be implemented in the near future. Consequentially, he recommended that we focus on policies that could be directly implemented by individual universities or the NCAA instead of relying on support from professional leagues. This recommendation has given us momentum again, and has convinced me that the simple solutions might in fact be the best proposals rather than the elaborate and possibly far-fetched abstractions.

After doing some research on NCAA requirements, it is my opinion that the first step toward solving the student-athlete dilemma is raising these requirements to a higher standard. As of 2016, high school athletes will have to earn a 2.3 GPA with a 1080 SAT score (reading/math only) in order to compete during their freshman year of college. This GPA and SAT score combination is scaled so that high school athletes will only have to score a 400 on the combined reading and math portions of the SAT if they have obtained a 4.0 GPA in high school and so forth. While this seems like a fair policy, and is actually an improvement over the current requirement of only a 2.0 GPA, these requirements still seem too low in my opinion.

Most colleges require a 3.0 GPA for acceptance, which does not correlate at all to the 2.3 GPA required by the NCAA. Consequentially, many colleges make exceptions for student athletes in high demand and admit them regardless of their ability to handle the academic requirements of college. Therefore, such student athletes are not only inadequately academically prepared, but are also asked to commit at least half of their time to athletics. This leads to scandals such as the 2012 UNC incident involving student athletes getting credit for courses that involved simply writing one paper. Not only were these student athletes getting cheated of the valuable education they signed for in their commitment to play for UNC, some of them couldn’t even read or write past a 5th grade level. While these student athletes boosted the university’s athletic program, they lowered its academic standards and lost out on a valuable academic opportunity.

Such incidents could be prevented by simply eliminating the possibility of universities accepting student athletes that can’t handle the rigorous academics of the universities they attend. This could be accomplished by increasing the NCAA academic standards and by regulating college admissions for student-athletes to a higher degree. Some supporters of the current policy state that sports are beneficial in that they allow student athletes to attend universities they would normally be ineligible for due to their time commitment to sports in high school, and therefore provide them with greater opportunities in life. However, there is usually a reason why these student athletes are not eligible, including the fact that they have not developed the skills necessary to survive in the enhanced academic environment. Furthermore, if they could not handle the concurrent academic and athletic demands in high school, there is a strong possibility that they will not be able to do so in college.

Many of our ideas come with strong suggestions for future policy actions and this idea is no different. While I believe the NCAA needs to set the minimum GPA at at least 2.5 and the minimum combined reading and math SAT score at 1000, I think it also needs to require that universities only accept student athletes that meet their academic requirements for normal students in order to ensure that the student athletes can handle the academic intensity offered by each individual university. Unfortunately, high school requirements do not necessarily promote the academic standards that would be set in place by this policy, which would lead to a proposal for future implementation at a secondary education level.

Maintaining athletic eligibility for high school athletics is much easier than it is for collegiate athletics. Furthermore, the gap between NCAA requirements and high school graduation requirements is widening, which does nothing to encourage student athletes to work hard academically in high school. There is already disparity between high school and college education (only 25% of students who graduated from city high schools last year were qualified for college-level courses), so increasing the disparity between the requirements for these education levels will further the inability of student athletes to perform academically at the collegiate level. While our policy will be focused at the NCAA and universities, we want our policy to hopefully encourage reform at other levels. For now, we just have to remember to focus on what entities we can “control” and how we can introduce policy in a way that will have the greatest and most rapid impact.

One of the hardest issues to overcome when considering the culture of collegiate athletics lies in our society’s perspective of student athletes. American society often stereotypes student athletes as jocks who have little interest or ability in the academic arena. Unfortunately, this stereotype has been nurtured by universities encouraging athletes to take easier classes and majors in order to focus on their sport. Often, if they manage to avoid this pitfall, collegiate athletes register for courses that focus on athletic endeavors, such as sports management and athletic training. The unfortunate side effect of even this path is that society tends to see these areas of study as fallbacks for athletes because they still manage to focus academe on athletic pursuits. However, our group sat down for dinner with Charlie Pittman the other night, and he made some eye-opening observations that counter society’s perspective of student athletes and academics.
Charlie Pittman is not someone whose opinion of collegiate athletics should be taken lightly. His fame will forever be rooted in Penn State history, seeing as he was a member of Joe Paterno’s first recruiting class and a member of an undefeated Nittany Lion team. Furthermore, he was an All-American and went on to play professionally for the St. Louis Cardinals. To further enhance Pittman’s legacy, his son went on to attend Penn State where he also became a member of an undefeated Nittany Lion team and earned recognition as an All-American. After his professional football career, Charlie went on to get involved in the newspaper publishing business and is now Senior Vice President of publishing at Schurz Communications. He is a man who has seen college athletics evolve, and was able to provide us with some valuable insight into what the future of collegiate athletics should look like.
When we asked Pittman’s opinion on how he views the evolution of collegiate athletics, he harped upon the fact that college sports have become so influential that they now compose a booming industry. His main issue with this fact was that college athletes are not receiving any of the gains from this industry despite the fact that they form its foundation. He proposed that college athletes should be paid and be encouraged to push for the best education possible. Pittman emphasized that our society is built upon the capitalist principle of being paid for what you produce, and claimed that we should be applying this principle to college sports as well.

Pittman also offered some valuable insight into the academic opportunities available to college student athletes. For instance, he observed that musicians are encouraged to get music degrees and actors are encouraged to get acting degrees, yet athletes do not have the option of obtaining an athletics degree. There are, of course degrees in areas such as athletic training and management, but there are not many degrees in areas such as coaching and sports analysis. This seems like a very valid point; yes there is not a plethora of job opportunities for music majors, yet they are still encouraged to pursue careers in the area in which they have a talent. However, when it comes to athletics, athletes often play in college and get a degree in another area if they don’t go pro. Other degrees can often be used to pursue sports-related careers, yet if athletics are the talent of the individual, then why is that individual denied the opportunity to focus his/her academic pursuits on specifically those talents?
One of the areas that would have to be overcome in order to initiate such a degree specifically focused on athletics would be the branding of such a program. Our society often jokes that student athletes are already “majoring in sports” because that is sometimes the main focus of their college career. Therefore, it would be prudent to avoid calling such a degree simply a sports degree. It would have to have a well-developed set of criteria and be held to the same standards as other academic areas of study. Such a program might also benefit students who have a high mental capacity for sports analysis, but did not want to pursue a physical involvement in sports at the college level. There could be many benefits to such a degree, yet it would require a great effort to get it recognized nationally.

While our group was impacted by the thought of such a degree program, we still want to counter the possibility of student athletes coming to college and not focusing on their degree. Therefore, we like the idea of junior colleges used for student athletes who want to get drafted. Such a program would be comparable to the hockey method in that athletes would have the chance to improve their athletic abilities while still gaining an education, albeit a toned down one. This is the focus of our policy efforts right now. We want to get professional leagues involved in improving the athletic credibility of such a program, and find ways to dissuade student athletes from committing to 4 year colleges only to leave after being drafted (taking back scholarships could be one option, possibly). We still have lots of options to consider, and Charlie Pittman definitely helped us look at some of those options in a new light.

Looking back at our humble beginnings when it comes to our policy paper, it’s been interesting to observe how it has evolved.  Strangely enough, it doesn’t feel as though our group has made clear-cut decisions on which direction we wanted to go with the topic of collegiate athletics.  Instead, it has seemed as though our policy has been developing itself.  As we have broadened our perspectives and the scope of our analysis, things have seemingly fallen into place.

I think that this phenomenon has largely been the result of research analysis.  After we determined that collegiate athletics were no longer playing the role they were supposed to play, we started exploring how other people wanted to solve the problem.  By digging through the ideas of others, we were able to identify what solutions appealed to us, and why.  In that sense, it required looking at possible answers for us to understand what we thought the problem really was.  As an engineer, I can directly relate this experience to reverse engineering.  This form of engineering consists of taking something apart to figure out how it works and how it could work better.  When it comes to critical thinking and policy, this seems like a pretty good approach to analyzing existing policies in my eyes.

In our group, this worked especially well because we would encounter appealing solutions, but then realize they didn’t have all the parts required to remake the whole again.  Therefore, we were able to recognize the “whole” of our problem and understand just what we wanted collegiate athletics to become.  Through this process, we identified that our policy will have to have a pyramid structure because each platform requires smaller and smaller policy changes at higher and higher levels.  However, in order for the bottom platform (our overall goal) to be accomplished, reform will have to come from the top down.

As the hierarchical chart shows, we want our policy to focus on placing the emphasis back on academics over athletics in collegiate athletics.  We think that one way to accomplish this could be tying athletic scholarships soundly to academic scholarships.  This could be organized through thresholds that correlated athletic money to academic success.  However, such a feat could only be accomplished if colleges recommitted themselves to honoring the student-athlete contract that supplies a quality education in return for athletic prowess.  This will require universities and colleges to enact corporate responsibility, instead of taking advantage of student-athletes in a financially corporative sense.

In order to keep colleges and universities honest in this principle of corporate responsibility, the NCAA will have to undergo reform as well.  Not only will the NCAA have to adjust their policies to apply to more academically motivated student-athletes as compared to focusing on forcing less academically motivated student-athletes to maintain academic eligibility.  We also believe that it would be beneficial to restructure the governing board of the NCAA into a more democratic institution.  This could be accomplished by organizing a governor’s board out of representatives from each sport from each conference in a federal type of system.  This would give colleges more of a say in collegiate athletics, and would hopefully decrease any possibility of the NCAA benefiting from student-athletes (as in gaining revenue from championship games).   Finally, we would like to cap off this initiative by destroying the “one and done” attitude seen in college basketball and other sports.  Through the cooperation of pro leagues or NCAA policies that only recognized the collegiate accomplishments of athletes who fulfilled their standards, we believe it could be possible to require student-athletes to commit to fulfilling their degree before leaving college for professional leagues.  Students who wanted to learn yet still push toward having a better chance at the pros sooner rather than later could attend junior colleges as seen in hockey, or institutions funded by pro leagues potentially.

We have some interviews coming up that will help us hone in on how to streamline our policy ideas, and overall we seem to have a good foundation for our paper.  It was an interesting process moving from narrow to broad and back to narrow questions, but it definitely had a positive impact on our analytical process.  Hopefully out policy will continue to evolve as smoothly as it has!

America is built upon the foundation of capitalism, yet we also view ourselves as a nation that values humanitarian and philanthropic values.  While capitalism thrives off of the concept of survival of the fittest, philanthropy thrives off the concept of sacrificing for others.  Therefore, where do we draw the line between capitalism and philanthropy when it comes to our involvement with other nations?  This conflict of interests is directly correlated to American corporate involvement in African education systems.  As we discussed with Dr. Edmondson in class this week, Bridge International Academies is a company that provides low cost schooling in Kenya.  The question is, if they are providing education to the poorest people in the world, then why are they making them pay for it?

This question came up in our discussion, and it was stated that while the area is poor, if no fee was involved no one would be willing to get involved.  Another supportive claim for Bridge International made the argument that national Kenyan schools require illegal bribes, so a $5 fee for Bridge schools is a small sacrifice to pay for quality education with a transparent policy.  However, both of these perspectives rely on the fact that Bridge Academies are providing an equal or higher quality education than national Kenyan schools.  This is a difficult comparison to make because the Bridge curriculum is created by experts and is therefore built to be more effective and expansive, yet the curriculum leaves no room for enhanced teacher-student interaction.  On the other hand, teachers who may not have had the best quality education themselves fulfill the national schools’ curriculum.  Yet, these teachers have the option to tailor their classes more to the needs of their students. In essence, Bridge teachers have a higher curriculum glass roof but Kenyan teachers have more freedom to individualize the curriculum.

If a reliable comparison could be made between the Bridge academies and the national schools, then this topic would be much easier to analyze.  However, until that is possible I will assume that Bridge schools offer a better education.  Does this mean that they should still charge a fee?  Guaranteed $5 is not very much money in my eyes, but it holds a much different value in Kenya.  As someone who is concerned with giving others the chance to succeed despite financial disparity (and I believe education can be a huge proponent of success), I wish we could help provide education in Kenya for free.  However, I also understand that money makes our world go round and could be necessary for a good-intentioned company to provide a quality education.  It would be nice to see the profits from schools in more financially stable areas of Kenya support schools in the least stable areas so that free schooling could be provided to the poorest of the poor.  In my eyes, that would be one way to provide a good balance between capitalism and philanthropy.

While I fully believe in philanthropy, I recently came across a thought-provoking blog directed at American involvement in third world countries.  The article commended good intentions, but asked Americans to take a deeper look at our charitable efforts.  In essence, we engage in humanitarian efforts in third world countries because we believe that our ways, our traditions, and most aspects of our society are superior.  It is not a conscious belief, yet it is inherent and contains an element of egotism.  This belief was apparent in colonialism, and while colonialism had the direct opposite intention of modern philanthropy, that belief still exists today in our subconscious.  I don’t pretend to understand the implications of this observation, yet I find it fascinating that this concept can be the foundation behind such opposing positive and negative intentions.  This observation also provides insight into why some cultures view our philanthropic efforts as insulting.  They have pride in their society, and would therefore rather us impose our American values elsewhere.  While this observation of American superiority plays the devil’s advocate, I believe it deserves consideration before we embark on charitable endeavors.  While we may mean well, our help may be seen as negative rather than positive.

This subconscious superiority may play a role in American contributions to Kenyan education in multiple ways.  For example, what we believe is important in a curriculum may not relate as well to Kenyan culture and society.  Second, the schools we open may undermine the Kenyan school system, further hurting the already flawed system.  We have to be careful and do our research before we impose our own methods on other countries, and we must make sure that capitalism is balanced by philanthropy if we are to do good.  Hopefully the Bridge International Academies succeed in increasing the quality of Kenyan education, but if not new methods will need to be evaluated.