Air Ball: American Education's Failed Experiment with Elite Athletics

Articulating and Meeting Responsibilities

188 You can’t escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today. —Abraham Lincoln There is a well-worn story about the doctor telling the patient, “I’ve got good news and bad news regarding your health.” Well, here is the good news and bad news about the current health of college athletic reform. First, the bad news. Since 1982, when a group of presidents, working through the American Council on Education, proposed a set of academic standards that significantly raised the bar for freshman eligibility, higher education has been earnestly engaged in the issue of athletics reform. During this time, much progress has been made in student-athlete welfare, compliance, institutional control, and fiscal transparency. Yet, despite this progress, in the most fundamental way, nothing has changed. The vast majority of Division I ARTICULATING AND MEETING RESPONSIBILITIES 189 ARTICULATING AND MEETING RESPONSIBILITIES programs continue to lose money at an alarming rate and undermine academic values and institutional mission in significant ways. While much has been accomplished in reforming the structure, governance, and conduct of Division I athletics, the fact is that the higher education community has failed to honestly address its most fundamental flaw. Our colleges and universities continue to sponsor professional sports operations with core values and principles that are diametrically opposed to those of academic institutions . In short, American higher education has absolutely no business being in the business of professional athletics. Despite a rash of scandals suggesting that reform is a lost cause, there is good news. The prescribed remedy is as clear as the illness: the elimination of the athletic scholarship as a way to de-professionalize the enterprise. And, as outlined in chapters 4 and 5, there is growing evidence that the table of reform may finally be set. We may be approaching the tipping point for revolutionary change provided we have the courage to pursue it. Like the patient who must come to grips with his illness and develop the resolve and discipline to change his lifestyle to overcome it, so too must higher education. In other words, systemic reform is no longer a theoretical exercise; it now requires a choice. It is up to the patient to choose to do what is necessary to defeat the disease that has invaded his body. This begs the following question for trustees, presidents , athletics administrators, athletes, coaches, and faculty members: Why is reform of the type advocated in this book in their interest and what can they do to advance that agenda? 190 ARTICULATING AND MEETING RESPONSIBILITIES IT’S ALL ABOUT INTEGRITY Higher education’s foundation rests upon public purpose. Thus, maintaining the public’s trust is perhaps the most critical factor in higher education’s remaining an important and relevant public institution. When its integrity is called into question or is compromised, the public loses confidence in higher education’s ability to meet the many challenges facing our society. Thus, it is no surprise that the call to arms of the higher education community regarding athletics centers on the issue of integrity. In short, public confidence and trust is the lifeblood of an educational institution and every member of the higher education community should be concerned if any university operation, department, or function erodes that public confidence. As articulated in the 1929 Carnegie Report and each of the Knight Commission reports, the responsibility for providing leadership regarding reform rests with presidents. But presidents will not be able to do it alone. As the 2001 Knight Commission report states, “Change will come, sanity will be restored, only when the higher education community comes together to meet collectively the challenges its members face” (Knight Foundation Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, 2001a, p. 24). With this in mind, the purpose of this chapter is twofold : first, to personalize the stakes involved in athletics reform for key constituent groups and, second, to provide a sense of what each constituent group can do to meet their responsibility to contribute to the growing critical mass for reform. 191 ARTICULATING AND MEETING RESPONSIBILITIES TRUSTEES: THE NEXUS BETWEEN THE PUBLIC AND THE INSTITUTION It can no longer be denied that the way colleges and universities conduct their athletics programs has greatly contributed to our society’s loss of perspective regarding the role that sports should play in our schools, communities, and culture. While this argument was advanced in chapter 2, it bears mentioning again because...