Study shows NCAA model may exploit student athletes

The NCAA outlines standards intended to create a fair playing field in Division I sports.

But conclusions drawn from a recent study show the association’s model could also be exploiting athletes — particularly African-American males who come from lower socioeconomic classes and are playing revenue-producing sports.

Richard Southall, director of the University’s College Sport Research Institute, presented this theory Friday to a panel on the relationship between Division I athletics and academics led by Association of American Universities President Hunter Rawlings.

According to NCAA guidelines, Division I football and men’s basketball players cannot profit from collegiate play and are instead supposed to be “from exploitation by professional and commercial enterprises.”

But Southall said these athletes might be exploited by not reaping the benefits of the money they help their schools earn — and, in some cases, by being recruited to schools that they may not be prepared for academically.

Southall said many student athletes in revenue producing sports — football and men’s basketball — are African-American, and many of those athletes come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.

If athletes come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, he said, they might not have had as much academic support before college, and they might have learning needs that have not been addressed.

Southall said so much emphasis is put on student athletes’ training schedules that can require more than 50 hours of practice per week, making it harder for students who might have to work more to keep up academically.

The NCAA requires a student athlete to complete at least 40 percent of coursework for a degree by the end of the his or her second year.

“Athletes that come from culturally distant settings come into an environment where they’re not as comfortable,” Southall said.

“But they’re also systematically isolated because they are spending so much time training for their sport. They can’t take time going to lectures or listening to a poet laureate. Their choices are limited by the structure in which they find themselves.”

Billy Hawkins, an associate professor of kinesiology at the University of Georgia who worked with Southall on this research, said he thinks schools should make freshmen student athletes ineligible to participate in sports so they could acclimate to undergraduate academic demands.

After the initial year of ineligibility, Hawkins said, athletes would then be eligible to play on a team for four additional years with a reduced course load.

“I think they need to reduce the number of hours they are required to take to give them a more quality educational experience and extend their time on campus,” Hawkins said.

Hawkins said he thinks this would increase student athlete graduation rates, and it would also reduce both academic ineligibility to play and the number of cheating scandals at Division I schools.

But UNC Athletic Director Bubba Cunningham said he thinks the NCAA’s collegiate model has worked for many students.

“We have 400,000 students compete at NCAA levels, and the vast majority are outstanding students,” Cunningham said. “A large part of the discussion is about a very small number of students.

“I think you have to be cautious about changing the system that serves so many people so well.”

Contact the desk editor at university@dailytarheel.com.