Blog Archives: October 2009

[Ashlen]

This is an archive of blog entries I published to the old Other Side Sports blog during October 2009.

[Ashlen]

Meltdown at Binghamton
10/01/2009

It would be an understatement to say that it has been a chaotic week for Binghamton University.  First, star  basketball player Emanuel Mayben was arrested for possessing and selling cocaine.  Not only was Mayben kicked off the team, but five other men’s basketball players were also booted from the squad.  It is unknown why the other five players were kicked off the team, but three of the six dismissed players, including Mayben, were listed in a New York Times article earlier this year as being players that left or could not get into other schools due to academic problems. 

That New York Times article chronicled how Binghamton transformed from a Division III school to a Division I team that has become a powerhouse in America East Conference basketball.  The team went on to win the America East regular season and conference championship titles this past season.  However, the school as accepted many academically marginal players to achieve on-court success.  Reports indicate that current basketball coach Kevin Broadus has a reputation for recruiting academically marginal athletes. Human development adjunct lecturer Sally Dear told the New York Times in February how basketball players got special treatment.  In fact, she stated that she was pressured to change grades for basketball players.

This past Tuesday, the New York Times ran another article stating that Dear was dismissed from her teaching duties.  Dear believes that her dismissal stems from the comments she gave the New York Times earlier in the year, but she is standing behind what she said.  Then, yesterday, it was announced that Binghamton’s long time athletic director, Joel Thirer, resigned as athletics director. 

Binghamton’s situation almost mirrors the stereotypical rise and fall story.  They enter the Division I stage as a nobody in the sports world.  They accept some marginal players that struggle in and out of the classroom.  In fact, two basketball players have been arrested for violent crimes in the last few months in addition to Mayben’s drug arrest.  Friendly faculty play the game to star players eligible.  The team starts to find success, but the cracks in the foundation causes the whole house to collapse in a matter of seconds. 

It is hard to say exactly why Dear was dismissed, but it is very plausible that she was not retained because she was a whistleblower.  It is sad to see another athletics whistleblower suffering, but many adjunct instructors feel pressured to conform to poor instutitional standards due to their contingent status.  There have been signs that things were not fine at Binghamton since at least February when the first New York Times article came out, but it finally took a high profile arrest for some action to be taken.  Hopefully the university will refocus their priorities and not run a sham program, but many other schools with similar misadventures fail to learn from their previous failures. 

[Ashlen]

An accurate description of course selection at Big Sports U.
10/07/2009

Yesterday, The Chronicle of Higher Education ran an article talking about the struggles of Sally Dear, the adjunct lecturer at Binghamton University that told the New York Times that she was pressured to give athletes favorable treatment in her courses.  Dear was released from her teaching duties as the university claimed budget woes, but the Chancellor of the SUNY system has reinstated Dear while the SUNY Board investigates academic integrity at Binghamton.  Dear believes she was fired because she was a whistleblower. 

I was particularly intrigued by a user comment added today to The Chronicle story by a user named jesor:

From what I've seen as standard practice, Binghamton was essentially playing in the bush leagues. Any true big-time sports program knows that rather than pressuring individual faculty, you hire an "academic advisor" whose job is to ferret out the tough faculty and advise the athletes away from them and to the faculty who don't care if a student is in class or not. Once that's established, you start rewarding the "choice" faculty with tickets, an autographed basketball, and other small tokens of appreciation from the athletes that are not large enough on their own to raise red flags. Of course to the faculty, this is just reinforcement for being such dedicated educators that they are willing to spend extra time helping a student catch up from their demanding athletics schedule. After a couple of photographs with star players, they forget all about the fact that the student cared enough to miss their class in the first place.
Everyone is happy in the end, since the "choice" faculty get to feel important, the demanding faculty don't have to deal with a problem in their classroom, the athletics program doesn't have to worry about eligibility and the players can focus on what they came to the college for in the first place. That is until the player tries to have a life after athletics, but hey that's not a problem for anyone but a has-been washed up former athlete who should have known better.

That statement may be the best short description of the course selection process at a big-time sports university that I have ever seen. 

[Ashlen]

Three stories about three current events
10/13/2009

I found three interesting articles today about three separate college sports incidents.  The first article is a story by Erik Brady and Steve Wieberg, of USA Today, discussing the situation at Binghamton University.  The article discusses how schools let in academically weak students to help them win games.  The article also discusses the struggles of schools moving to Division I from lower divisions. 

The second article is an opinion piece in the Columbia Missourian by a retired Marine colonel, J. Karl Miller.  The article discusses the recent fight between athletes from the football and men’s basketball team at Kansas.  Here is an excerpt from Miller’s article:

A large measure of misconduct by college athletes can be avoided by stringent background investigation of prospective recruits. Admittedly, that would shrink the pool of available athletes of potential greatness; however, one who is constantly at odds with accepted social practices while in high school or a consistent “D” or “F” student is hardly destined to color dear old alma mater with distinction on the field of play or in the classroom.

Hand in hand with raising the bar in recruiting athletes, college and university administrators should bite the bullet and return to pre-1972 NCAA standard of freshmen ineligibility for football and basketball. Intercollegiate sports are vital, however, the freshman year should be one of scholarship and attending class. And, as precious few graduate in 4 years, there would be no loss of eligibility – the "red shirt" still applies.

That “one and done” performer who attends class for one semester as a stepping stone to the professional ranks has no place in an institution of higher learning.

It is hard for me to disagree with anything Colonel Miller stated. 

The final article discusses New Mexico’s one game suspension of their head football coach after he punched one of the assistant coaches.  Apparently, the punched assistant coach is also about to get sacked by the university as well.  The article, written by The Sporting News’ Matt Hayes, discusses the hypocrisy of the coach only getting a one game suspension, while the subject of the violence gets fired, when the LeGarrette Blount, the Oregon football player that threw a punch at a player from another team, was suspended by Oregon for a whole season.  Granted, the suspensions were levied by two different schools and the incidents had two different levels of media scrutiny, but the author probably does have a point that coaches have a different standard.  Can anyone imagine what would happen if an academic dean punched a professor?  What if the college president punched a provost?  The puncher would almost certainly be fired.  If not, there would be harsh repercussions.  Perhaps the puncher would be in jail.  New Mexico, and probably other schools, have different plans for their modern day messiahs.

[Ashlen]

Helicopter Coaches
10/20/2009

Recently, Pete Thamel and Thayer Evens, of the New York Times, reported on the use of helicopters by college football coaches in order to impress recruits and to reach them more easily.  The cost of using these helicopters are not cheap.  A Cincinnati booster paid $1,500 an hour for the coach to use a helicopter. 

It is not unusual for coaches to use fancy transportation to try to impress recruits.  For example, it is not unheard of for coaches to pull up to high schools in stretch limousines.   The article chronicles how UCLA is able to avoid Los Angeles traffic by using the helicopter.  As useful and effective as they may be, one has to wonder about the cost and severe mission drift illustrated by the method.

As of right now, boosters appear to be covering the helicopter costs at many of the schools that employ the method.  However, the nature of competitive sports means that schools without external funding will spend their own money just to keep up if they believe the helicopter method is effective.  More importantly, how many of these universities fly helicopters to the school or house of an all-star academic talent?  I’m pretty sure the answer to that is zero.  The blue chip academic talent will probably receive a cheesy recruiting brochure in the mail. 

Instead of universities talking their boosters into donating their money to support their mission, they are more than willing to snatch any money as quickly as they can even if they cannot spend it usefully.  If anything, spending the money could destruct the pillars of the institution.  Administrators may claim that athletic success turns into fundraising success.  The empirical evidence confirms that this is true.  The only problem is that athletic success turns into fundraising success for the athletic department only.  This may even come at the expense of academic donations. 

Perhaps the use of helicopters by coaches could be justified if the coaches tell the recruits something along the lines of “Come to XYZ University because we have great engineering and science courses that will teach you the principles of flight that will allow you to design more efficient aircraft.” 

The chances of any conversation like that going on is almost nil.  There is a far greater chance that the coach will promise the recruit that he will be able to join the mile high club with the finest bimbos on campus.   

The concept of helicopter parents pestering faculty about their child’s academic progress has been a talking point amongst academics in recent years.  The concept of helicopter coaches and administrators pestering faculty about their player’s academic progress has been a talking point amongst academics for many years.  I guess it is only fitting that coaches now literally have helicopters.

[Ashlen]

Forced hiring freeze proposal
10/22/2009   

Brian Cook, author of The Sporting Blog at The Sporting News, commented today about how the NCAA is trying to stop schools from hiring recruit’s family members and coaches in order to buy the services of the recruit.  It does seem that these rules are necessary if the NCAA wishes to operate an amateur sporting league.  Still, as Cook points out, even the best rules against the current practices will just lead to new ways of cheating:

Basketball recruiting is and will continue to be sketchy as hell; there's too much money at stake and the important kids are way too obvious for anyone to do anything about it. When Calipari can walk away from a vacated Final Four into one of the plum jobs in the sport, the institutionalized corruption is so extensive that there's little hope for shutting it down.

In order to truly stop this type of behavior, schools must stop hiring and employing coaches that are willing to break the spirit of amateurism.  Don't hold your breath waiting for schools to adopt that ideology though!   

[Ashlen]

80th anniversary of the landmark Carnegie Foundation report on athletics
10/25/2009

Last week marked the 80th anniversary since the landmark Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching report American College Athletics.  Charles Clotfelter, professor of public policy, economics, and law at Duke University, wrote an editorial for North Carolina’s The News & Reporter describing how the problems of 80 years ago are still problems today.  Professor Clotfelter is currently writing a book about college sports.  In addition, he teaches a law school course at Duke about big-time college athletics.

[Ashlen]

How much power do presidents have over athletics?
10/27/2009

Yesterday, the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics released the results of a survey asking a sample of Division I college presidents about the costs and financing of intercollegiate athletics.  David Moltz, of Inside Higher Ed, summarized many key points of the study.  A very general summary of the findings is that many presidents believe that costs, particularly coaching costs, are out of control.  However, most presidents believe they were powerless in trying to stop the escalation in costs.  They also felt that the NCAA is too bureaucratic and unmotivated to make positive changes.

The results of the survey naturally bring up some interesting questions.  First, are presidents really all that powerless to change things on their individual campuses?  For the most part, I do believe they are pretty powerless.  The presidents work for their boards of directors.  If the board does not want athletics to change, athletics will not change unless the board is not very passionate about the issue or the president is so highly respected that he/she basically has a blank check.  I am not sure if that happens very often.  Plus, there are political aspects.  In many states, the public college board of directors are selected by politicians.  Politicians may not want to support board members that are anti-athletics if they feel there may be a backlash. 

It would be nice if some presidents were bold enough to put themselves out on a ledge.  However, it is unrealistic to expect anyone to do that.  I believe the key to change is for presidents from schools where there is little focus on athletics to initiate change.  This might possibly be at private schools.  They can change their structure and hope that other schools will follow.  It is not likely that the schools addicted to sports will follow, but some other schools less interested in sports might.  Some change is better than no change. 

The belief that the NCAA is unmotivated to change is an odd belief.  The Division I Board of Directors is comprised of college presidents and chancellors.  The former president of the NCAA, Myles Brand, was a college president before joining the NCAA.  Essentially, college presidents run the NCAA.  For college presidents to say that the NCAA is unmotivated basically means that the presidents are unmotivated for change.  It seems like the college presidents are trying to fool themselves, or the public, by blaming themselves in an indirect manner.  Granted, there are political factors at play again, but I think they have more power to change things collectively outside their individual institution than they do within by themselves. 

Perhaps college presidents should not be in charge of the NCAA.  The college presidents are not getting the job done for either political or personal reasons.  Putting the athletic directors back in charge would not be a positive change either.  Perhaps it is time for an unaffiliated panel to take a shot at running things.  I do not mean that the presidents of CBS, Nike, and Coca-Cola should run the NCAA, but perhaps faculty or other bodies that can act with more conviction should hold the job.   

[Ashlen]

Berkeley’s financial conundrum
10/30/2009

Inside Higher Ed’s Doug Lederman published an interesting article today discussing a controversy at UC-Berkeley.  Like many schools, Cal loses money on sports.  In order to cover these losses, the Cal athletics department has received subsidies, from the university general fund and from student fees, as well as loans.  The continued losses mean that the athletics department is having trouble repaying the loans.  In 2007, Cal’s Chancellor, Robert Birgeneau, forgave $31.4 million of debt the athletics department incurred. 

This system of funding intercollegiate athletics is always controversial, but it does not grab many headlines.  However, with California’s financial crisis and related cutbacks throughout the campus, the athletics department’s finances have become a sore point for some faculty members.  Computer science professor Brian Barsky summarizes the atmosphere at Berkeley:

Some smaller examples have proven particularly nettlesome. Citing a lack of funds, the university originally canceled a tradition at Berkeley in which the library stays open 24 hours a day during the final exam period. A family of a student ultimately stepped up and donated the needed funds to cover the cost of keeping it open, Barsky said, but the symbolism was profound.

"Apparently the chancellor couldn't find the funds to keep the library open even though the cost was a fraction of 1 percent of what he takes out of his discretionary funds to subsidize Intercollegiate Athletics," he said. "The amount was less than what the football team pays to the local luxury hotel where it stay on the eve of each home game. "What does that say about the priorities of this great institution, the best public university in the country?"   

A strong proposal for reform will be presented at an Academic Senate meeting:

The resolution that the Academic Senate will consider next week would go much further than merely demanding repayment of the loans, past and present. It calls for ending subsidies from administrative funds and student fees, requiring the athletics department to stop spending itself into a deficit, urging "donors to prioritize academics at the Berkeley campus" (over athletics). It also recommends that the Academic Senate create a new oversight committee made up entirely of Senate members to monitor the athletics department and to make sure its other recommendations are carried out.

Although the proposal does make a lot of sense, I doubt we will see anything like it in place.  I am sure we will see some quotes from the administration stating that they are strong supporters of financial transparency and that they will investigate athletics spending more closely, but I doubt anything will really change.