College Athletics? Or the Devil's Game?

I agree with a great deal of what is written on this blog, but I had to take a moment to comment on Mike's Friday post, "Racism Among College Football Coaches" (11/4). I agree that the comments were inappropriate. But it is not fair to impugn all of college athletics based on them.

First, while not an excuse, both comments were made by coaches who are long-time members of AARP. DeBerry is 67; Joe Pa is nearly 80. They grew up, played their careers and started coaching in a different world than that in which we live today. This does not excuse the comments, but it is helpful to put them in some perspective.

It is also a bit much to suggest that athletes may skip college to avoid comments like this. In fact, a different post on Friday ("The Power of Zen," 11/4), talks about an NBA coach who made similarly racial insensitive remarks. So perhaps players will now consider skipping the NBA -- after all, unlike a college-bound athlete, they cannot choose on which team they will play. Who wants to take a chance on playing for someone that is racially insensitive? But of course they will not do that, in college or the pros. If a high school athlete doesn't like the comments, he will not play at Air Force or Penn State. But there are a lot of other choices and anyone who makes the decision to skip college to avoid a possible slight needs a better career counselor.

Finally, the claim that some parents may want their children to skip college because they are concerned about athletes breaking the law and suffering no consequence simply cannot be supported. It would take me all day to list the professional athletes that have broken the law and suffered no consequence. A high percentage of arrested NBA players went to college because the overwhelming majority of all NBA players went to college. Saying that 90% of the players are responsible for 95% of the arrests (these are not exact numbers) does not boggle the mind. In fact, it is similar to claiming a correlation between skipping law school and not being convicted of legal malpractice. After all, the overwhelming majority of lawyers that commit malpractice attended an accredited law school (versus reading for the Bar, which is still allowed in several states). It is plausible to claim that someone is no more likely to be arrested or commit malpractice if he does not attend college/law school, but I have seen no evidence of a causal claim (no college/law school = no arrest/malpractice).

Posted in: