Well, March Madness is over and tonight Michigan State and North Carolina face off in the men’s college basketball championship. Every year around this time, there’s a disturbing report or two highlighting the low graduation rates of African American college athletes, particularly in the NCAA basketball programs.
This year, a study by the Institute of Diversity and Ethics in Sports exposes some of the sad facts: While they excel on the court, most black players in elite college basketball programs leave college without a diploma. And it’s not just because they’re skipping out early for lucrative NBA careers. In “Got Game, But No Diploma,” a story featured today at TheRoot.com, we’re once again hit with a sobering dose of reality. Some excerpts:
If the championship in NCAA men’s basketball was based on the graduation rates of black players on the teams, it would be Duke and Villanova taking the court tonight in Detroit rather than Michigan State and the University of North Carolina….
In general, white male student athletes graduate at 80 percent versus only 58 percent of their black teammates….
Michigan State had the greatest disparity in graduation rates among those Sweet 16 teams. All of its white players graduated; but only 43 percent of the black players got a diploma….
In that Root.com article, Boyce Watkins, a professor at Syracuse University, suggests that the NCAA graduation numbers are yet another tragic chapter in the lives of young African American men. “It’s like they back the bus up to the black neighborhoods, load up all the good players, then spit them out in a couple of years when they are done,” he says.
Debates about the treatment of African American student athletes in the big-time business of college sports will certainly continue (Should they be paid? Should they be required to stay in school longer before jumping to the NBA? Should there be greater attention paid to their academic eligibility?). But with literally billions of dollars at stake for the colleges, sponsors, TV networks, etc., I don’t anticipate anything changing soon. Still, as we’re watching those players run the court tonight in one of the biggest moneymaking sporting events of the year, it’s important to be mindful of these issues.
Ultimately, the players are responsible for their own choices regarding their education and future success, but how complicit are we as consumers (and citizens) in enabling a system that may be doing more harm than good to the lives of these young athletes? And what, if anything, can we do to change it?
I posted this over at the God’s Politics blog, but I thought I would post here as well. I’d be interested in hearing what some might have to say.
========================
This is a tough article for me. I was a basketball player myself in college, albeit at a small NAIA school, not a big Division 1 NCAA school.
On the one hand, I can’t dispute the concerns of the author or the statistics he presents. There is clearly a disparity between black and white students when it comes to graduation rates. I’m white, and I played with other white, black, and hispanic teammates while in college. Thankfully, almost all of our players graduate, and interestingly, the majority of those who do not are white, not black.
I’m white, and I can’t separate myself from my experience as a white man, and I can’t pretend to fully understand the perspective from the other side. But, I do my best to try by listening to those other voices when I can.
That said, I do have some points of disagreement – or at least some points that I would like to contribute to the conversation.
“It’s like they back the bus up to the black neighborhoods, load up all the good players, then spit them out in a couple of years when they are done,” he says.
My suspicion is that this comment is more about the young African American men who are left behind than those who are on the bus getting the free ride to college, literally and figuratively. In terms of those left behind young men, there is certainly a debate to be had about the lack of access to higher education — undeniably, young African American men do not have as much access as people like myself do.
In general, white male student athletes graduate at 80 percent versus only 58 percent of their black teammates….
Michigan State had the greatest disparity in graduation rates among those Sweet 16 teams. All of its white players graduated; but only 43 percent of the black players got a diploma….
Like I said, I can’t dispute the numbers. However, I would like to make an observation. Anyone who watched the championship game might have noticed that the players who actually played significant minutes were almost all black players. The only two white guys who contributed anything meaningful were the two head coaches, Hansbrough, and Sutan (spelling?). Everyone else was either black or multi-racial.
From my perspective, that is as it should be, because I think the best players should play, and basketball for whatever reason is dominated by African American men (at least when it comes to the players. There are still more white coaches than black coaches across the board).
So from my perspective, if we are going to raise the issue of access we can’t do so at the expense of performance.
As I observed, the basketball world — collegiate and professional — is dominated by black players. There are very few white, hispanic, or asian players to be found among the elite NCAA schools or anywhere in the NBA. And as I also obvserved, that is because the best players should play — and right now, the best players in the world are black, and there is absolutely no denying that. The few white players who are in the NBA, for example, are not even American. Steve Nash is from Canada; Dirk Nowitzki is from Germany; etc.
And I’m not bemoaning that. African American men are the best players in the world and deserve to be rewarded for that because competitive sports hinge on performance.
The point I would like to make is that academic success is analagous to athletic success, and although the author doesn’t say it quite that way, I think he would agree.
Ultimately, the players are responsible for their own choices regarding their education and future success, but how complicit are we as consumers (and citizens) in enabling a system that may be doing more harm than good to the lives of these young athletes? And what, if anything, can we do to change it?
I’m not sure where he is placing ultimate responsibility for academic failure. He says that it’s personal responsibility, but he hints that consumer culture might be to blame as well.
As a former college athlete myself, albeit on a much, much smaller scale, I know how much time college athletics take. However, I never used them as a crutch. I graduated with honors in my major with a 3.93 out of 4.0 — because I knew that my academic success would be determined by how well I performed in the classroom. Consequently, I always spent just as much time studying as practicing.
I can’t speak personally to the media hype and expectations that are placed on Division 1 athletes, because I never experienced that. But I find it difficult to believe that the culture is somehow responsible for college athletes who don’t graduate, because frankly, they are given every opportunity to succeed. In the first place, their entire college life is paid for by scholarships. Their only jobs are 1) To be a student and 2) To be an athlete. Moreover, student athletes receive all different types of extra attention to which other students do not have access. They have private tutors and on down the line. I
So to the question, “What can we do to change it?” I simply don’t have an answer if “it” means the low graduation rate for African American collegiate athletes. And I’m skeptical that I personally can do anything meaningful to contribute to that solution. I’m not sure I buy the notion that a consumerist culture is to blame, and I certainly don’t want to see college athletes get paid — they’re already getting $20,000ish per year in scholarships for tuition and room & board.
My suspicion is that their failure in college can be more accurately attributed to inadequate education when they were much younger; however, many of our D 1 athletes attend some of the best private prep schools in the country. So my suspicions may be partially correct and partially incorrect there. In other words, I suspect that the root of the problem is not the college education but rather the lack of education before college — but that’s just a suspicion.
However, if the root of the problem can be located in the college experience itself, then I think it’s very difficult to put the blame anywhere other than personal responsibility, because while they are in college, they are given every opportunity to succeed.