Why the NCAA’s latest reform measures won’t work

Why the NCAA’s latest reform measures won’t work

The hubbub about the pitiful graduation rates for most of the teams participating in last and this year’s March Madness focuses more attention on the athletes than on the academic corruption that enables intercollegiate athletics to operate as it does — driven by greed and hypocrisy — and where horrific misdeeds are treated like speeding violations; it’s only wrong when you get caught. One is led to wonder about the nature and extent of the complicity of the NCAA, school presidents, administrations, and faculties in this corruption. Just how do they get away with it? One of the ways is to create the illusion of serious reform.

In “Preserving the Audience: The NCAA and the APR,” [Inside Higher Ed (IHE), March 14, 2005], John Lombardi provides us with valuable background and insights into this kind of illusion — via the NCAA’s latest effort to put students into their so-called “student athletes” by unveiling what has been called the most aggressive athletic-reform measures in decades. Here’s why the NCAA’s latest reform measures won’t work

As Lombardi tells us, the NCAA’s measures are based on what they call Academic Performance Rates (APRs) that were developed to insure that college athletes are students in legitimate pursuit of a college degree and Graduation Rates (GRs). The latter must be disclosed by virtue of a federal statutory requirement, but are a poor metric for gauging academic outcomes with respect to big-time college athletes and for exposing academic complicity, see Lombardi, “Missing the Mark: Graduation Rates and University Performance,” [IHE, February 14, 2005]. They are one of the weak links in the NCAA’s incentives-disincentives process that is supposed to hold institutions and individual sports programs accountable.

In “Myles to Go at the NCAA ” [IHE, January 20, 2005], Murray Sperber says: “The real value of the new NCAA reforms is impossible to ascertain: Some are terrifically complicated and will require lawyers to untangle; some are so vague that no one can even find the knots, nevermind untangle them. Other new rules seem prone to the law of unintended consequences.” For the sake of argument, let’s assume that the NCAA’s APR/GR-based system is letter perfect with all of the knots identified and untangled.

Clearly, without proper safeguards, the NCAA’s APR and GR requirements at some schools can do more harm than good, since more pressure will be put upon faculty to pass poor (or worse) students, raise grades and otherwise compromise their academic integrity by fashioning courses and degree tracts for the sole purpose of meeting eligibility and graduation-rate requirements for their athletes. Thus, a number of questions come immediately to mind.

1. Who is going to vouch for class attendance records, the academic integrity of the instructors, the validity of “special-study” courses where class attendance is not required and where opportunities for plagiarism and the use of surrogates abound?

2. Who will be responsible for assuring that the athletes are on accredited-degree tracks as opposed to non-accredited, “degree-factory” tracts where everyone who signs up for an array of fluff courses graduates?

3. Who will be responsible for policing the entire system, guarding against: academic fraud, the pressure put upon faculty to change grades or just pass athletes no matter what, and coaches that stuff their squads with a cohort of athletes that value academics as well as their sport, but don’t see much, if any, conference-level game time?

4. Who will police for abuse of the Americans with Disabilities Act to certify some academically challenged athletes as “learning disabled” in order to waive them from academic requirements?

5. Who will provide requisite safeguards and sign off on the veracity and quality of the report?

According to the NCAA, the answer to all of these questions is the college or university submitting the APR and GR report. So the fox will be in charge of guarding the henhouse while the NCAA will be left to making “deals” to calm potentially troubled waters — for example, by prescribing weak loss-of-scholarship penalties and by “waiving” no-bowl-play penalties for schools threatening litigation.

Way back in the first century, Juvenal, perhaps exasperated by the illogical workings of Roman authorities, asked a rhetorical question, “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” Today, we in the Drake Group are disheartened, and, perhaps, just as exasperated as Juvenal by the workings of the NCAA. We pose the same question in plain English, “Who shall guard the guardians?”

According to NCAA President Myles Brand, the NCAA cannot serve as a policeman, basically saying: It’s up to the schools to police themselves and it is cynical to think they can’t be trusted to do the job. Well, isn’t that just how big-time college sports got to be in such a horrific mess in the first place?

The NCAA has not provided their president with a mandate and the means to affect really serious reform. Put another way, he has not been empowered to emulate baseball’s first commissioner Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis who took control of major league baseball when its integrity was in question — restoring integrity by banning eight members of the 1919 Chicago Black Sox.

Whether he realizes it or not, the well intentioned and highly paid Brand provides a much needed academic face for the NCAA and would never be allowed to put in place any measure that would really work to downgrade the quasi-professional quality of big-time college sports, its perceived entertainment value, and revenue producing ability. The real power in the NCAA has always been with Athletic Directors and Coaches — in effect, the NCAA President serves as their “Million Dollar Baby.”

Can you imagine football coaches at the BCS Conferences or the basketball coaches vying for berths at March Madness having to field teams composed of bonafide students that can play a fairly good game of football or basketball, as opposed to semiprofessional athlete-entertainers that (for the most part) must pretend to be students? And from where would the NFL and NBA draft their players?

The NCAA is now using a 24/7, full-court press — attempting to convince skeptics, a.k.a. cynics, that their latest athletic-reform measures will improve the academic performance of their exploited athlete-entertainers. In the meantime, the folks at the Academic Support Centers at big time colleges are scrambling to tune up, or, retool, their current eligibility-ensuring tactics to meet the revised NCAA requirements. Their jobs depend on it!

Some academic irregularities will still be reported by whistleblowers and should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with investigations of college athletics programs. Walter Byers, executive director of the NCAA from 1951 to 1987, has told how, coaches, athletic directors, presidents and conference commissioners who attempt to enforce the rules are treated as if they are out-of-touch — not living in the real world. Tough enforcement matters are left to a woefully understaffed NCAA infractions committee that operates with threats of expensive lawsuits by litigious-minded universities and other accused offenders.

The bottom line is that the NCAA’s “most aggressive athletic-reform measures in decades” are all about smoke-screening the corruption that permeates big-time college athletics so as to protect their big-money revenue stream and their not-for-profit status while the culture of the big-time sports entertainment business is corrupting higher education in America. The old saying, “It’s not important whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game,” has now morphed into “The only important thing is winning and how well you game the academic system so you can still play.”

Publishing APRs and GRs would not be a complete waste of time since they not only would provide a hook for the press to hang a truth-telling story that can be easily understood by the general public, but would force schools to pay some attention to their academic mission. They represent an imperfect tool that can be improved upon once a foothold has been secured for a transition into transparency via disclosure of more meaningful information. Without transparency there will never be serious and enforceable reform.

The general public is incredibly gifted at ferreting out hypocrisy. It will not take them long to see the NCAA’s latest academic-reform measures as a responsibility-shifting, cover-up tactic — an affront to their intelligence. If the NCAA were really serious about reform, it would ban athletics-department-controlled academic-support centers that function to game the academic system. True reform will only occur when concerned faculty demand that college sports be mainstreamed into the university and realigned with academic values, and when public bodies such as governing boards, state government, and federal government cease the special treatment that shields intercollegiate athletics from the rules that govern the rest of higher education. It could happen, but just don’t bet on it. Frank G. Splitt, McCormick Faculty Fellow at Northwestern University

Frank G. Splitt, McCormick Faculty Fellow at Northwestern University, at 11:31 am EST on March 15, 2005