Blog Archives: May 2009

[Ashlen]

Division III’s Athletic Scholarships
05/29/2009

Critics of NCAA Division III sports, including some DIII coaches, contend that some DIII schools skirt the ban on athletic scholarships by providing star athletes with leadership scholarships or other substitute scholarships.  To quantify and regulate against this, DIII started keeping track of the financial aid athletes receive as compared to regular students.  Inside Higher Ed has published Division III’s findings.  Inside Higher Ed also broke some of the numbers down. 

Since this reporting process was introduced, 39 institutions have been found guilty of violating the division’s financial aid policy. This constitutes 9 percent of the division’s membership. Most of the violations, according to the report, “concern the consideration of athletics in non-need-based institutional gift aid -- most notably in leadership grants -- and as a component in the assessment of high school extracurricular activities by admissions offices.” Additionally, the report notes that these violators “do not fit a single profile” and range in many variables from size to cost of attendance.

...

Only three of the violations have been deemed major by the division, and they are currently pending review by the Committee on Infractions. This being the case, the violating institutions and their punishable offenses have not yet been made public. Dutcher [DIII Vice President] said he expects these first major offenders to be known by late summer or early fall. He noted, however, that secondary offenders will continue to have their identities protected.

It is good to know that Division III is studying this situation.  Based on the Inside Higher Ed article, DIII believes that many of the violations are inadvertent and may come from admissions or financial aid staff providing athletes with leadership or similar scholarships without knowledge of the policies forbidding it.  This is certainly plausible.  Hopefully schools will have better cross-departmental communication regarding scholarship policy given that a pretty sizable number of schools are in violation. 

This situation does bring up an important question.  If it is possible for a regular student to receive a leadership scholarship based on participation in an extracurricular activity, like the debate team, should athletes get leadership scholarships for athletics?  It is hard to tell the difference between an athletic scholarship and leadership scholarship when the leadership scholarship is based solely on athletic participation.  This, as it has been claimed before, can be abused.  Unfortunately, worthy athletes may be deprived of scholarships as athletic departments try to avoid providing an excessive proportion of financial aid to athletes.

[Ashlen]

Should the Ivy League bend their academic standards in order to win more games?
05/29/2009 
 
The Wall Street Journal published a story today chronicling the history of Ivy League sports and the ideology behind the Ivy League’s rather unique stance on intercollegiate athletics.  The Ivy League schools were sports powerhouses in the early days of intercollegiate sports, but their performance has been lackluster in modern times.  The WSJ asks whether or not the Ivy League should strive for excellence on the athletic field given how they excel in everything else.  Obviously, people will argue both sides of this story.

The WSJ article implies, perhaps a bit indirectly, that the Ivy League would have to relax their academic standards and scholarship prohibitions in order to compete on the athletic field.  I am not sure if the scholarship situation will change because the public views that as a difference between the Ivy League and less elite schools, but the academic standards could be lowered without much public fanfare.  Still, I don’t know if it will happen or not.  It certainly does appear that the Ivy League is softening their stance on conference tournaments and postseason bans.

In my opinion, the Ivy League and the Patriot League have the right idea in maintaining that athletes should be treated equally as the regular student body.  The NCAA likes to advertise that Division I athletes are just like regular students, but the wealth of policies dictating academic standards and best procedures indicate that the students, or at least their experiences, are quite different from regular students.  Clearly, there are stacks of research showing how different athletes are from students in some sports. 

The question of whether or not the Ivy League should excel in everything it does can be looked at in different ways.  The fact that the Ivy League is less willing to bend their standards in pursuit of athletic glory reinforces that the Ivy League excels at sticking to their core mission more so than other Division I colleges.  That may not be nearly as sexy as walking off the field with a trophy in hand, but it may be much more important in the long run.

[Ashlen]

More on the Memphis/Rose Allegations
05/29/2009   

Earlier this week, I commented on allegations the NCAA is making against Memphis men’s basketball that they knew that one of their players had rigged entrance exam scores and that they paid a player’s associate money.  Media coverage of this story has exploded in the past couple of days.  Many newspapers claim that the player in question on both charges is Derrick Rose, an NBA player with the Chicago Bulls.  Some rumors allege that Rose’s high school teammate, Kevin Johnson, took the SAT for Rose.  Johnson, who is now serving jail time for armed robbery and aggravated resisting arrest, used to play for Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s basketball team.  Also, Rose’s brother is rumored to be the associate that received payment from Memphis.

If that was not enough, there are now rumors published by the Chicago Sun-Times that Rose, Johnson, and other basketball players at Chicago’s Simeon High School had their grades changed by the school in order to make their transcripts sent to colleges look better.  The grades allegedly were changed back after the transcripts were sent out.

The head coach at Memphis at the time, John Calipari, recently left to become the head coach at Kentucky.  The New York Times reported today that Calipari left UMass right before they were hit with major penalties.  The Times also had another interesting bit about Calipari:

And by the time the N.C.A.A. quietly announced last spring that it would no longer accept scores from Laurinburg Prep, the school that helped nearly half of Calipari’s Memphis players qualify for scholarships, Calipari had stopped sending recruits there. A Laurinburg student once said that at midyear a school janitor was promoted to history teacher.

Fake test scores, fake grades, illegal payment for play, and questionable prep schools.  These are all things we have seen before.  As I stated in my previous post about this situation, some of these are things we have seen before from Calipari and his new employer, the University of Kentucky.  This also illustrates that colleges do not act alone in academic scandals.  The allegations against Simeon High School are significant and, if true, it shows what high schools are willing to do for athletes.  Although it would be totally unacceptable either way, would this school fix transcripts for a regular student trying to get into college for academic reasons?  It is impossible to say for sure, but my guess would be no.

Given Calipari’s history and the fact that Kentucky has been hit with punishment before, one has to wonder what the fate for UK will be.  They will not be punished for this situation, but it seems very likely (if the allegations are true, but as the NYT points out, we may never know the truth since Rose does not have to say anything) that Calipari will leave UK in trouble in the not so distant future.  If that happens, the NCAA should come down very hard on Kentucky given their history, but what does not seem likely in the foreseeable future is the NCAA pulling another SMU.

[Ashlen]

Students vote against student fee increases for athletics
05/31/2009

The New York Times published a story yesterday about students at a handful of colleges, mainly smaller Division I schools, rejecting proposals that would have increased student fees for varsity athletics.  NYT cites the University of New Orleans, Sacramento State, Long Beach State, Cal State Fullerton, and Fresno State as examples of schools that where the students have rejected increases in student fees for athletics. 

In some cases, like at the University of New Orleans, the rejection put the fate of the athletic program in jeopardy.  UNO athletics might be able to survive due to private donations, but it will be interesting to see if more schools across the country reject student fee hikes.  As one would expect, NYT found that student turnout in these elections was low.  In the past, low turnouts may have been advantageous for athletic departments as athletes and dedicated student-fans could fill the ballot box at a disproportionate level.  However, it seems that students have increasingly become wary of student fee hikes even before the economy fell off a cliff. 

The NYT article points out that the schools that are rejecting athletic student fees are mostly commuter schools.  It is possible that working, part-time, graduate level, and non-traditional students at these schools have little use for intercollegiate athletics.  Also, of the schools listed above, most of the rejecters have professional sports and other entertainment options near their campuses.  Commuter and other non-traditional schools with big-time sports may have a harder time passing student fee hikes as they compete with community colleges and for-profit universities.  The NYT claims that yearly student athletic fees range up to more than $1,000 a year.  Fees like that might be hard to justify in the future particularly at schools with cash strapped and debt ridden students.   Quite frankly, $1,000 a year or more for athletics is hard to justify in any situation. 

[Ashlen]

Scouting Services in Basketball Recruiting
05/31/2009

Ken Tysiac of the Charlotte Observer published an article today discussing the ethics of the scouting services that many, if not most, men’s basketball coaches are paying for to help scout players.  Some of these scouting services are not connected to AAU clubs and coaches, but some of them are.  The article questions whether club-linked scouting services are ethical.  It is possible that AAU coaches that run club-linked scouting services will prevent their prep players from attending programs that do not subscribe to the expensive service.  Also, the AAU coaches may only grant physical scouting access to the programs that paid for services.  Of course, if these situations occur, it could be viewed as a situation where coaches are paying agents to land players.   Richard Johnson described the situation:

"You do have what appears to be a competitive advantage when a college coach is buying that recruiting service from that (club) coach," said Wofford athletic director Richard Johnson, who's a member of the NCAA's issues committee but was speaking on his own behalf. "It does give the appearance of impropriety."
     
It will be interesting to see if the NCAA starts regulating these services.  Although many feel that college basketball coaches are at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to ethics, AAU coaches seem to be at a whole different lower level.

[Ashlen]

Athletic Departments Hide Behind FERPA
05/31/2009

The Columbus Dispatch released several articles and a searchable database today dealing with how Division I athletic departments hide behind the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) to cover up information that could help the public stop criminal boosters and other violations.  TCD requested information on team flight manifests, assignment of complimentary tickets to players, summer jobs forms for athletes, and records on violations.  These can be used to see if boosters or agents have illegal interaction with athletes. 

Some schools did not respond to the request, some charged the paper with outrageous fees for the information, and many blocked out key parts of information in documents claiming that those unedited documents would be in violation of FERPA.  As James Buckley, who helped write FERPA, pointed out, the only thing FERPA should block is information about academic records.  Even academic information may be open to the public since athletes sign waivers allowing third parties to see their records, but there are some ethical issues with that.  According to TCD, the information they requested hardly deals with academic records and should be open for public dissemination.  However, the schools that blocked out data feel they are in the right.  Technically, they might be right due to the vagueness of FERPA.  It is hard to say if or when Congress will redefine what is covered under FERPA, but until then, expect the see many athletic departments interpret FERPA strategically to their advantage.   

I highly recommend reading TCD’s series of articles on this issue.  A standardized recordkeeping system is vital for athletic reform in order for the public and the media to monitor questionable activity.  There is almost no doubt in my mind that many of the schools covered up information explicitly to make the department look more ethical and compliant than they really are.