Winning at the mind game
POINT OF VIEW, Raleigh News & Observer, March 8, 2002
By STUART ROJSTACZER
PALO ALTO, CALIF. - March Madness, the great drama of buzzer-beaters and amazing upsets, will soon fill our TV screens. The broadcasters invariably will mention the college majors and the decent-to-laudable grade point averages of one or two players on the floor. What they won't mention is that, more often than not, the other eight or nine players are academic embarrassments. As of 2001, the graduation rate was 40 percent for all of Division I men's basketball, the lowest percentage of all college sports. When it comes to men's college basketball, good students are a rare find.
But all the news is not bleak. The NCAA has been publishing detailed data on graduation rates for about 10 years. With a little bit of analysis it's easy to debunk some common myths about low graduation rates and offer some positive news concerning the value of maintaining relatively clean basketball programs.
A common myth is that in order to win championships a basketball coach must treat academics as a complete nuisance. If this were true, schools with the lowest graduation rates would hold an iron grip on NCAA Final Four appearances and championship trophies. The truth is that schools with relatively high graduation rates do surprisingly well when it comes to the NCAA tournament.
To prove my point, consider the graduation rates over the time period of 1993-2001 for the six most powerful basketball conferences in the NCAA: the ACC, Big 10, Big 12, Big East, Pac 10, and the SEC (note: this figure can be found at www.duke.edu/~stuart/gradrates.html). Since 1990, 42 out of 44 Final Four teams and every champion has come from these schools. Those with graduation rates above 60 percent are small in number, but this handful of schools has garnered five championships and 16 Final Four appearances over the last 11 years.
Somehow they have found a way to include academics and still win.
Are the schools with relatively high graduation rates pristine "Boy Scouts" when it comes to recruiting their athletes? Absolutely not. It's undoubtedly true that many basketball players who graduate from these schools receive a watered-down education and take a preponderance of easy classes. But a diluted education is better than none, and the coaches from these schools deserve credit for paying some attention to academics.
The bad and obvious news is that most schools in these six conferences fare poorly when it comes to graduating their basketball players. Their combined average graduation rate is identical to that of the rest of Division I, 40 percent, yet the average graduation rate for their male non-athlete students is 64 percent. Why are graduation rates so low for these and the other 250 schools in Division I?
A common myth is that the culprit is early exits of basketball players to the National Basketball Association. But this holds up even less well than the academics myth.
There are 100 or so new job openings in the NBA each year. Perhaps 30 of those are going to college underclassmen, which means that the NBA is responsible for, at most, a 2 percent graduation rate drop.
So who can we blame for the low graduation rates? Speaking as a university professor, the obvious cause for blame is ourselves: the faculty, leadership and boards of trustees of colleges and universities.
We have established a system where we consistently enroll athletes with academic skills significantly lower than those of the rest of the student body, subject them to a grueling schedule of full-time employment on the basketball floor and expect them to compete with our best and brightest in the classroom. This formula is one that is bound to fail.
Reasons for hope
There are simple solutions that would likely lead to significant increases in graduation rates. One is to elevate standards for admission of scholarship athletes so that they are closer to those of the rest of the student body. Another is to mandate reductions in practice time, travel time and conditioning regimes so that these athletes can have a better shot at pursuing schoolwork.
It is easy to be cynical about the state of college basketball. The NCAA and university leadership have steered clear of making real changes.
But there are cracks in the defense of the current state of college athletics that began to emerge in the past year and a half. Two former college presidents have written books highly critical of intercollegiate athletics. The Knight Commission, composed mostly of current and former national leaders in higher education, also put together a critical assessment.
These voices indicate that perhaps we are entering a time when we will make substantive efforts to provide college basketball players with a quality education. One thing is certain. A system where roughly 2,000 out of 3,700 fail to get a college degree, and in which many who do graduate avoid taking classes that fully enrich them academically, serves neither the athlete nor the mission of higher education well.
Stuart Rojstaczer is a professor at Duke University and a visiting scholar at Stanford University.