Athletes in Big-Time College Sport - David Meggyesy
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
Athletes in Big-Time College Sport
David Meggyesy
We are living in a time when college athletics are hon-As a non-profit educational association, the NCAA
eycombed with falsehood, and when the professionsadministers
of college sport and promulgates and enforces
amateurism are usually hypocrisy. No college team ever rules agreed upon by its 1027 member schools that
meets another with actual faith in the other's eligibility.
provide athletic programs for approximately 325,000
—President William Funce of Brown University, in a
athletes. The NCAA, with an annual budget of $32
speech before the National Education Association,
1904. million, employs approximately 270 people.
The NCAA member schools are divided into three
I n responding to Professor Harry Edward's essay divisions (I, II, III) based on school size. Division I is
egarding black athletes in "amateur" college sport, further divided into three Divisions (IA, IAA. lAAA)
my focus will be on the National Collegiate Athletic based primarily on a school's athletic department's
Association's (NCAA) 114 Division IA colleges and ability to generate revenue, stadium seating capacity
universities, particularly the top 50 or so "power and student body size. In its present form, the NCAA
schools" and their revenue producing football and bas- is dominated by tbe approximately fifty Division IA
ketball sports programs. At these institutions we see "power schools" whose athletic departments field the
the most glaring contradictions between the avowed top college football and men's basketball teams and
educational mission of these schools' athletic programs, are profit centers for their universities based on their
their governing organization (the NCAA) and the com- highly successful sports programs. Women's basket-
mercial reality of their athletic departments and the ball at some of these top schools, the University of
NCAA itself Athletic departments at these top ath- Tennessee and Stanford University for example, run
letic schools are highly profitable sports entertainment programs that are highly successful and profitable. At
enterprises. these top athletic schools, football and basketball rev-
Overseeing virtually all post-secondary sports pro- enues fund the overall athletic department and its non-
grams in the United States, the NCAA was founded revenue producing sports programs and still show a
in 1905 in response to the rising death toll in college profit.
football and increasing "professionalism" of college An 18-member executive committee governs the
sports in general. Its mission, then and now, is "to NCAA. Although the 318 Division I schools comprise
maintain intercollegiate athletics as an integral part 31 % of the NCAA membership, they hold 13 (or 72%)
of the educational program and the athlete as an of the seats on the executive committee. Within the
integral part of the student body." College sports governance structure of Division I, of the 15-member
programs, then and now. are conceived as amateur board of directors, nine members (or 60%) come from
educational experiences that benefit and enhance the Division IA schools. In addition. Division IA schools
overall education of students who happen to be ath- hold 18 seats on the 34-member Division I Manage-
letes. ment Council.
ATHLETES IN BIG-TIME COLLEGE SPORT/ 25
In commercial terms, during the last 20 years, rev- the revenues, and the schools, who present the
enue-producing college sport has exploded. NCAA games and reap the financial windfall, lies the fer-
member school sports revenues have increased 8000% tile field of exploitation of human labor and an
since 1976 and NCAA revenues went from $6.6 mil- underground or black-market economy that trades
lion in 1977-78 to $267 million in 1997-98. Make no in young, primarily black athletes.
mistake, big-time college football and basketball pro-
grams are now, collectively, a multi-billion dollar sports Athletic Scholarship System
entertainment enterprise. Central to the athletic scholarship system is an im-
plied quid pro quo; student athletes will receive a qual-
Education versus Commerce ity college education in trade for four years of athletic
The primary contradiction within the NCAA and, in service. However, there is a significant flaw in the eco-
particular, its top revenue producing schools is that, on nomic argument that justifies not paying a revenue-pro-
one hand the amateur rules apply to the athletes and ducing athlete cash money because of his or her athletic
on the other, the rules of the market apply to the school's scholarship cost. Adding 100 scholarship student ath-
athletic departments with the big exception being their letes to a 10,000 undergraduate student body minimally
labor costs. Putting it a different way, on one hand the increases the overall costs of educating the total, in this
NCAA and its member schools are non-profit educa- example, thel0,100 undergraduate student body. The
tional entities, with their athlete employees categorized university's absorbing the scholarship cost for 100 stu-
as student athletes, and on the other their athletic de- dent athlete's athletic scholarships is really a "paper ex-
partments, at the top level, are highly profitable com- pense," because the actual education cost for scholar-
mercial enterprises. Interestingly, various federal courts ship athletes is absorbed by the university's undergraduate
have recognized college athletic departments, as com- program. No extra capital expenditures are necessary to
peting commercial entities whose activities fall within accommodate the additional 100 student-athletes, nor is
the purview of federal anti-trust laws. the school required to hire extra professors to teach them.
In a recent case, in March 1999, the NCAA reached For sure, expenses for room and board are real costs, yet
a $54.5 million settlement with entry-level college compared torevenuesgenerated, they are miniscule. With
coaches who had sued the NCAA on anti-trust this essentially cost-free labor pool, it is small wonder
grounds. In 1991 the NCAA Division I schools by a big-time programs are so profitable.
nearly unanimous vote agreed to cap entry-level In the present system the most important issue
coach's salaries at $12,000 per year and $4,000 for for black and white scholarship student athletes alike
the summer. The coaches sued and in 1995 a federal is whether or not they will receive a legitimate col-
court found the NCAA violated anti-trust law. The lege education and degree that is translatable to
NCAA appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court meaningful and financially viable work as "pay-
where its petition was denied, thus opening the door ment" for their athletic services. Unfortunately, in
for the settlement. most cases they will not. Looking at graduation
As athletic departments at our major universities rates for incoming National Football League (NFL)
have explicitly become sports entertainment businesses, players, of the 211 rookies on NFL teams in 1998 only
the athletes, unfortunately, still must function under the 13, or 6 percent, had graduated. In August 1999 The
original NCAA mandate as "amateur student-athletes" Chronicle of Higher Education reported: "Graduation
who don't get paid for their athletic labor. By continu- rates of football players and of men's and women's bas-
ing to define, what are essentially athlete employees ketball players at colleges in the NCAA's top division
as "amateur student-athletes," the college athlete have fallen to their lowest levels in seven years. The re-
labor market does not fall under federal or state anti- port also states, "... the new figures show fewer black
trust laws or state workers compensation laws. As athletes graduating than at any time since the mid-
such, any compensation or lack thereof that athletes 1980s...." when Proposition 48 was instimted to help
receive, which the NCAA member schools as eco- solve the problem. In the Division I revenue producing
nomic competitors have conspired to and agreed upon, sports, football and men's basketball, 51% of football
cannot be challenged in anti-trust court. Further, by players graduated and 41% of male basketball players
defming athlete employees as amateur student-athletes, graduated after six years. According to the report,
workers compensation benefits due to injury on the only 33% of Division I black male basketball play-
job are non-existent. In this existing relationship be- ers graduated in six years, the lowest graduation
tween the athletes, who, in the final analysis, produce rate since 1985.
26 / SOCIETY • MARCH/APRIL 2000
The Chronicle ... does not examine the quality of back for example. Black football players were
education measured in part by the potential future "worth" "stacked" in positions thought to merely require
of a particular degree. Clearly a degree in engineering or raw talent and athleticism, running back and de-
a quality liberal arts degree will be potentially worth more fensive back, for example.
than a degree in criminal justice or recreation. Examin- However, due to increasing economic pressure
ing kinds of degrees earned by NFL players shows a during the last decade on coaching staffs in the top
preponderance of athlete graduates fall into what could programs to "win and win now," and changing so-
be called the non-academic degree category. This pat- cial attitudes, black athletes now star in all college
tern is not so much an affirmation of the "dumb jock" football team positions including quarterback. Given
stereotype but rather is a product of an athletic/aca- the chance, black athletes are becoming the best
demic structure that severely limits educational op- players at these former "white" positions exempli-
portunity for scholarship athletes. Participation in a fied by the fact that three black and two white col-
top revenue-producing program is more than a full- lege quarterbacks were number one picks in the
time job as numerous commentators have pointed 1999 NFL college player draft.
out with extended seasons, away game travel, off- While the NCAA and its Division IA member
season conditioning and strength-training programs schools exploit the talents of black athletes and deny
and in-season practice and meetings. these same athletes access to a quality education, they
also limit employment opportunities to blacks athletes
The Black Athlete after their athletic career ends. For the 1999 season in
Student athletes' participation in college revenue the 114 Division IA college football programs, black
producing sports programs, which are dominated by players comprised 51% of the total while there were
black athletes, continues to reveal a century long pat- only five black head coaches equaling 4% of the total.
tern of exploitation of student athletes. As black ath- Black Division I basketball coaches comprised 28%,
letes increasingly dominate college revenue producing 86 out of 310. Clearly, for black athletes, opportunities
sports the burden of this exploitive system falls on their for career advancement in their sport beyond their ath-
shoulders. The plight of the black athlete, in what letic career are virtually non-existent. A glass ceiling
could by understatement be called a system of ath- is a fact of life for black coaches and athletic adminis-
letic exploitation, is a matter of degree compared trators in "big-time" college sports programs as it is,
to white athletes. However it is more severe due to incidentally, in the NFL, National Basketball Associa-
an underlying pattern and consequence of racism tion (NBA) and Major League Baseball.
in college sports as well as the larger society. Nev- Shoring up this fiction of the amateur student-ath-
ertheless, the most onerous issues black athletes lete, and, in an attempt to blunt rising criticism of this
face in Division IA revenue producing sports pro- exploitive system, the NCAA member schools in 1983
grams, primarily football and basketball, are almost enacted Proposition 48. Ten years before in 1973. in
identical to those faced by white athletes. By way response to a rising tide of student athlete protests,
of analogy, when Jerry Kramer the white All-Pro primarily by black athletes, the NCAA Division IA
Green Bay Packer guard who played for the late schools eliminated their four-year athletic grants-in-
legendary NFL coach, Vince Lombardi, was asked aid (athletic scholarships) converting them to one-year
if Lombardi treated black football players differ- renewable grants. With the one-year renewable schol-
ently than whites, his reply was, "Not really, he arship the head coach and athletic department had a
treats us all like dogs." bigger hammer to control the athletes. If an athlete
For the black athlete there still exist a number of misbehaves in the eyes of the coach, his scholarship
other issues revolving around race that exacerbates can be terminated. Critics pointed out that Prop. 48
their plight in our country's top college athletic pro- was a not so veiled attempt to reduce the number of
grams. For example, the virtual lack of black coaches black scholarship athletes, assuming that more high
and athletic directors in Division IA programs and rem- school black athletes than whites would be unable to
nants of racially motivated "stacking," the practices of meet the Proposition 48 requirements. In fact this as-
denying black athletes access to certain positions on a sumption has turned out to be the case. As Dr.
football team. Historically, in big-time college and pro- Edwards's article points out, "In the frrst two years of
fessional football, blacks had been denied access to Proposition 48 enforcement 92% of ail academically
what were called the "thinking" positions, "the lilly ineligible basketball players and 84% of academi-
white triangle," the center, two guards and quarter- cally ineligible football players were black athletes."
ATHLETES IN BlG-TlME COLLEGE SPORT/ 27
Proposition 48, as an attempt to legitimize the NCAA's mission of athletics as education versus
educational mission of the Division I revenue pro- the reality of revenue producing college athletics as
ducing college sports programs by establishing big business, and the competitive marketplace for supe-
minimal academic standards for incoming student rior athletic talent, I believe it can be categorically said
athletes, had the unspoken and, some would say, that every big-time athletic program violates NCAA rules
desired effect on black athletes. It was devastating. or university policy. Simply put, different academic stan-
However Proposition 48 also caused an unintended dards and ethical conduct exist for revenue producing
effect; not only did it negatively impact black ath- student-athletes and their athletic departments versus regu-
letes as a group, it potentially eliminated superior lar students and their respective academic departments.
black athletes who were coveted by the top ath- By sustaining the fiction of the amateur athlete, a flour-
letic programs. In response, the NCAA in 1990 ishing "black market" or underground economy exists
instituted Proposition 42 to "loophole" Proposition for exceptional high school athletes involving school
48 creating a category of potential scholarship ath- alumni, scouts, agents, runners, athletic shoe companies,
lete called "partial qualifiers." However, as Dr. high school coaches and high school administrators.
Edwards points out, tbe net effect of both proposi- Because many superior high school athletes are black
tions 48 and 42 "... has been to limit the opportu- and poor, and have attended academically deficient high
nities—both educational and athletic—that would schools, this means the interested university will need
otherwise be available to black youth." "help" in recruiting an athlete, admitting the athlete
In 1996, as an amendment to Proposition 48, the as a student to the university and keeping the ath-
NCAA adopted Proposition 16 which established a lete eligible for athletic participation and enrolled
minimum 820 score on the Scholarship Aptitude Test in school.
(SAT) for incoming scholarship athletes, over protests Perhaps the greatest irony of this morally bankrupt
from minority groups including the Black Coaches system for black athletes and their parents is how the
Association. In March 1999. federal Judge Ronald work of largely poor black athletes, who dominate the
Buckwalter in Cureton v. NCAA ruled the NCAA top revenue producing fcx)tball and basketball programs,
could not use minimum test scores to eliminate student finances the almost exclusively middle class white
athletes from eligibility because the practice is discrimi- "minor" sports programs, million dollar plus coach's
natory and unfair to blacks. On December 22, 1999, in salaries, and extremely generous athletic department
a two-to-one decision, the US Third Circuit Court of administration budgets.
Appeals reversed Judge Buckwalter's ruling on a tech-
nicality. The Appellate Court did not address the pri- Radical Reform or Continued Corruption?
mary issue in the case. By fostering the widening contradiction between the
Judge Buckwalter's ruling, I believe, signaled a fresh educational mission of the university and a for-profit
assessment of the NCAA mission and the role of rev- sports entertainment enterprise on their college cam-
enue producing sports programs at our major universi- puses, college officials have opened the door wide for
ties, particularly now, given the significant revenues the exploitation of revenue producing athletes. They
involved. At the heart of his ruling is the issue of dis- have created a hypocritical system that allows corrup-
crimination and exploitation, particularly of black ath- tion, dishonesty, and unfair dealing to be the rule. The
letes that is embedded in. an almost century-old sys- cynical "bottom line" that justifies this state of affairs
tem of athlete exploitation in collegiate revenue is that it is cheaper for the NCAA's member schools
producing sports. Furthermore, Judge Buckwalter's de- to maintain this dishonest and corrupt system rather
cision points directly to a fundamental issue the NCAA than compete in the open market for athletic talent,
has been dancing around for years, which is equitable much like professional sports teams do.
compensation in real dollars for athletes who generate It is apparent that the present system of college
these enormous college sports revenues. His decision revenue producing sport needs radical change. I
also raises the issue of whether or not a college edu- would propose a college sports system that allows
cation is appropriate or fair compensation for all NCAA the top fifty or so schools to have legitimate pro-
revenue-producing athletes. fessional football and basketball teams with a ma-
The central issue for black athletes, (and white jor caveat being the athlete having a range of
athletes as well) is dealing with an essentially cor- choices as to how he or she will be paid, for their
rupt and exploitive, "amateur" athletic system. athletic labor. These choices would range from ac-
Given the existing contradiction between the cess to a guaranteed legitimate college education to
28 / SOCIETY • MARCH/APRIL 2000
cash payments or salaries. Athletes and their parents rade of being a student athlete. And they should
would select the various compensation plans and sign not be forced to provide a college with three or
a binding contract with the school. Provisions could four years of athletic labor before they have the
include modifying the compensation plan as the ath- opportunity to enter the pros.
lete career emerges. For example, an athlete could In the present system, the vast majority of revenue
choose a guaranteed seven year scholarship as a high producing athletes' athletic careers end in college; less
school senior but after his sophomore year, because than one percent of Division IA athletes gain a pro-
he has a good chance at a professional career, could fessional team roster slot. After four years of athletic
elect to take cash payments and focus on training for labtjr, most walk away from their university without a
his sport, much like Olympic athletes do. In this college education or worthwhile degree, carrying only
scheme athletes could attend trade schools or enter memories. Paraphrasing an old saying, "memories
apprentice programs, the cost of which would be part and a dollar bill will get you a cup of coffee."
of their compensation package. Similarly athletes Note: Subsequent to writing this article I read Un-
could elect non-academic courses of study at the uni- paid Professionab: Conunetrialism and Conflict in Big-
versity or other post-secondary schools. Tune College Sports by Andrew Zimbalist, Princeton
The thrust of the above general scheme is to in- University Press, 1999. Zimbalist's and my analy-
troduce a notion of honesty and fair dealing in rev- ses of revenue producing college sport coincide to a
enue producing college sport. Given the relation- remarkable degree. He has produced an extremely
ship revenue producing college sports programs thorough and detailed analysis of college revenue sport
(football and basketball) have with the NFL and and an excellent book. I would recommend it highly
NBA, where the colleges are the developmental to anyone interested in big-time college sport, the ram-
(minor) leagues for the pros, most high .school ath- pant contradictions inherent in it and the almost fright-
letes need to play college ball to sufficiently de- ening patterns of racism, gender exploitation,
velop their athletic skills to play in the NFL and cronyism, political boosterism. and exploitation of
NBA. Professional football and basketball don*t many of our finest athletes.
bear the cost of supporting minor leagues to de-
velop talent and the colleges, under their present David Meggyesy is the western director of the National
system, have access to a cost-free athletic labor Football League Players Association (NFLPA). He is au-
pool. Those athletes who possess the athletic skill thor of Out of Their League, his football autobiography, and
to play professionally should not be penalized or numerous articles regarding sport and society. He played
compromised by needing to go through the cha- seven \ears in the NFL with the St. Louis Cardinals.
Learn to Earn
Imagine if you could teach your savings to protect itself from inflation. Now you can with the new
Series I Bond from ihe U.S. Treasury It protects your investment fn^m inflation, no matter what happens.
And I Bonds are available ai most financial institutions. Call for more
information, or wriie I Bond investor's Guide. Parkersburg, WV 26106-1328.
I-800-4US BOND • wvrw.savingsbonds.gov
'•I Ul r' III Illi-. pi||l|||,|||ilt1 B/eryone Needs a Safe PlaceYou can also read
