Sport, Education and Hypocrisy |
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[Joyce Duncan forwarded the following post from the Popular Culture
list; its author is Samuel Smith. --Kevin Brooks]
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996
Subject: Sport, Education and Hypocrisy
With a thrilling NBA Final just behind us and one of the most disturbing
NBA drafts in memory looming before us, I've been pondering a few
ponderables about Sport and Education -- or more to the point, Sport
VERSUS Education -- and how we can compare the basketball system with
other pro sports leagues in our culture. I'd be interested to hear what
some of my colleagues here might have to say.
Many commentators, myself included, have been lamenting the fact that an
increasing number of college basketball players are leaving school early
to enter the NBA draft. Many, including Michael Jordan himself (left UNC
after Junior year) have done quite well for themselves. But in the ranks
of pro hoop, there's a huge difference between a 21 year-old and a 19
year-old. Physically, many kids need that extra year to develop bodies
that can withstand an 82-game grind, and emotionally, well, remember how
WE were at 19? If you'd given me a $3 million/year salary I'd probably be
dead by now.
And there are plenty of horror stories to back this assertion. The cases
of Pearl Washington, Skip Wise, and Chris Washburn are three which leap
immediately to mind.
Now the question isn't about leaving college early, though. Kevin
Garnett's success this year (he entered the draft directly out of high
school last year) has apparently prompted more kids to try the same thing,
and there at least two such cases in the upcoming draft pool.
This is an awful thing, right? Kids need a college degree, the seasoning
and maturity that goes with developing the intellect, etc. And so we're
all screaming to high heaven about what is happening.
But then I think about other sports, namely baseball and hockey. Baseball
has been signing kids out of high school for decades, plugging them into
their farm systems beginning at age 18. Some make it, and some don't.
The ones who don't might wash out in their 20s and you can't really save
for a college education on a minor league salary. Hockey drafts out of
the Juniors, and the setup there is much the same.
I don't think many of us can really use the phrase "scholar-athlete" with
a straight face anymore, so it's not like we really kid ourselves about
why Stephon Marbury enrolled at Georgia Tech. But there's another layer
of hypocrisy here, and I think perhaps critics such as myself are guilty
of holding one sport to a different standard than others.
Of course, maybe there are other mitigating factors. Baseball has
historically drafted lots of white kids, and since most hockey prospects
come out of Canada that tends to be a pretty white enterprise as well.
Hoops, on the other hand, draws heavily from urban landscapes peopled
largely by poor(er) blacks. So perhaps the concern is underpinned by a
racial exploitation factor I haven't considered.
At any rate, maybe some of you can shed a bit of light on this?
Samuel R. Smith
Center for Mass Media Research 303.543.8610 (voice)
University of Colorado smithsr@spot.colorado.edu
http://spot.colorado.edu/~smithsr/Home.html
Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996
From: Donald
Johnson
Hi,
I'm Don Johnson, professor of English at East Tennessee State
University, long-time SLA member, and editor of Aethlon: the Journal
of Sport Lit. I guess I'm in the minority, but I really think if a
kid has a shot at the NBA with big money he should take it. College
ball might injure him, or he might get hit by a car crossing the
street, thus ending any opportunity for glory. School will be there
always, and a better argument might be made for reaching maturity
before one undertakes an eduation than before one enters the NBA.
If it were my son, I'd say, go for it.
Don Johnson
Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996
From: John J.
Crocitti
Regarding Samuel Smith's comparison of basketball and baseball:
I might suggest that the NBA is evolving into de facto major and minor
leagues. Hot draft choices, especially those foregoing the college
experience, end up on lesser known, inferior teams. They hone their
skills for three years and, if they are on the brink of superstar status,
they use free agency to bolt to better teams located in the major media
markets. Shaq would be a good example of this. He left LSU in his junior
year, played with Orlando for 5 years, and now has left for Los
Angeles despite a generous offer from his original team. In a couple
years, when Penny follows Shaq, Orlando will be lucky to even make the
playoffs. This is roughly comparable to the major-minor league system
in baseball. Remember, in the days of the Yankee dynasty, the Kansas
City Athletics were considered an unofficial minor league team that
groomed prospects for New York.
John C.
Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996
From: Bob Brown
Samuel Smith has brought a topic of considerable interest, as is obvious
by the number of replies. Much of the debate stems from the issue of
what exactly the purpose of college is. The ideal holds that the
university is a place of the mind, where one goes to better their lives
by taking courses, interacting in an intellectual environment, and
improving their mental capabilities. Some may go so far to say that
colleges should be reserved for those with the love of learning only.
More realistically, college is a site for improving skills to
make oneself more marketable in the job search. Higher education, for
all practical purposes, is the minor leagues for the world of
employment. We train people in business, law, education, science,
engineering, etc, so that they can get better jobs. It is becoming
harder and harder to find a student who attends college simply to better
their minds (and these few end up going to graduate school). And, if a
student locates a good job they want before they graduate, there is some
personal debate over which path to choose, yet no national controversy.
If a business major receives a good job offer and leaves college early,
they go, perhaps to return again someday.
The athlete is simply taking advantage of the same system. They
come to college to improve their skills for the purpose of getting a job
in the field they desire. While the numbers show that most will not
achieve their goal, who is to say they should not try? And if they get
the opportunity to get their dream job, then why should they not go?
There are problems, of course. Most will never make it to the
pros, and therefore should concentrate of developing other skills while
at school to be prepared for the future. Also, unlike the business
major, the college athlete is not allowed to come back to work on their
skills after they have signed in the "real" world. Finally, because
athletes are under such a microscope, they find themselves receiving
pressures and criticisms unreceived by other students (most of these
criticisms from those who feel the athlete has misused college by
emphasizing skills over the mind).
A difficult, and growing, issue.
Bob Brown
Indiana University
Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996
From: Judith
Hakola
Embedded in Samuel Smith recent "ponder" on students and athletes and
student-athletes is a factor that distinguishes basketball from
baseball and hockey, but he didn't comment on it specifically. That is,
that both baseball and hockey have minor/junior leagues in which and
through which youngsters who aren't academically college material can
gain both experience and physical and emotional maturity out of the
limelight--and without the temptation/distraction of immediate big bucks.
And since many of the teams in both hockey and baseball are
affiliated with major league teams, the young players in them are
watched over somewhat, albeit to protect the investment. I don't think
the CBA or European basketball teams offer anything comparable, so the
young, talented, ambitious high school basketball player really doesn't
have much choice except college to hone his (and soon her?) skills. If
there were viable alternatives, I suspect that many young players would
gladly forego the hassle of meeting (or evading) NCAA admission
standards, academic requirements, etc. Football players are in a
similar bind--there really isn't any other route to the big time than
through college teams. (Ironically, as college hockey becomes a
"better" game, Canadian and American scouts are urging talented kids to
get their "minor league" training in an American college program--at
the expense of the colleges. Thus we too often have colleges trying to
keep French-speaking student athletes academically eligible.)
Judy Hakola
University of Maine
Date: Sun, 28 Jul 1996
From: Richard C. Crepeau
I would like to join in seconding both Don Johnson and Judy Hakola in
their response to the posting by Samuel Smith. I would also add that there
is little evidence that "seasoning and maturing that goes with
developing the intellect" actually takes place for any significant numbers
of student athletes or perhaps even students who are preoccupied with
outside activity.
The notion that any athlete who is interested in going to college only to
develop his or her athletic skills belongs there, is as bogus as the
notion that any student who goes to college to grow up belongs there.
Institutions of higher learning should not exist to teach trade skills or
serve as society's baby sitters. Unfortunately they do, and the less it
happens the better. Get those who are athletes only off to the minor
leagues in all sports and get them off campus.
None of this will happen, as indeed the American university has long since
accepted these roles of vocational training and baby sitter, along with
that of being a provider of entertainment for the masses.
Dick Crepeau
Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996
From: Adam Barnhart
>From: "John J. Crocitti"
>Subject: Re: Sport, Education and Hypocrisy
>
>
>Regarding Samuel Smith's comparison of basketball and baseball:
>
>I might suggest that the NBA is evolving into de facto major and minor
>leagues. Hot draft choices, especially those foregoing the college
>experience, end up on lesser known, inferior teams. They hone their
>skills for three years and, if they are on the brink of superstar status,
>they use free agency to bolt to better teams located in the major media
>markets. Shaq would be a good example of this. He left LSU in his
>junior year, played with Orlando for 5 years, and now has left for Los
>Angeles despite a generous offer from his original team. In a couple
>years, when Penny follows Shaq, Orlando will be lucky to even make the
>playoffs. This is roughly comparable to the major-minor league system
>in baseball. Remember, in the days of the Yankee dynasty, the Kansas
>City Athletics were considered an unofficial minor league team that
>groomed prospects for New York.
Be careful with that major-minor analogy with respect to baseball. The
example of the KC A's is one that isn't completely uncommon in baseball
history (witness the Cleveland Spiders, which is even a MORE extreme
example of what you speak of). But let's remember the counterexample of
the old
Baltimore team, which held onto players like Lefty Grove for years...the
free minor leagues, for the first fifty or sixty years of baseball
history,
often produced teams which would be competitive in "major" leagues. It's
really a question of where you land on the continuum.
At this point, I don't think it's the small(er) market teams that function
as a minor league, but the upper echelon of NCAA teams. The notion that
free agency will centralize power in basketball may be intuitive, but,
with
the historical background of baseball in place, I think what we can see
now
is that free agency aids competitive balance (though it seems as though
that
trend is slowing in baseball). If Miami can generate enough cash to pay
two
ultra-costly free agents, I don't see why Orlando couldn't do something
similar.
Adam D. Barnhart
Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996
From: Jim Naughton
I am not in a position to provide evidence that "seasoning and maturing"
occur
in the context of collegiate athletics, nor do I wish to offer a general
endorsement of the sporting status quo, but, as someone who has covered
sports
on-and-off for the past 15 years, I can say that athletes who have
attended
college are often easier and more interesting to talk to than athletes who
have
not. They are more insightful about themselves, and about the role of
sports
in society. You can talk with them about issues like race and
commercialization. They have sharper sense of humor.
This also carries over into the culture of the lockerroom. In my
experience,
basketball locker rooms are the easiest for an outsider to walk into, and
baseball locker rooms are the hardest. (The culture of football is so
highly-controlled that it is difficult to say what the players would be
like if
left to their own devices.) I think this may be because athletes who have
attended college are better socialized and perhaps somewhat more socially
aware than those who have not.
Admittedly this is anecdotal, not to mention highly subjective, and I
don't
advance it as an excuse for the abuses rampant in big-time college
athletics.
Still it seems to me worth noting that in at least some instances exposure
to the college milieu seems beneficial to young athletes.
Jim Naughton
Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996
From: David B. Merrell
Hi, I'm Dave Merrell, Faculty Athletics Representative at Abilene
Christian
University. I manage to work sport lit into my advanced fiction classes,
but do not offer sport lit with such a small student population (the
department feels that students deserve introduction to more "mainstream"
literature). I also teach multicultural literature, which would receive
the
same reaction if TEA had not added multicultural literatures to the exam
for teacher certification--perhaps we need sports lit on the exam, too.
At D-II and D-III school the phrase "student-athlete" can have meaning,
though not always. Occasionally, the phrase "scholar-athlete" might be
used, but not very often.
I certainly understand accepting million(s) out of high school rather than
going to college, no matter the immaturity of the body, emotions, or
spirit.
Perhaps the NBA and NFL need to establish (sponsor, support) another
feeder
system to the colleges much like major league baseball has minor leagues
as
well as colleges. Some athletes are not ready for either college or the
big
leagues when they finish high school. At the same time, the NCAA should
allow enough expense money for "pocket money" and trips home for the
Christmas holidays as part of normal college expense, particularly for the
D-I schools.
There is much more that can be said on this topic, but these are some of
my conclusions.
David B. Merrell
ACU Box 29142
Abilene, Texas 79699-9142
915/674-2035; 915/674-6844 FAX
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 1996
From: John J.
Crocitti
Thanks for the ideas regarding free agency and levels of professional
sports. I agree that free agency has not concentrated talent in a few
cities, as many have prediced. Your comments on baseball's minor leagues
were enlightening.
One thing I might contest: Miami is indeed a media and
entertainment center, albeit not on a par with NY or LA. In terms of
the Latin American market, Miami is equal to those cities. When Howard
and Mourning chose Miami, they improved their marketability and
opportunities for income outside of basketball (endorsements,
commercials, entertainment). Baltimore, Charlotte, and Orlando might
offer basketball salaries equal to what Miami and LA gave O'Neill, Howard
and Mourning, but the other benefits simply do not compare. (This does
not account for lifestyle differences. With $100 million in your
pocket, would you rather be in Miami or Baltimore?)
The NBA appears aimed for the international market. Isn't all of the
Dream Team hype a global promotional effort for the NBA? If the NBA does
become a global professional sport, what are your ideas regarding the
league structure, distribution of talent, and media presentation?
jc
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 1996
From: Kevin Lewis
I am trying hard to find a literary connection in these posts on abuses
alleged or actual--for me they are actual--of college athletes (in the
revenue-producing sports), colleges, and the rules voted in by the NCAA.
The commment on comparative cultures of basketball and baseball locker
rooms is juicy, worth examining. Thanks for it--it made me think of all
the student-athletes who have stumbled into my classes over the years,
most of them not knowing what they were getting into, and of comparative
academic performances.
I don't have a literary perspective to offer, sorry, but it's hard to
resist throwing in my two cents. I served three years on the faculty
athletic advisory committee here at a straining, ambitious Division One
School in one of the more corrupt conferences in the nation, and what I
observed, naturally, had to be taken with a resilient sense of humor.
Here's an example. At one meeting, our run-roughshod AD came in (with the
usual entourage) and asked straight-faced for us to vote to lower the
admission grade-point minimum for athletes tranfering in from junior
college
grade-laundering factories because, as he observed, the pool of athletes
capable of performing for us (in hoops and football) *in* this state (our
home recruiting area) are too dumb to qualify academically. Well, our
committee did not have the power actually to change the requirement (of
a certain minimum number of "Ds" on the tranfer transcript), but we were
asked to vote to recommend the move to the appropriate faculty committee
which could change it. All my faculty colleagues on our committee except
yours truly and all the token student members but one bowed down to the AD
and his cause. I still savor this momentary show of purity, sorry.
Colleagues
on the Academic Standards committee, to whom this request was then
forwarded, have not stopped laughing or crying since.
I have not read it, but there's a book written by a colleague at a
university
in I think Illinois whose sceptical views of Athletic Dept. maneuverings
around the arcane NCAA codes of behavior kept him off the faculty athletic
advisory committee when he campaigned to get on it. His book was reviewed
3-4 years ago in _The Chronicle of Higher Ed_.
Over twenty years of teaching my few baseball-player students have been
the
best students. What would Lyle expect! Only one basketball player--he
could
score threes from anywhere over the half-court line--and he flunked out
immediately. My football players, and I've had more of them because I was
friends with their head tutor before the latest AD (see above) fired him,
have generally been screw-offs or sleepers in the back row. I asked a row
of them about dozing off in class once, and they said they just couldn't
help it. They had been socialized to sleep in class. The only football
player I can remember to have listened, done his own work, and exited
honorably with his C (twice) was Steve Taneyhill, at least one of whose
parents is a school-teacher in Pennsylvania, but who did not show much in
this
years Senior Bowl. One really likeable, professor-shy nose-guard lineman
from Georgia told me after a couple of after-class talks that he had never
read a book before. I guess this is not news.
It is a thorny problem. I tend to take the purer-than-thou side of the
issues.
But then along comes Don Johnson and I get his point, too. I *like* what
the
Presidents Council is doing in the NCAA, but it leaves the black coaches'
sub-group in an absolutely impossible position. So when will the NBA do
the
right thing and support the start-up of minor leagues that matter?
Apparently
they have the money.
Roger Angell wrote a great piece on the Olympic ideal, amateurism, purity,
and irony--where are the ironists where we need them on the telecasts!--in
_The New Yorker_ dated about mid-July.
Kevin Lewis
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 1996
From: Adam Barnhart
Continuing this discussion of major/minor leagues and their relevance to
contemporary mass-sport:
I certainly misspoke in downplaying Miami as a market -- certainly the
Latin
influence there is as strong as anywhere, save Los Angeles and perhaps San
Antonio. My feeling, though, is that Orlando has emerged as a market of
about the same magnitude. There are certainly some demographic issues
that aren't as distinct as one would like, as the two cities aren't all
that far apart, so there's some leakage.
In the context of the NBA, I'm not sure the Latin base is as important.
There is certainly a Latin fan base, but there AREN'T Latin
players...certainly not among this first tier of free agents. In
baseball,
you clearly don't have the same situation -- there's a long history of
great
Latin players/role models: Clemente, Oliva, Perez, Valenzuela, etc. Hence
San Diego's play for an aging Fernando Valenzuela makes more sense.
My feeling is that one of two things will probably happen with respect to
the NBA and a Major-Minor league development. One scenario is the one
which
is beginning to be played out, which is that the first tier of basketball
schools (UCLA, North Carolina, Indiana, Connecticut) will continue to
shovel
athletes into their schools for one or two years (and, on occasion, three
and four), with those athletes leaving when the market demands it, more or
less. A second scenario is that the backlash against the
quasi-student/athlete reaches such a pitch that the part-time students are
left out of that loop and fall into a new one: namely, a "minor"
basketball league. The CBA is a prime candidate here (one can see the
possibility of
the NBA extending the same hegemony over theoretically independent minor
leagues that major league baseball did over the "minor" leagues several
decades ago. As has been observed, though, basketball is becoming an
international game, and I don't think it would be THAT outrageous to see
the Italian League, for example, become a minor league.
Adam D. Barnhart
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 1996
From: Mike Clark
Although this is seemingly unrelated to the discussion of hypocrisy, I
think that at a deeper level it may well be tied to it. I also believe the
following ruminations relate directly to the discussion of the difference
between sports and games:
I firmly believe that the NBA is on the verge of becoming a competitor for
"Big-Time Wrestling." (You know, the WWF, the NWA, and all that.) There
are
good guys and bad guys; there is "show time" with scripted moves;
officiating is a joke; the home team wins far more than reasonable
expectation suggests it should. What does this then say about the
activity?
Will it remain a sport, or does this development finally push NBA
basketball completely over the line into show business? If the latter is
the case, what does that imply about the supposed competitive nature of
the activity? Does it remain a sport, or does it revert to a game? Does
this
suggest that it is a physical activity only? And what about the
relationship of NBA basketball then to the somewhat similar appearing
"amateur" sport?
Mike Clark
Michigan State University
Date: Thu, 1 Aug 1996
From: Mike Clark
I discovered, with the help of some meaningful comments, that I was
confused about which book to look at. I will return with the correct
citation for "Rollerball" tomorrow. "Do Androids Dream" was indeed the
basis for "Bladerunner," an equally interesting look at the future, but
not a sporting one.
Sorry for the confusion I probably caused.
Mike Clark
