[plschwartz]

VOICES / A FORUM FOR COMMUNITY ISSUES
There's Nothing Sweet About These Stats
Six of the last 16 basketball teams in tournament had graduation rates below 50%.



By Fred Droz
The Sweet 16 games of the National Collegiate Athletic Assn.'s March Madness tournament were played this week. It is a wonderful time to watch the skills and efforts of college athletes. It really is March Madness because you never know what will happen. Top teams get beaten.

Mostly, it is a time to watch our nation's best young basketball amateurs play to their heart's best.

It is also the best time of the year for me in watching sports. Like millions of other Americans, I immerse myself into this phenomenon. It is college athletics at its best.

But, there is a dirty little secret to all this. Actually, it isn't much of a secret. The graduation rates of NCAA athletes are atrocious.

Check out the graduation rates of the basketball players from the schools going into the Sweet 16. Six of the teams in the men's tournament had rates below 50%.

The high is Duke at 67%. The lowest is Georgia Tech at 27%. (Stanford graduates 100%, but it was eliminated and didn't make the regional finals.)



Here is an even better illustration of the problem. In 2002, Hawaii, McNeese State and Oklahoma graduated zero athletes. Yes, zero, nada, 0%. Yet, these three schools qualified for the first round of 64 finalists.

So what? It's just a bunch of kids who play sports. Well, I think there is a lot of "what" in this issue.

A lot of folks believe that the top college athletes move on to become professional athletes. Unfortunately, the statistics do not bear this out. Basically, fewer than 1% of NCAA athletes become professional athletes each year. Let's cut to the heart of the issue. Of the 64 schools that made the NCAA basketball tournament, only 25 have graduation rates above 50%. That means that 60% of these schools are graduating between 0% and 49% of their athletes.

"So what" raises its ugly head again. Though these schools take in millions of dollars from ticket sales and commissions, the athletes — the performers, the income generators — are left with nothing. They don't graduate with a degree. They don't get a contract with a professional athletic team. Their jerseys are not retired.

The NCAA is expected next month to pass regulations that would reward schools with high graduation rates and penalize those with low rates. This is a start. But the issue isn't just about basketball. Check out the graduation rates of schools in the other income-generating sports: http://chronicle.com/stats/ncaa/. >
Do we, as viewers and supporters, have any responsibility for any of this? Maybe. Probably.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fred Droz is president of a management and communications firm in Laguna Beach.

[buddhafabio]

it is their own fault, if i got a free ride to college through sports, i would be sure i finished.

[ComputerFix]

It's an entire atmosphere, buddhafabio. You would, because you would be viewing it as an educational institution. Athletes view it as a stepping stone to the pros.

Living in a town where the U's basketball team is more important than rising tuition and class discontinuance due to lack of financing......I get all twisted over the subject.

Maybe someday we will realize a college is about more than sports!

[GoneForNow]

Originally posted by ComputerFix:
Maybe someday we will realize a college is about more than sports!

Why? The academic side of the college profits as much when the school has a winning team in one of the major category of men's sports (football, basketball and to a lesser extent baseball). (Sorry, but women's sports still don't generate a lot of revenue.) The vast majority of the players in the identified sports wouldn't even be attending college but for their talent. Academically, they don't qualify for admission when compared to the standards used for the entering freshman class. For the NCAA to track who graduates and who doesn't after they enter is too little too late.

If you really want to address the problem then require the student athlete to meet the admission standards of all the other entering freshman. Don't hold your breath it will never happen. Given that fact the NCAA should drop this whole charade that these athletes are expected to graduate.

BTW, Harvard requires that the athletes meet the admission standards. When is the last time you saw Harvard in the Rose Bowl or the NCAA Basketball Tournament. The reason Harvard can get away with this requirement for its athletes is because other alumni contribute so much that funds generated from athletics isn't necessary.