College Sports Reform: Where Are the Faculty?

Abstract

prising is the historical absence of effective faculty oversight of the educational experiences of student athletes in bigtime college programs. Among the revelations that point to a failure of faculty governance in these matters, the most embarrassing must surely be the dismal graduation rates of athletes in several basketball and football programs. Reports in the popular press indicate that 4 percent of black basketball players graduated at the University of Georgia in a recent period. At one Big Ten school, the graduation rate for all basketball players was 9 percent. At Memphis State, the NAACPand not the faculty, it might be noteddiscovered that in a ten-year period, no black basketball player graduated. The list goes on and covers twenty or more schools that should have been embarrassed.