31 March 2002

RESPONSES TO VARIOUS QUERIES REGARDING THE RESOLUTION ON ACADEMICS AND ATHLETICS

Richard Sundt, Art History

1. A STUDENT-ATHLETE VIEW ON THE EFFECTS OF MISSED CLASS TIME

Kim Brummer (student-athlete and Division II Student-Athlete Advisory Committee representing University of Nebraska, Kearney), offers these thoughts in an op-ed piece in NCAA News, 11 Sept 2000:

"Missed class time that results from traveling to competitions is a serious-athlete welfare issue that needs to be addressed by all NCAA institutions…But the actual traveling experience often contributed to the stress of being a student-athlete…All but two of our conference schools are at least five hours away, which meant much missed class time…."

2. A PRESIDENTIAL VIEW ON THE ENCROACHMENT OF SPORTS ON ACADEMIC SCHEDULING AND THE LENGTHENING OF SEASONS.

John Casteen (President of the University of Virginia, Member of Division I Board of Directors, NCAA), quoted in the NCAA News, 17 Dec 2001:

"It always has struck me as odd that on organization [the NCAA] that describes itself as collegiate has no problem scheduling events during exams or graduation…we have responsibilities involving education for our students that we have to look at here." Some other soundbites from Casteen concerning athletics: "the ever-increasing intrusion into the academic calendar" and "length-of-season issues where contests overlap final exams."

3. WHY ACADEMICS IS IMPORTANT FOR MOST STUDENT-ATHLETES

A. Mickey Fernandez (Assistant Prof. of Counseling Psychology, Rutgers) quoted in the NCAA News, 18 Feb 2002:

"To the very few whose athletic talents alone can open doors to success, this may be of little concern [i.e. academic performance in college]. But for the overwhelming majority of student-athletes, however, obtaining a college education is a much surer way of achieving financial and personal satisfaction than professional sport ever was, or will be."

B. The above statement explains why we as faculty have to make sure that student-athletes get the best education possible since most are not going to make it in professional sports. What will count in their future is the college degree, and we should open up the way for student-athletes to perform well academically, to their full mental potential--let us not add more games and other intrusions into exam and class time. These statistics show why we need to stress academics and reduce athletic efforts to more reasonable proportions:

Probability Of College Athletes Going Professional

Source: NCAA News, 14 Aug 2000

MEN'S BASKETBALL: Percent from college to professional: 1.3%.

Given these statistics and an 11-13-person team, we can expect that not even one whole person from one team will go into professional sports --maybe just a leg of one student-athlete.

WOMEN'S BASKETBALL: Percent from college to professional: 1.0%.

Fewer chances than above.

FOOTBALL: Percent from college to professional: 2.0%.

Given these statistics and a 100-person team, we can expect two to become professional athletes.

4. GRADE POINT AVERAGES, GRADUATION RATES AND PLAYING SEASON

Methodological Problems: It seems to me difficult to know what "graduation rates" really mean and how one can validly compare graduation rates between student-athletes and regular students. The criteria for determining rates for athletes is done in a way that cannot be translated directly to the rest of the student body. There is never an explanation of how the criteria are adjusted for non-athletes so as to avoid comparing apples and oranges. It would take a great deal of effort to apply the criteria for determining graduation rates for athletes to other students, as the paragraph below will demonstrate.. There are other practical aspects that never seem to be taken into consideration when figuring graduation rates across the board.

Consider one formula used to determine graduation rates (for Division II in NCAA News, 4 March 2002):

Very, very briefly: A. Number of first-time students. B. Number of students who enrolled first time in fall 1995. C. Number of transfers, etc. Add A, B and C to determine who will be defined as entering. D. Enumerate the exclusions. E. Number of students in squad list who left the institution. Add D and E to determine who will be subtracted from entering numbers. Subtract (D+E) from (A+B+C) to determine the pool of entering specific sport. Divide that figure into the number of student athletes who graduated within six years to determine graduation rate for that sport for that class.

(Among my questions: can this formula be applied without adjustments to the rest of the student body? Are adjustments made, and if so what are they? Can any one find time to do all the above research in order to determine graduation rates for an entire entering freshman class, and not just the athletes in that class? There is nothing simple and straightforward about determining rates and we must be wary of comparisons.

Other Methodological Problems: With respect to Graduation Rates and Grade Point Averages (discussed below), it is difficult to know what years are being referred to in most cases, and for how many--4 or 6? Other similar things make comparisons difficult.

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Grade Point Average During Competition

Source: U of O Athletic Department, 2 April 2001

Men's and women's basketball. For both men and women the Winter Term GPA was higher than the overall GPA (it would be helpful to have, in addition to the overall GPA, a break down by Fall and Spring as well; then one could track ups and downs in a more precise manner, but I will go with what I have):

Men: 2.39 overall GPA; 2.87 Winter 2001 GPA.

Women: 3.03 overall GPA; 3.07 Winter 2001 GPA.

Analysis (preliminary, awaiting additional scheduling data):

Winter term is when most regular-season basketball games are played (about 2/3 of the total). This is the term when both men and women earn a higher GPA than their overall GPA. The GPA must therefore go down in one or both of the other terms, possibly the Fall which sees some play (in Spring there are no games unless in a championship tournament). This means that the highest GPA is earned in the quarter that is filled with games, in contrast to the Fall when only 1/3 of the total games is played. This would appear to contradict my assertion that midweek play and play during dead and finals weeks are detrimental to academic performance. Here is where statistics alone are not reliable barometers on this and related issues.

The fact is that in Fall term both men and women play during both dead and finals week. In Winter term (in 2001 there was still no Pac-10 post-season play following the regular season), the regular season play ends before dead week and finals. This may be the best explanation why the GPA was better in Winter than Fall (and/or Spring).

THE BOTTOM LINE: Grades went down when students had to play during dead and finals week, and up when they had these times for study.

Football. In this sport the Winter 2001 GPA (2.55) was higher than the overall average (2.37).

Analysis:

It would be helpful to have a full spread of quarters, including for the Fall, when all the regular season games are played. Obviously, in either the Fall or Spring grades dropped, or during both. If there was a drop in the Fall, this would seem to be due to the fact that this is the only time when regular season games are played. With no games in Winter, student players can concentrate more on their studies.

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Graduation Rates of PAC-10 in Relation to Play in Quarter and Semester Systems

Methodological Problems:

A. There is a very wide range in the academic abilities of students among the Pac-10 schools, so across-the-board comparisons for graduation rates yield less than perfect results. Then there is the problem of some institutions being perennially at the top (like Stanford) and others perennially at the bottom--the bottom ones could work on improving their rates, but Stanford has an advantage to begin with because it is a private institution and highly selective in its admissions. Finally, those schools which take a larger percentage of students from academically disadvantaged backgrounds seem to have lower graduation rates than those which have a larger percentage of persons from more educationally and economically privileged circumstances, if I understand the statistics correctly. This complicates analysis and punishes those programs that by accident or design are dealing more directly with issues of diversity. We in academics should make it possible for all to graduate with a full-set of skills, and to that end we should make the necessary educational adjustments, including scheduling that is advantageous to learning. Academic success has to be placed above athletic success; already the latter is becoming measured more in terms of money than Olympian idealism. There is simply in no academic gain without athletic pain. The "reform" movement within and outside NCAA is trying to reform without pain, and that will not work, unfortunately.

B. The NCAA source I am using below is totally unclear regarding which set of dates applies to the three sets of graduation rates, for periods from 1991 to 1995 (from the Chronicle). Please note that the Oregon Outlook source, which I cited in my recent 10-point comments on the resolution, lists a 70% graduation rate for Oregon football (for last year?); so the question is whether the comparison in the Outlook to other universities is to the same year. Another case where the terms of comparison are unclear: In the NCAA source listed in the Chronicle I don't know which of the three columns, each representing different dates, is the most recent for graduation rates. Thus I am choosing the one where the Ducks have their highest graduation rate.

Graduation Rates and Type of Academic Year

Universities are listed by type of school year, followed by graduation rate

Quarters:

Stanford, 83%

U of Oregon, 61%

UCLA, 59%

OSU, 45%

Semesters:

USC, 65%

U of Arizona, 63%

U of Washington, 55%

WSU, 49%

U of California, Berkeley, 48%

ASU, 38%

Universities ranked by graduation rate (with indication of school year type):

Stanford, 83% (quarters)

USC, 65% (semesters)

U of Arizona, 63% (semesters)

U of Oregon, 61% (quarters)

UCLA, 59% (quarters)

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U of Washington, 55% (semesters)

WSU, 49% (semesters)

U of California, Berkeley, 48% (semesters)

OSU, 45% (quarters)

ASU, 38% (semesters)

(I am using the quarter concentration as the determining factor for high-low rankings. Sorry Chris, math was my worst subject so I don't really know how to deal with statistics in an intelligent manner!)

--3 of the 4 schools on quarters scored high, and 1 scored low

--2 of the 6 schools on semesters scored high, and 4 scored low

These statistics appear to support my suggestion that football players in schools on quarters generally do better academically than players attending semester schools. Working in favor of the quarter system: 1) part of the regular season is played before the start of the school year, and 2) after the end of the regular season (assuming for most institutions this is in mid-November) players have about three weeks to prepare for dead and finals week. To encroach on these times by changing a football game date would thus not serve the interests 0f the student players.

6. FINAL COMMENTS

I have presented various statistics in support of the resolution I introduced in March. But numerical figures can be read in various ways and are not easy to interpret fairly across a university and across institutions with varied backgrounds. Then there is the fact that winning and losing games is a constant seesaw, and such fluctuations affect graduation rates and GPAs to some extent as well. So given the vagaries of statistics (even when they favor my argument, at least in my view), the bottom line is that we as an academic institution have to proceed on basic and enduring academic principles, and good, common-sense pedagogy. Moreover, we have be conscious that no matter how good our situation is in comparison to other institutions, we are also part of a larger system --the PAC-10 and NCAA. Consequently, the defense of academics is more than a local issue, particularly when we have to follow conference dictates, even when they are not what some of us think are in the best interest of our educational mission. So we have to think globally.

Despite the basketball coaches' "Game Plan," the NCAA's Football Oversight Committee, and our own university task-force on athletics, the very things that have been identified nationally, regionally and locally as needing reform are not being dealt with. In fact, we in Oregon and elsewhere are doing precisely the opposite, and as a result athletics are encroaching more, not less, on academics. Currently we are going backwards, not forward. The resolution, if modified as I discussed in my earlier comments, will serve to cure only one problem, and then only locally. But passage of the revised resolution, and the discussions within the Senate about it, can perhaps serve as a means to stimulate the lethargic reform movement, to press the NCAA and the whole athletic establishment for the meaningful changes they are so reluctant to undertake on their own.

The best way of closing this lengthy response is to return to the top (no.1) and reread the comments of Kim Brummer, the student-athlete from Nebraska.

diskAT/A: resolstats