Having raised three children (a daughter and two sons) who are
currently Division I student athletes (basketball), having been
involved in sports practically all of my life, and having worked as an
educator for the past twenty-five years, I have been intimately
involved in the counseling and advising of student athletes and their
parents — particularly African American students. I also have worked
closely with coaches and athletic administrators at several
institutions.
These experiences — and my strong advocacy and love for students
and athletics — compel me to share my thoughts on the issues of crime
and antisocial behavior in intercollegiate sports.
Although statistics show that college athletes aren’t involved in
crime or antisocial behavior any more than other people their age, it
has become quite apparent that we as a university community must
address this behavior now. We can no longer merely slap these athletes
on the wrist or suspend them until practice begins. Serious steps must
be taken to implement creative, preventive solutions to this problem
that threatens to cause irreparable damage both to student athletes and
to our institutions.
First of all, we need to ask questions. What do we know about the
student athletes we are recruiting? Have we been so focused on their
athletic talents that we have overlooked other important
characteristics, such as attitude, citizenship, and personal
responsibility? What are our expectations of these young men and women?
Do we want them to graduate or merely to maintain their athletic
eligibility? What is and should be the role of the student athletes’
families? How do we get coaches to really care about the academic part
of student athletes’ lives?
Of course, student athletes are ultimately responsible for what
happens to them on the field or court as well as both in and outside of
the classroom. They must develop an interest in going beyond
maintaining eligibility and begin to focus on getting a quality
education.
But all, we need to be honest about the issue of student athletes’
overall preparation and about the attitudes they bring with them. We
cannot continue to pretend that these young people who have been
singled out as “special” all of their lives do not also have “special”
needs. The fact that they are teenagers and young adults with two
full-time jobs — as both students and athletes — should tell us that
we need to provide them with quality resources that other students
might not need.
African American athletes often feel that no one really cares about
their academic experiences. Many feel that as long as they are eligible
to play, everything is fine. Maintaining eligibility sometimes means
selecting courses and majors they don’t really care about.
Consequently, too many athletes don’t take their classes seriously and
no one demands otherwise. Attending class should be mandatory; often
it’s not.
