Student athletes across the country balance sports and academics every day. That commitment, however, can vary in difficulty depending on the athlete and college. Some schools let athletes skim by in the classroom because they overly prioritize the success of their athletic programs. At AU, on the other hand, academics are such a high priority that some athletes are quitting teams to focus on building their futures. AU should be proud of this.
Recently, Mary Willingham of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill published research that revealed 60 percent of UNC men’s basketball and football players read between fourth- and eighth-grade levels. Another 8 percent read at or below a third-grade level. UNC officials also recently admitted to enrolling athletes in classes that don’t actually exist.
But this is not just a UNC problem. Similar cases of athlete mistreatment and academic fraud have been uncovered all over the country at schools like Florida State University, Auburn University and Purdue University. This is a cultural problem that puts pressure on athletes to neglect their studies, teachers to ignore their job descriptions and universities to prioritize exposure over education.
So what is AU’s role in that culture? Obviously our athletics program cannot compare to the UNCs or Florida States of college athletics. But we are a Division I program with league championships across multiple sports and a men’s basketball team that competed in the NCAA tournament this year. Many members of the AU community hope to see the athletics program continue to grow, and with that growth will inevitably come pressure to give athletes a free pass.
At the moment AU is setting the standard for an athletics program that prioritizes the “student” half of student-athlete. Students like Brett Habermehl and James Connors, who both left their respected teams to focus on academics, exemplify that standard. Meanwhile AU athletes are regularly honored by the Patriot League with academic accolades.
But if more winning seasons come, and the athletics program does continue to grow, as this newspaper hopes it will, AU should resist the urge to compromise its academic prestige for the sake of athletic glory. Students may gripe and moan about our athletics program, but that doesn’t mean they want to see a fundamental shift in our University’s character.
If they did, they would have gone to UNC. – E
