When NCAA’s Division I bowed to increasing pressure last year to address lagging academic performance among student-athletes, its decision to raise the minimum academic requirements to qualify for intercollegiate competition stirred a backlash among officials at many HBCUs.
“It will kill us,” one HBCU president said in an off-the-record interview, asserting her school would be forced to cut a number of its best football and basketball athletes because they were academic underperformers. The new rules would also lessen the likelihood some rising athletes who finish high school academically underprepared could qualify.
The NCAA decision put the HBCU leaders in a bind.
Openly opposing the higher standards would send a message that HBCUs are putting athletic performance over academic performance. After all, the reason for going to college is ostensibly to earn a college degree that will prepare a person for a lifetime of employability.
By the same token, embracing the higher academic standards would force institutions to make some tough decisions in the case of academic underperformers whose athletic achievements could carry a school to lucrative, high-profile postseason tournaments.
“I’m for the increased standards, but I’ve indicated we need more money to hire counselors and increase technology for our student-athletes,” says Dr. William Harvey, president of Hampton University and a member of the Division I board of directors.
Harvey says NCAA leaders have promised more money for enhancing “the whole effort of academic support,” and he is optimistic they will make good on the promise.
