12/14/97

Big-money college athletics is one of those subjects to which I pay as little attention as possible. It doesn't do universities any good, I'm sure, but the harm it does is principally suffered by willing participants and I have no warrant to stop them doing what they choose. 
     But recently I had a chance to hear Murray Sperber talk about his favorite subject, the corrupting effect of rivers of sports money flowing through the universities. Sperber is a professor of English and American Studies at Indiana University in Bloomington, but better known as the author of College Sports, Inc.: The Athletic Department vs. The University. 
     He makes a strong case that the harm is spread much more widely than I had thought. 
     It's not just the athletes who are hired _ no other word will do _ to play for their school and then discarded without a degree when their eligibility is exhausted. It's also the far larger number of youngsters who spend every spare minute on the basketball court or the football field hoping to qualify for an atheltic scholarship, and in the process throw away their opportunities for academic achievement. 
     And it's also the burden on college budgets. In theory, the revenues from big sports subsidize other less popular sports. But it doesn't always work that way in practice. 
     The schools that play in Division 1 of the National Collegiate Athletic Association report spending more than $2 billion on athletics in the 1995-96 school year, and receiving $1.8 billion in revenue. That missing $200 million doesn't come out of coaches' wallets. 
     Furthermore, Sperber says, the numbers aren't reliable. His own school, Indiana, reports a pleasing $7 million profit. But only because of what's not on the books. Coaches' salaries aren't included in the expenses, for instance, because they're listed as faculty members. 
     ``The only uniform method they use,'' he said, ``is creative accounting.'' 
     I don't know how creative it is, but the University of Colorado ranks 24th in revenue received, $20.4 million, and 26th in spending, $19.7 million. Colorado State University took in $9.3 million and spent $9.2 million. 
     Athletes' academic troubles are also worse than they appear, Sperber says. Schools have to report how their athletes' graduation rate compares with all students'. But even when the numbers are similar, they don't mean much. Most people fail to graduate because they run out of money, not because they flunk out. Athletes on scholarship don't have that problem; in addition, they often have ``wall-to-wall'' tutors and major in ``hideaway curriculums'' designed solely for them. 
     At Michigan, for instance, many athletes study something called ``sports management,'' and whatever it is, not a single credit of it will transfer to the regular undergraduate program if a player wants to major in a regular subject. 
     Even so, graduation rates are lower and sometimes shockingly so. In the 1997 NCAA database CU-Boulder reported an overall graduation rate of 65.4 percent, but 43.1 percent for football and 40.0 percent for basketball. CSU's rate for all students is 56.0 percent, actually a bit less than the football rate, 56.6 percent, but far higher than the rate for their basketball players, 29.4 percent. 
     The problem is that there aren't enough students good both in the classroom and on the field to fill all the spots on Division 1 teams. Only 300 or so blue-chip football prospects score 1050 or higher on the SAT. 
     There are only about 25 really topflight recruits, Sperber joked, ``and Notre Dame gets 15 of them.'' 
     Most other schools just have to recruit weaker students for the gladiatorial contests.  
     In July, the Chronicle of Higher Education published admissions data for schools with top-25 sports programs in football and basketball. CU-Boulder's football players had an average high-school GPA of 2.81, and an average SAT of 948; their basketball team averaged 2.77 GPA and 978 SAT. 
     For all freshmen, according to data CU reports to the Colorado Commission on Higher Education, average GPA is 3.5 and SAT is 1159. 
     In fact, the middle 50 percent of Boulder's incoming freshmen have SAT scores from 1070-1270, so the average athlete in these major sports is buried deep in the bottom quarter of the entering class. No wonder they struggle. 
     Of course it's true that some students who start college with less than stellar records turn out fine. But they're starting way behind the line, and burdened in addition with 30-40 hours a week of practice and game time, few of them can catch up. 
     And out there in the high schools are millions of kids trying to be just like them.