WILKO: I’m Wilko Martinez and sitting right across from me is Jawad Hossain. How’s it going?
JAWAD: Pretty good, you?
WILKO: Can’t complain. Today, we’re going to be tackling an issue that has been around for a long time now. Is the education of student-athletes in college being neglected in favor of success in sports?
College sports. We all know them, a lot of us love them. It’s a multimillion-dollar business that, in theory, gives young adults the chance to not only go to college, but also to start making a name for themselves in the world of sports. We all know about the superstars who went to college for a year or two and then went on to make millions of dollars themselves.
We all know about the glitz and glamour of college football. But not every athlete that goes to college ends up becoming Michael Jordan or Peyton Manning. Many college athletes end up not even being able to go pro.
JAWAD: But luckily they can fall back on their education, right?
WILKO: Well, it’s not that easy. The education of college athletes is a very difficult topic. You and I know the value of our degree. We know that we can hopefully use that degree to either get into graduate school or go out into the real world and get a job. But many college athletes don’t go into college with the same aspirations as us.
JAWAD: It’s go big or go home for a lot of them—and when they can’t go big, they haven’t exactly been set up for success, it seems.
WILKO: They haven’t, which makes me wonder—is this the athletes’ fault? Do they simply not care about school? Or should the blame fall on the institutions who aren’t preparing them properly? One of these institutions was the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. UNC was found guilty of running a “paper-class” system, in which athletes were put into independent study classes and given easy grades no matter the quality of their work on their final paper.
MARY WILLINGHAM: The papers were just like cut and paste jobs or copied out of a book. A division one college institution, a division one research institution, and there was really no research taking place.
JAWAD: That was Mary Willingham, a former professor and athletics literacy counselor at UNC. UNC’s paper-class system went unnoticed for nearly 20 years before Willingham blew the whistle. She believes many others knew about it, but kept quiet.
MARY WILLINGHAM: I think that many people knew: the people in athletics knew, the people in admissions knew. The people in the College of Arts and Sciences knew, and the people in advising, and especially graduation advising knew about the paper classes. Many, many people stayed silent and still stay silent to this day.
WILKO: And for a long time, Willingham also stayed quiet, but that changed in 2010 when the NCAA finally asked questions of UNC. Willingham came forward because she felt that UNC’s student-athletes were getting cheated out of what they deserved: a real education.
JAWAD: In the wake of her whistle-blowing, Willingham faced many threats on social media and on the phone. But the ones that stood out to her were the ones that took place on the UNC campus.
MARY WILLINGHAM: Now looking back, I’m wondering if some campus people were involved with those because when I brought them up to my boss, they basically told me I was making it all up. When the university switchboard operator– she had a call from someone looking for me and said it was a really scary call. I mean, that day I was afraid, but the university just really wanted me to go away.
WILKO: When we spoke to her, Willingham called the so-called UNC family a mob family, desperate to maintain their loyalty to UNC at any cost. But not every university across the country faces the same academic and athletic pressures as UNC. I reached out to Dr. Brenda Vogel who recently became the NCAA faculty athletics representative at Cal State Long Beach to see if the relationship between sports and education was different at her school.
BRENDA VOGEL: I think the experience is different on different campuses. We do things here at this level, at the mid-major, I would bet my left leg on the fact that these kids come out better. It’s a benefit to them.
JAWAD: Unlike UNC, the athletics programs in mid major schools are not in one of the top 5 conferences in the NCAA. Vogel insists that Cal State Long Beach does everything to help their student-athletes obtain a quality education. She was disgusted by UNC’s systemic fraud.
BRENDA VOGEL: I think they let the tail wag the dog. The pressures are tremendous to a) keep your fans happy, keep your board of directors happy, keep your alumni happy… you know, get the best player in. Those challenges are real.
WILKO: Jawad, Vogel believes that coaches want to win at any cost, but this cost is affecting the students.
BRENDA VOGEL: All coaches do that. They want to win and there’s an inherent tension there. But you have to stay on the side of good integrity and the well-being of these kids. You have to fight against the push to win at all costs. You do things the right way and if you can win, that’s awesome, that’s magic. But you don’t sacrifice your soul.
JAWAD: She brings up a good point. The education of students needs to be the priority at a university. Even when we talked to Mary Willingham, she told us the same thing. Many student-athletes end up having to work three jobs or pick up extra shifts at Target just to get by.
WILKO: Right. After all, what type of job can you really get when you’ve essentially been granted a degree but obtained no real-world skills during your stay in college? You’re listening to Stony Brook Audio Lab. I’m Wilko Martinez.
JAWAD: So far, we’ve talked about UNC’s paper-class system and how other universities are trying to do better. Brenda Vogel from Cal State Long Beach works very closely with her institution’s athletic director, advisors, faculty, and student-athletes. She wants to ensure they remain eligible to play games, but not compromise their education while doing that.
WILKO: So why isn’t every college doing this? Let’s remember that UNC wasn’t the only school investigated for academic fraud by the NCAA. There have been other schools implicated like Missouri, Southern Colorado, and Southern Mississippi.
JAWAD: Well, I think it comes down to money.
WILKO: It always comes down to that, huh?
JAWAD: All you have to do is look at the facts . The NCAA made over 1 billion dollars in revenue two years ago. And now Dabo Swinney, Clemson’s football coach, is set to make 93 million dollars over 10 years.
WILKO: College basketball and football coaches often end up being the highest-paid state employees.
BRENDA VOGEL: You don’t throw that much money at something and expect people to stay clean. It’s a recipe for disaster. Somehow, they have to get the money out and I don’t know if that’s ever gonna happen. That’s really hard to do. It’s like saying get the money out of politics.
WILKO: Willingham agrees with what Vogel has to say.
MARY WILLINGHAM: Till we disconnect academics and athletics, there’s always gonna be fraud because we’re always gonna be bringing in kids who are underprepared and there’s no way they can compete in the classroom.
JAWAD: But obviously, getting rid of the money is easier said than done. In fact, I’d say it’s impossible at this point, so what can the NCAA and universities do to fix academic fraud and make sure their student-athletes are getting a good education?
WILKO: Well, the NCAA introduced APR, which stands for academic progress rate. APR holds schools accountable for the academic progress of their student-athletes. Basically, it goes back to the coaches.
JAWAD: And while APR is a solid first step, it’s not perfect. APR punishes schools who don’t have the resources to get a high APR number. A high APR number would indicate that schools are serious about the educations of student-athletes and their graduation rates. Another possible solution offered by Willingham is for schools to review their admissions process.
MARY WILLINGHAM: The only way to fix it is to pay attention to admissions and raise the admissions standards. I think the NCAA and higher education could do us all a favor of pushing back and saying, ‘we only take students, athletes, who are prepared for the academic rigor.
WILKO: But again, I’m not sure how viable that is. If you’re only taking in student-athletes who come in ready to compete in the classroom, that removes a lot of people from the equation.
JAWAD: Let’s not forget that between 7 and 18 percent of college athletes read at an elementary school level, according to a CNN investigation. That’s terrible!
WILKO: Yeah, it is. Another interesting proposal is for student-athletes to only be part-time students.
JAWAD: But in that case, would students still get a proper education? Something else Willingham told us was the possibility of colleges having a major only for athletes.
WILKO: Rice University in Houston had an athlete-only major called commerce in the 1970s, but professors at the institution were outraged and eliminated what they called a phony major.
JAWAD: So, sadly, it seems like there are few resolutions to this issue. It’s not ideal, but it’s the unfortunate reality.
WILKO: And for those of you thinking “hey, at least we got rid of the UNC paper-class system” — well, we did for now, but it’s only a matter of time until a new fraudulent system pops up.
MARY WILLINGHAM: There’s gotta be a system because when you bring in athletes who are underprepared for the academic rigor and you give them a full-time job, plus travel, how are they gonna compete in the classroom? Who knows? There’s always a university professor or a department chair who’s gonna be a player so they can be the big hero on campus with athletics.
JAWAD: I’m Jawad Hossain.
WILKO: And I’m Wilko Martinez. Keep your eye on the ball.
Wilko Martínez-Cachero 