The Duplicity of March Madness
March Madness, one of the great sports phenomena in our culture concludes Monday night
For three weeks, the 65-team, single elimination men's college basketball tournament captures the nation's attention like no other sporting event except for the Super Bowl. Work productivity tends to slow down as priority is given to the meticulous preparation of the tournament brackets.
But the public March Madness belies the private version.
The private version of "March Madness" is a multibillion-dollar industry where the many of the elite college basketball programs derive their success with dismal graduation rates and less than rigorous academic courses designed solely to keep players eligible.
The most recent data concludes that over half of the young men we cheer and bemoan because of the havoc wreaked on our brackets will not graduate.
For the few that possess the talent and good fortune to become instant millionaires playing professional basketball there are untold thousands who step on university campuses with the same aspirations that are now part of the illustrious fraternity known as "Where are they now?"
An examination of the schools that made to the vaunted "Sweet Sixteen" portion of the tournament, Purdue University possessed a graduation rate of 80 percent.
The University of Arizona, which has appeared in the NCAA tournament for 25 consecutive years, touts a 13 percent graduation rate. Even more appalling, Arizona has not graduated a single African American player since 1997.
Two of this year's Final Four teams, University of North Carolina and Villanova University have gradation rates over 60 percent. Michigan State, a "Final Four" participant this year possess a very respectable overall graduation rate because 100 percent of its white players graduate, while graduating 43 percent of its black players.
The University of Connecticut, the other Final Four participant limps in with a 25 percent graduation rate. It was also reported that the UConn's basketball program earned of over $6 million this year.
The University of Kentucky, which didn't make this year's NCAA tournament, is the winningest team in the history of college basketball. They recently hired John Calipari as their new head coach--a four-year deal worth an estimated at $35 million. Calipari's predecessor, Billy Gillispie, averaged 22 wins in his two years at Kentucky, but that obviously wasn't good enough even had he boasted a 100 percent graduation rate, which he didn't.
Nor will a stellar graduation rate save Calipari, not for $35 million. Based on Calipari's history, he won't lose much sleep with dismal graduation rates; he's being paid to win.
Not all programs operate this way, in addition to those schools already mentioned Duke, University of Florida, and Stanford are consistently among the schools with the highest graduation rates.
Former Notre Dame basketball coach, Digger Phelps has a coaching achievement that seems impossible to attain by today's standard. Of the 56 players who played four years for Phelps during his 20 years at Notre Dame all received their degrees.
To continue to refer to today's college players as student-athletes is oxymoronic. They are adjunct staff to the university's development department.
Those who follow college basketball can easily name a coach who was fired for not winning. Can anyone name last time a coach of an elite program was fired for not graduating players?
Would there be as much interest if only players who qualified for college academically played? It's hard to say, but I doubt there would be as much money involved.
CBS is not giving the NCAA billions to cover basketball based on graduation rates. Salaries paid to coaches, revenue generated by the schools and ratings for the networks drive the popularity of the sport. And once large amounts of money enter into the equations, it becomes the self-justifying amoral component that heeds only to its own wants and desires.
The influence of money and the pressure to win, coaches recruit players with no intention of them completing four years of school, let alone graduate.
Therefore, March Madness carries a dual definition. Sadly, neither includes a commitment to graduating the players responsible for generating the revenue, the excitement, and the disappointment, as my bracket will attest.
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In his eloquent critique of college athletics, Byron Williams is looking too narrowly at a few specific statistical outliers to lambaste an entire system that serves both the academic world and the larger society quite well. Though it may be true that big money runs big athletics, the majority of NCAA athletes are never known of or heard of, let alone televised. They are afforded the wonderful opportunity of a free education for swimming, running, rowing a boat, or playing squash. And most of them graduate.
Pastor Williams believes that it is the responsibility of coaches and university administrators to ensure athletes graduate. Yet, untold numbers of college students work to pay for their educations without a special support structure. Those anonymous undergraduates also do not benefit from trainers, fixed meal plans, and free housing. They toil and struggle to get an education without the fame and luxuries of campus celebrity. Once more, the latest study from The Institute of Diversity and Ethics in Sport reported that African-American student athletes graduate at a rate of 8% greater than other African American College students. The responsibility and opportunity of education is on the athlete, as it is on every other college student.
The facts are simple and clear. Atheletes graduate at higher rates, they learn valuable leadership skills, and athletics is still a very fruitful path of social mobility.
I think you may be wrong about Michigan State's graduation rate. Since Tom Izzo became coach, I can only think of five players (Jason Richardson, Zach Randolph, Marcus Taylor, Shannon Brown and a player from Serbia whose name I can't remember) who didn't graduate. The player from Serbia left early to play in Europe, while Richardson, Randolph and Brown went to the NBA. I've also heard many sports commentators say Michigan State's graduation rate was close to 90%.
That said, as much as I love to watch college basketball, I agree that the way some universities and their coaches fail to act in the best interests of these young men is a disgrace. Then again, I think the NBA and their scouts deserve some of the blame too. And let's not forget the parents either. Take Marcus Taylor, for example. Coach Izzo tried to discourage him from leaving, but his father thought he was ready for the NBA. Alas, the young man took his father's advice. Today there are few people who know or care where he is now.
Thank you for this article. I have always been highly critical of collegiate athletics, and particularly D-1 athletics. They are little more than minor leagues for their respective professional sports. Certainly at my undergraduate college, which had several D-1 sports, the athletes had entire curricula made up for them to ensure that they could maintain their eligibility to play. It was a rare thing indeed for the athletes to show up in a class where the rest of us untermensch had to earn our degrees. I was more than a little offended when I attended a meeting at the University Club where I earned my Master's only to discover that the primary role of the club was to be a candle lit, cloth napkin, wait staff in coat and tie, dining club for the basket ball team. It made me wonder how that made the kids feel who actually had to pay $40k+ per year out of their own pockets to have the privilege to eat in the cafeteria.
If the NCAA has no more ambition than to be a minor league for professional leagues, then quit pretending that there is any kind of academic purpose to the exercise. Pay the athletes what they're worth to the enterprise, and stop pretending they are students. If universities can't operate without income from sports contracts, then it strikes me they should just shut down their academic programs and become a training camp for athletes.
You also raise the issue of John Calipari, the newly hired “savior” of the University of Kentucky men’s basketball program, being hired with obscene amounts of cash to win games, not graduate players. But I would argue that his hire is beneficial beyond simply counting up the wins and losses. While he was rewarded with an enormous contract during difficult economic times, a lot of the compensation is coming through a number of endorsement deals the university has brokered. These top quality programs are also great examples of how much a single team can give back to a university. He is the face of the program and to a great extent the entire school. He is selling the higher education experience that should include a competitive sports program. If one of the NCAA’s goals is to enhance the collegiate experience for the whole student body, then hiring a coach to come in and win games is beneficial to the school and all those who attend. I understand your argument that it amounts to nothing more than exploitation of the athletes but isn’t it true they are also being offered a chance at a top-notch education? Where does the blame lie, with the schools, the individuals, or the system?
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As for Calipari, it was reported he wanted the Kentucky job two years ago, but the school wasn't interested because he ran programs in the grey area. What changed? Kentucky stopped winning--at least up to their standards--so they bring him in. I'm not blaming Calipari, he is merely part of a culture that's much bigger than him.
I want to thank you for writing this piece and really showing the other, less exciting side of the coin that is college basketball. While you highlight many negatives, I feel like you also overlook some arguments that can be made for the other side. If one of the primary purposes of going to college is to obtain knowledge and skills that will serve an individual in both their future life and career, then I would argue that college athletes are getting a strong education. Even though most players wont play in a professional league, many still find careers in fields related to their sports. College sports also teach values such as fair competition, teamwork, hard work, practice, and above all dedication. While many schools do have extremely low numbers of student-athletes earning degrees, the graduation rates of most programs are still on par with the average higher education institution in the United States. Given the extra demands placed on these individuals, is it fair to hold the programs to the high standards set by the individual institution or the seemingly more relaxed requirements the NCAA has established? It appears the NCAA condones this behavior considering how infrequently they hand down punishments and the loopholes that schools can easily abuse. How do you see a solution being implemented, or the system being overhauled? You raise a lot of issues and concerns in your writing but do not offer any sort of hope for optimism in the future.
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You're right, I don't offer hope because as I stated: money is the self justifying amoral component to this equation. We can put the blame on the players, and I'm not relieving them of their responsiblity to take advantage of a wonderful opportunity, but I also feel adults bear responsiblity as well, especially since they are the major benefactors. But when a player comes to school, he enters a culture if that culture emphasizes winning at all cost then that's what he'll embrace; it is becoming a student athlete, he'll gravitate toward that. John Thompson at Georgetown did it as did Digger Phelps at Notre Dame. It became a priority to them for their players to take advantage of the wonderful opportunity they had.
My son walked away from a partial D1 soccer scholarship last year. The demands placed on his time by the soccer program (morning runs, afternoon practices, films in the evening, travel) conflicted with his ability to perform optimally in the classroom. The coaches were in no way supportive of the serious students on the team. I can't believe that his experience differs greatly from student athletes in revenue-generating sports.
My son was awarded a partial scholarship for D1 soccer. He quit after a year because the demands that the soccer program placed on his time undermined his ability to maintain the GPA necessary for acceptance into the university's pre-med program. The coaches weren't the least bit supportive the serious students on the team. Soccer is not a revenue-generating sport. I can only imagine the pressures placed on football and basketball players
It has always bothered me that the most attention so many people pay to something with the word "college" in its name is a basketball tournament. Why aren't these same superfans making charts documenting the progress of college students in academic achievement competitions?
Why isn't "March Madness" a tournament of math, science and artistic achievement by our young people? Why is it all about some stupid, pointless children's game?
And our nation's citizenry falls further and further into stupidity, ignorance and credulity...
Sports is a steam valve, it offers a chance to "succeed" for many who otherwise would have no hope. The same phenomena as the arena in Rome, where slaves were offered a shot at becoming rich, just as long as they survived and pleased the crowds.
Another thing to remember is that players at major programs are more likely to be All-America in High School which means that they are more likely to go pro, either here or in Europe. If that is the case going in the sophomore year or your junior year will seriously slow down your graduation. So Arizona who has graduated some students but has way more who went pro in two or three years. Why does no one complain that Bill Gates didn't graduate from Harvard? Because he achieve success in his chosen profession? Well instead of doing stupid studies on whether someone graduated or not, how about on whether they are successful or not? Because honestly, Jordan going pro early... good move.
The author while well intentioned plays into the most dangerous stereotyping of college athletics. That the black student athletes are somehow less qualified to be on campus than the white students there. I know for a fact that the grades and the sat scores of college athletes fall directly in the middle of what school normally let it. For every kid they let in with minimum scores there are a hundred white kids let in to that class with the same or lower scores. The average is the average. Whether a kid graduates is based on a ton of factors. Let me break this down a little. Basketball take up to 60 hours a week. There are work outs film study, prep for games, weight room etc in the off season. All of this stuff is like working a full time job. The comparison for a student athlete at a major DI program, a sweet 16 level D1 program should be with the full time students who work more than a 40 hour week. if you use those statistics the average time to graduate is closer to 7 years than 4, and that holds up across all racial diversity.
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I would respectfully disagree that I am playing into any stereotypes, I am merely critiquing the data. The emphasis of my piece was not that black players don't graduate; the emphasis was over half of the players don't graduate regardles of hue in a $mulit-billion industry. Moreover, as a former D-1 basketball player, who led his team in scoring and assist, and was one of three players to graduate out of 15. And it took me 5 years to graduate, I saw the emphasis on winning first hand--and I suspect so did you.
See Byron Williams's Profile
There is simply no justification for the University of Arizona's failure to graduate African American players since 1997 or an overall 13% graduation rate. No one complains about Bill Gates or Michael Jordan, or for that matter Lebron James, because they repsent the exception and not the rule. For every Lebron James there are hundreds of Bill Willoughbys.
Peace and blessings,
Byron
With higher costs for college, tough times and declining academic schlorships, the general graduation rates for most schools (ie: in 5 years) is declining to probably below 50-60% and even less for Black men. If you move away from the sports that get the most attention - Division One men's and woman's Basketball and men's football, you see graduation rates about the same if not a little better than the general rates. What has happened is that men's Basketball and Football at Division One schools has become more important to get money to run the rest of the sports programs and for other donations from alumni. Some schools use the Basketball and Football programs to get their numbers of Black students higher overall, using lower academic standards than the school's norm. Coaches are paid like Corporate CEO's, deeply offensive to many students just scraping by financally and at State institutions, an insult to many taxpayers.
We need to make schools with their top programs face penalties like for minor recruting and retention ones done by coaches for continuing to have such low grad numbers by their athletes.
Two quick things, the lower academic standards you talk about aren't correct. They simply aren't. The average black athlete going to a school hits the average of what the school lets in. There is a famous fight between Dean Smith at UNC and Coach K at Duke over Duke students taunting JR Reed who played at UNC saying Reed can't read on signs and tee shirts. Dean Smith who had recruited Reid, and Christian Latner, and Danny Ferry, released the SAT scores of all three kids and the two white players at Duke did significantly worse than the Reed who can't read. There is a mythos that black athletes get into school and can't read, can't do the work. The reality is that they do as well as the general population of the school. For every basketball player having academic trouble there are hundreds of white students having trouble, the fact is no one writes stories about them because they aren't famous.
I wonder why they just don't pay those athletes if they can't graduate 'em. Look at the revenues that come not only from this tournament but all those tv appearances. Only a very few of these college athletes will go on to pro athletic careers, and fewer still will have long careers at that.
The statistics would seem more relevant if we compared the graduation rates to the overall student bodies. Certainly many state universities do not graduate many of their students in a four year program. I am also quite certain that being a member of a major basketball program has many advantages especially if you have real basketball talent. It's the statistics which in the end confuse us as we celebrate the one in a million superstar much more than the one out of two players who fail to get a diploma.
Not just students in the general population but students who work full time. That is what big time D1 sports really is, full time work on top of classes.
J
The graduation rates are based strictly on graduating in 4 years. If a student-athlete graduates in 4 1/2 or 5 years, as many do, it statistically counts as not graduating. Student-athletes that transfer to another school are also counted as not graduating from their first institution.
The last time I read anything the average for graduating from college was 5.7 years. I will look for the site, but rounding up that is 6 years for a B.A.
J
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