As a lifelong
Tar Heel fan, the recent academic issues that have embroiled the athletic
department have hurt my heart. I think it was just my naiveté that hoped that
Carolina was above the fray. Now it’s hard to watch the sports and not just be
cynical.
College sports,
so closely tied to American higher education, are under threat. Pushed on all
sides for quick success, Coaches, Administrators, Athletic Directors, and
University Presidents have adopted a win-at-any price mentality. Graduation
rates are abysmal, admission standards are ignored, and teams pay enormous sums
for the opportunity to destroy hapless foes. (See the SEC football schedule this
past weekend) Thinking they can just turn a blind eye to what they most
assuredly know is the common practice.
Money flows
freely between TV networks and university bank accounts, even as the quality of
the education steadily decays. Rather than an expectation of honor, discipline,
and teamwork, young men are constantly bombarded by the supposed importance of
their personal self-worth. A select few teams like my UNC Tar Heels have perfected
the fraud, sacrificing their academic missions, and student-athletes, in the
name of relevance and revenue. These schools are lauded for their on-field
excellence, even as they create horrifying monuments of shame off the playing
fields and courts. This travesty of a system continues to gorge itself, with
calls for change dismissed as hopeless idealism.
This wake-up
call has me firmly believing that you can count on every institution to have
this problem. Aside from Notre Dame, Stanford, Vanderbilt and Northwestern, the
other 296 NCAA schools are falling woefully below standard. Don’t tell me how
your school does this or that, with a deeper look you too will be like me and
soon be smacked into reality.
And to the
Universities that continue this fraud, you should be asked to reach out to the
countless decades of athletes who perpetuate our society with very little
employable skills and pay for them a REAL education and guarantee their degree.
Some would say
that schools like the above 4 could not compete in the present climate. I’m proud that Notre Dame is competing in
football and also is #1 in graduation rates.
I want a university
that I can sit in my chair and be proud of on the field, in the classroom,
and contributing to society. I need to believe once again that ethics and
education matter.
