Is the Demise of the Student-Athlete in Big-time Sports Finally in Sight?

   There is rumbling in the world of big-time college sports and with a little luck there will be an uproar before too long.  It’s about time, since for many decades—a century really—unending numbers of deep problems have been seen to be rooted in the fact that college students, who as such are subject to academic requirements for admission and continuation as students, are the agents who carry out the mission of entertaining untold thousands by playing basketball and, especially, football.  (The football stadium of the University of Michigan has an official capacity of 110,000 and is said to be able to hold crowds larger than 115,000.)  Each time a new problem pops up, a band aid with ineffective adhesive is applied, leading to a concatenation of rules and principles that, while making Ptolemy’s epicycles look streamlined, manage above all to inspire evasions of every variety.[1]

   The recent rumbling began with former football players at Northwestern University who, as co-founders of the College Athletes Players Association, proposed to have such college athletes unionize.[2]  They convince me about the many issues they raise, grievances that reveal that these high visibility student athletes are exploited in a variety of ways.  Indeed, the whole notion of student-athletes in Division I mainline spectator sports is deeply suspect. 

   As long ago as in the first decade of the 20^th century—a hundred years ago, that is—David Starr Jordan, then the founding president of Stanford University (after having served a stint as president of Indiana University) declared, presumably with a sigh, that it would be much better if the University hired young men just to play for Good (not very) Old Stanford, letting them take courses if they wanted to.  If the pattern he had in mind were followed, a group of colleges and universities would take on the role for football and, presumably, basketball that minor league clubs do for baseball.  Perhaps the step now taken by the Northwestern football players will lead there in the long run. 

   Were this proposal implemented, there would of course have to be various rules concerning the conditions under which these young athletes are hired, rules about their compensation, treatment, and how long they may retain their positions, and so on.  Such a batch of regulations, however, could easily be a model of simplicity and succinctness compared to the wads of pre-and pro-scriptions of the NCAA.  I would propose that part of the compensation of these youngsters be the permission to take courses and even work toward a degree, but that, on the one hand, they would not be required to do so but, on the other, that in their (voluntary) role as students, they would be subject to the same rules and requirements as are “regular” students, except that they would be permitted to take fewer courses at any one time than those regulars are or, indeed, none at all.

   I flatly reject two possible objections to such a scheme.  The less plausible one is the supposition that these hired hands would not give their all in playing their athletic roles for the institution.  Why wouldn’t they if they are treated well, especially considering that their performance will surely be the main determinant as to whether they will be promoted, so to speak, to the major leagues.

   A more plausible one—or at least one that I have heard expressed a number of times—is that the fans of the University of Michigan’s Wolverines (and their equivalents) would less enthusiastic about their team and lessen their attendance at the games.  I concede that there may be a wobbly period of transition, but I would confidently predict that it would not last very long.  The difference between before and after is, after all, purely cerebral and not at all experiential.  Whether a spectator sits in the first row or in the gods, as the French say, he or she would not note anything different from what they had seen before: broad-shouldered young men running and throwing and clobbering each other.  (See “Gladiators Then and Now,” my post of February 11, 2014.)  Assuming the spectators are there because they enjoy watching football, they will continue to enjoy just as much as they did before the change of the players’ status; they will get used to it.

   And while we are deflating myths, let me conclude by denying two additional ones.  A vigorous student-conducted athletic program is needed to inspire donors to contribute to the coffers of the college or university.  People make contributions for all kinds of reasons, from everywhich sort of motive.  Those who give money because they are enthusiasts for one or another college sport, it has been noted more than once, don’t endow chairs in literary study, the give money that will support some aspect of athletics.[3]

   Nothing wrong with giving money for athletics, especially—to turn to the second myth—since all kinds of games are played with the budget for that enterprise.  The fact is that a woefully tiny fraction of institutions actually derive an income from athletics.  At the vast majority of colleges and universities more is spent on spectator-oriented athletics than it brings in.  This would even be clearer if the bookkeeping were honest.  Alas, it is not unusual to have the recruitment of athletes charged to the Office of Admissions, the maintenance of the stadium debited to Buildings and Grounds, the use of college vehicles charged to the carpool—and so on.  In short, many institutions don’t even know what their big-time athletic costs them—especially when they don’t really want to find out.

   The Northwestern footballers have started something that ultimately may, finally, see the transformation of athletics in higher education.  But while I am eighty-seven years old and don’t expect to live long enough to see the culmination of this new start, I hope that some of my readers will.  

---

[1] When I was provost at the University of Pittsburgh, I was asked to be the new member of the group of three that would determine which football player candidates would be recruited as one of the few permitted by the NCAA who did not conform to standard requirements.  When I suggested, when the first case was being considered, that we look at his transcript, I was puzzled by the raucous laughter by my experienced partners.  The transcript, I was told, came from a high school that specialized in feeding football players to colleges such as Pitt and that they were all doctored—a euphemism for falsified.  

[2] In the interest of full disclosure, I was dean of arts and sciences at Northwestern from 1973 to 1987.  During some of those years Northwestern and my alma mater, Columbia College, were neck and neck for the longest losing records of their football teams.  Northwestern has done somewhat better since.

[3] When I taught at Vassar, its president came back from a trip to California and reported to the faculty that an alumna had given the College a tidy sum to create or refurbish (I have forgotten which) a playing field.  When he was chastised by the faculty who had very different priorities, he said rather plaintively that this particular donor was a sports enthusiast and would not have provided funds for anything else.  “Should I have turned down her gift?”