OPEN LETTER TO THE UNIVERSITY COMMUNITY

Richard A. Sundt Associate Professor, Art History Member of the Intercollegiate Athletics Committee

20 February 2001

On the Mission Statement of Intercollegiate Athletics: Problems, Challenges and Opportunities, and the Case for an Education-based Approach to Athletic Reform

On February 14th, Valentine's Day 2001, the University of Oregon Senate, under the leadership of its president, Prof. James Earl (English), sponsored a session whose purpose was to examine the university's Mission Statement and to assess the extent to which we as an institution and faculty measure up to what we say we are and do. The statement is very clear that our enterprise is concerned with education, an activity that involves four interrelated things: learning, teaching, research and service. As Prof. Earl pointed out, this document is silent about athletics, and yet this program has a $28-million annual budget and runs a yearly deficit of over $2 million. So the question has arisen, how do we justify a program that is not stipulated in our institutional mission (nor for that matter in the charter founding this university). This question has particular urgency for a university whose academic programs have been and, from all appearance, will continue to be underfunded in the foreseeable future.

For those of us who have been in academic circles for two or more decades, it is obvious that college sports have changed tremendously and to a degree that increasingly puts academics and intercollegiate athletics at odds, each competing for scarce resources. Higher education in other countries is not saddled with this dilemma because in most foreign universities sports are either intramural or left to professionals. In the United States, on the other hand, athletics has been part of the college scene for a long time, and each year programs grow larger and more popular. College sports are so embedded in the fabric of American culture that eliminating them is not an option that will find much support among alumni and the general public (although I wonder how many Oregon students nowadays attend the university's athletics events). So the issue before us, especially as funding for academics grows tighter and the costs of athletics continue to skyrocket, how can we continue the tradition of college sports in a way that does not undermine the authenticity and goals of our educational mission? The problem is easy to identify. Solving it is challenging, but possible, and the opportunities and rewards it holds for the future too worthwhile to pass up.

Most persons are probably unaware that the Department of Intercollegiate Athletics at the University of Oregon has its own mission statement. This well-crafted document, entitled Philosophy and Objectives, recognizes that its sports program is not a thing apart from the university but part of it. Athletic personnel at Oregon feel it is incumbent upon them to fashion and conduct a program that conforms to the institution's educational mission. Such an understanding is enshrined in the Department's fourth objective: "To operate its athletics program in a manner that does not detract from the student-athlete's educational opportunities." Unfortunately, however, this commendable goal is rendered nearly impossible to reach by the sixth objective which calls the Department "to operate its sports programs at the highest possible level of intercollegiate athletics competition" This means several things, but two examples will suffice:

1) sharpening and improving sports skills, causing the athletic bar to be raised ever higher, and inexorably towards near-professional levels; and
2) increased participation in post-season events and tournaments. Students cannot achieve such superb skills and participate in more events without putting more time into athletics and reducing the hours spent on study and attending class.
Objectives 4 and 6 are thus at odds with each other, with the latter tending to cancel the former, and for many of us in academics this is cause for concern.

When the Educational Objective (no. 4) and the Competition Objective (no. 6) come into conflict, I, as a teacher, in my naïve and idealistic way, expect a student to abide by the former. On the other hand, Intercollegiate Athletics expects its student athletes to choose the latter, in part because many athletic events bring in revenues to the Department and provide exposure for recruiting new team members. Objective 4 notwithstanding, it is only natural for persons whose business is sports to want their student athletes to excel in athletics, to attain newer and higher degrees of skill and play. In this understandable enthusiasm for sports, it is all too easy and too convenient to forget that meeting Objective 6 risks undermining (or "detracting from") the aims of Objective 4.

Like the Athletic Department, the university administration also chooses competition over education, not out of any lack of commitment for the university's fundamental mission, but because underfunding for academics forces univesity leaders to find other ways of making up for budgetary shortfalls. Athletics, as we all know, is viewed by university administrators here and across the country as a means of keeping academic institutions afloat. For the sake of this larger goal, Oregon's leaders unwittingly diminish the educational opportunities for some university students by giving priority to Objective 6. This is troubling in and of itself; but it is all the more so since it is far from proven that big-time sports contribute as much to university enrollments and fund-raising as administrators claim. Hard figures on this matter are mighty hard to come by, but unsupported statements are freely dispensed by many in the administration and in other sectors of the university. These assumptions quickly grow into a conventional wisdom that is freely and uncritically accepted by every Duck fan, not to mention every Eugenean eager to promote the city's economy.

The conflicting demands of learning and competition, of Objective 4 vs. Objective 6, can be eliminated or minimized if all universities and colleges work together, and in concert with the NCAA, to restructure athletics. This effort will have two mutually and simultaneously beneficial effects: it will give students more time for studying and class attendance while also reducing the escalating costs of big-time sports. We can and should scale back athletics to more reasonable proportions, and this we can do in a way that ensures a level playing field for all teams. I don't now how else to achieve this goal but by pursuing an education-based approach to athletic reform. If we take Objective 4 as the natural starting point, things then fall easily into place: it soon becomes clear what is and is not appropriate for college athletics, i.e. what will or will not "detract" from educational pursuits. Let me give one example of how an education-based approach would work. In the 15 January 2001 issue of the NCAA News, William Byrne, the Athletic Director at the University of Nebraska, wrote an editorial urging his colleagues not to support a motion that would in effect allow for an increase in the number of games played each season, but rather to stick with current NCAA legislation that limits the number of games per season to a maximum of 29. He argues that "basketball players often are the most at-risk athletes They travel more and they play more games. Therefore, not having them on campus for class and study works against their success in the classroom. By reducing the number of games, they can stay at home and go to class more often. I think this is the most compelling argument to limit the number of games." The idea is admirable and sounds like an education-based reform. It is in fact what I am also advocating: Ask what is needed to achieve Objective 4 and then tailor the sports agenda to that end. Unfortunately, Mr. Byrne's suggestion does not go very far, for it leaves the 29-game maximum intact, and that is the crux of the problem, not just the addition of one or more pre-season games. Clearly, the NCAA wants to have its cake and eat it too. There is no education gain without athletic pain, but will the sports establishment recognize this dictum and reformulate its Objective 6 goals in a manner that permits the full realization of the aims espoused in Objective 4? A true education- based reform would look at the current situation in basketball and see that the 29 games per season can only serve to tear Objective 4 to shreds. Twenty-nine games, more than one per week, "detract from the student-athlete's educational opportunities" because such a concentrated schedule requires playing not only on weekends, but also on weekdays, which, for the away team at least, means missing classes, precisely what Mr. Byrne (and I ) are objecting to. But his plea merely asks the NCAA to vote down the addition of more games. This is not really a reform; it is again a classic case of having your cake and eating it too; it involves no pain, so there is nothing gained educationally. Real reform would see that the present 29-game rule places far too many games on the basketball schedule, thereby forcing student athletes to spend too much time out of the classroom. This can be remedied very simply by reducing the number of games so that students play only on weekends. Besides increasing opportunities for students to study and attend classes, as Objective 4 stipulates, the reduction in the maximum number of season games would bring savings by cutting out some away trips. Of course, all this might very well result in reducing athletic skills, and this would move college basketball away from trying to approximate professional levels of play. I don't see this as a problem but rather something that needs to happen. First of all, training players for the NBA is not the mission of the university; we should not be a minor league for a profession that reaps gigantic profits. Secondly, if current trends continue, the university will be less able to afford ever more competitive athletics, which means not only heftier salaries for coaches, but also new and bigger sporting facilities, with each institution vying for a better one, something that is in fact occurring right now from Corvallis to Seattle. Here at Oregon, the Autzen Stadium expansion has not yet gotten underway, but this has not prevented the Athletic Department from drawing plans for a $100-million basketball arena to replace Mac Court soon after the stadium project is completed. Can we really afford to continue in this vein? We need to look very hard at this question. The time is now, not later when this new facility is under construction and salaries for basketball coaches will have attained or surpassed the million dollar mark now enjoyed by football coaches in the state of Oregon.

The time has arrived when college athletics needs to set its sights not on the professional world of sports, but on the academic world, the source of its being. If athletics is to remain part of the the American college experience it must to take a 180-degree turn. It should begin by restoring to college sports the physical, mental and spiritual values that flow from exercise and play and the welcome relief they offer from the intensity and stress of intellectual activity. For this we don't need basketball players brimming with NBA-skill levels, nor do we need star coaches with stellar salaries. We can, with creativity and vision, begin to control the spiraling costs of athletics; and we can also start making sure that this extra-curricular enterprise stays firmly within academic bounds. All this can be accomplished by taking an education-based approach to athletic reform. It may not be possible to eliminate an occasional collision between Objectives 4 and 6, but it is possible to change and reshape college athletics in a way that narrows the gap between the conflicting claims of learning and competition. It is of course true that the UO's Athletic Department's mission statement and the NCAA's hefty rule book are both geared to keeping intercollegiate athletics from forgetting its "collegiate" character. But the problem here at Oregon and across the country is not that athletic personnel ignore education, but rather that they are more concerned with its mechanical aspects (making sure students are enrolled on a full time basis, have a major, get at least passing grades, etc.) than with the fundamental principles of education, particularly those relating to the practice and process of learning itself. Learning requires time and for athletes this basic commodity is in ever diminishing supply. Student athletes need three things in particular in order to do well academically:

1) time to focus and contemplate on the content of courses;
2) weekdays free of athletic events so players don't have to miss classes; and
3) no distractions and additional sports assignments in the last week before finals and during finals week itself.
Current NCAA legislation and local practices do not adequately recognize these needs. The University of Oregon's recent decision to engage in post-season basketball play, when part of this competition will fall at the end of winter quarter and during final exams, is an indication of how present thinking gives priority to Objective 6 over Objective 4, even in a situation where the university is in the driver's seat, i.e. not having to conform to rules placed upon it by its membership in the NCAA or the Pac-10, nor by its Division I status. If intercollegiate athletics is desirous of advancing the education of its athletes, it has to recognize the aforementioned sports dictum, no pain no gain. Athletics needs to focus less on Objective 6, however painful that may be, in order to gain on Objective 4. A local and national movement directed toward the reformation of athletics would help in renewing and reinvigorating the academic side of college sports. It would also have a most attractive spin-off, namely reducing the escalating costs of athletics and the unfair salary gap between athletic and academic personnel.

In calling for athletic reform, I and others are simply asking from athletics what we in academics are demanding of ourselves. The University Library Committee, chaired by Prof. Regina Psaki (Romance Languages), is currently developing a set of recommendations, to be submitted to the Senate, outlining strategies aimed at reducing the rising the costs of periodicals. This is an academic problem, and we the faculty are partially responsible for it. In many cases we have transferred the production of scholarly journals from our various professional societies to commercial academic publishers, who in the last few years have then turned around and sold our intellectual work to universities at ever increasing prices, prices we can ill afford, hence our massive periodical cancellations in recent years, and with a new one now looming on the horizon. Aiding this reform effort is Provost John Moseley. At our University Library Committee last week he announced that he would be attending a meeting with his peers from other major research institutions in order to address the crisis in academic publishing and work towards solving it. We as faculty can only do so much ourselves. We need the help which can only come from administration involvement and leadership on academic issues such as rising subscription rates. What applies to and is happening in the academic domain should also extend to the sports realm. If we are to have reform in college sports, it has to be both local and national, and given the enormity of the challenge, it requires commitment and involvement not just from members of the faculty, but from the administration as well, from persons with authority to initiate change and embark on new courses of action. One can only hope that our university administrators will pursue athletic reformation with the same seriousness and vigor that they are now dedicating to academic reform. One can only hope that athletic personnel, through their professional contacts and membership in the NCAA, will also labor toward the same end, thereby placing the Department's full weight on Objective 4.

If you are in agreement with this call to restructure athletics and the education-based approach I propose, then university administrators, members of the U of O senate and athletic personnel need to hear from you. The ball is in your court as much as it is in mine.


Richard A. Sundt Associate Professor Department of Art History University of Oregon Eugene, OR 97403-5229 USA Telephone 541-346-4698 FAX 541-346-3626 < a href="mailto:rsundt@oregon.uoregon.edu">rsundt@oregon.uoregon.edu
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