When the NCAA approved several academic reforms last week, NCAA
President Myles Brand called it “a landmark (piece of)
legislation” and “the beginning of a sea of change in
college sports.”
Forgive us if we’re not inspired.
For too long the NCAA has failed to recognize the
“student” in student-athlete, being too concerned about
the money and not enough about the grades.
So when the NCAA suddenly comes down with a series of academic
reforms it says will be revolutionary ““ namely, requiring 20
percent degree progress each year and punishing programs by taking
away scholarships and implementing postseason bans ““
it’s best to take what the NCAA says with a grain of
salt.
College athletes are a different breed. They are placed on a
higher pedestal, not only for what they do on the court, but also
for what they represent in the classroom.
Who could forget when Westwood waited to hear the results of
basketball forward T.J. Cummings’ final grades last
December?
Any other student, and no one cares.
Basketball star, and it’s on the 10 o’clock
news.
The logical notion is that UCLA is already in line with the new
academic measures and can only benefit because the competition will
be held to more stringent standards. But there will be some
athletes even in Westwood who will be victimized.
For every five kids who major in basket-weaving simply to stay
eligible, there’s the engineering major who needs more time
because he’s already dedicating 40 hours a week ““
essentially a full-time job ““ to his sport. And now that kid
may have to major in something else because the NCAA will require
him to complete 20 percent of his degree course requirements each
year.
It will be especially difficult during the first year ““
the freshman transition year. The prior requirement was the
25/50/75 rule, which were the percentages of courses required to be
completed at the end of the second, third and fourth years,
respectively.
Now, freshmen have to get 20 percent of their degree
requirements done by the end of their first year. There previously
was no requirement for the first year, which gave student-athletes
time to get acclimated to the new demands on their time.
The scholarship penalties and postseason bans also sound good.
But would the NCAA actually have the audacity to tell Oklahoma it
can’t play in the national championship because it only
graduated 33 percent of its players? Unfortunately, there’s
too much money at stake. I’ll believe it when I see it.
If anything, these academic reforms are a commentary on the
current administrations and athletic departments of universities
with athletes who don’t succeed in the classroom. How can
Cincinnati’s Bob Huggins post a 0 percent graduation rate?
Granted, the methods for collecting the data are questionable, but
still ““ 0 percent?
What happens if the NCAA has just pushed universities to go the
opposite way? Instead of ensuring that they only recruit athletes
who will succeed in their schools, colleges may still enroll
academically marginal students, but to prevent the loss of
scholarships or postseason play ““ and the loss of millions of
dollars ““ we could just as easily see an increase in easy
majors being taken, or worse, academic fraud.
It’ll be years before the NCAA sets the benchmarks, so
there are a lot of questions to be answered. How many scholarships
will be taken away? A scholarship in basketball is one thing, but
taking away a scholarship in football is hardly noteworthy. Who
would be penalized by the postseason bans?
The NCAA should be lauded for its efforts to get involved in the
“student” part of the student-athlete and shed its
image as a money-making machine. They’ve at least recognized
there’s a problem here.
But we’ve all heard and seen this before.
And if it sounds too good to be true, that’s just because,
when it comes to the NCAA, it always is.
E-mail Tran at btran@media.ucla.edu.