Chronicle of Higher Education: End the Charade: Let Athletes Major in Sports

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Interesting op-ed from an FSU Professor, from the piece:

After those first two years are completed, a realistic curriculum for a "sports performance major" might look something like this:

Junior year, first semester: anatomy and physiology; educational psychology (introduction to learning theory); laboratory in heavy resistance training; football, basketball, or baseball offensive strategies (scrimmage).
Junior year, second semester: introduction to sports psychology; introduction to physiology of exercise; laboratory in aerobic fitness training; elements of contract law; football, basketball, or baseball laboratory (scrimmage); health education.
Senior year, first semester: introduction to human nutrition; public speaking; football, basketball, or baseball laboratory (offensive and defensive strategies); introduction to sports coaching.
Senior year, second semester: introduction to motor learning; stress and performance; elements of business law; the body in motion (kinesiology).

Such prescribed coursework would be relevant to the athlete's career objectives. And those young men who enter collegiate sports with nonprofessional aspirations (there are some, to be sure) would certainly not be required to elect the football, basketball, or baseball major. They would be entirely free to elect any major of their choosing.

http://chronicle.com/article/End-the-Charade-Let-Athletes/135894/

Go Gophers!!
 

I'd guess the average IQ of a college football player is in the neighborhood of 80-90, with plenty of outliers in the 70s. Minds not equipped for high school, let alone college. Most CFB players receive intensive assistance in order to get through an academic career that is watered down for them to begin with. It's an open secret that a football player with a degree in "general studies" is as dumb as a post. In order to preserve the status quo, we pretend that the situation is not absurd.

One could argue a more appropriate move would be to subject all athletes to the same admission standards as non-athletes, and reduce their sport obligation to put academics first.
 

Disagree with his entire premise. This quote in particular stood out to me.

"Those unsuccessful candidates for professional sports positions*&^!#—those who are not signed—would deal with their thwarted dreams in the same way that rejected medical- and law-school applicants and turned-down musicians and actors would. They would keep trying or progress to alternative careers. Most significant of all, what I propose would be infinitely more honest than the charade that now prevails."

To say that preparing these kids for careers in professional sports by giving out degrees in "sports performance" or whatever you want to call it is more honest than the status quo is a joke. Encouraging a kid to try and go into a field (pro sports) where the vast vast majority of student athletes will never get a sniff is ridiculous. You could argue whether or not a sports performance degree would be more worthless than say recreational studies, but plenty of universities already offer programs in Kinesiology and the like that could help student athletes who don't make it a viable and related alternative career path.

You shouldn't be singling out sub-groups of student athletes, in his article it implies male basketball, football, and baseball players (although hockey could probably be added), and institutionally pigeon-hole them into a career path that is statistically extremely unlikely for them to be successful in. Its borderline criminal, especially if they directed walk-ons who are paying their own way into these programs. Not to mention the shorter shelf life of professional athletes versus doctors, lawyers, or actors/musicians that he makes a comparison too.

If you think that the system is a mockery now ending the charade would be creating semi-pro/minor league systems, not further watering down what a degree means.
 

Major junior football the next generation. Towns like Rochester minnesota would be a great town to host a club
 

I have a degree in Sport Studies from the U that is basically written out here by the FSU prof. Athletes can already do this. Problem is you still have to o to class and the real world is still competitive.

Maybe a major in life skills or reality would be better.

The only answer is to create minor leagues and let them go straight from HS to the minors.
 


SickAndTiredOfLosingToWI said:
I'd guess the average IQ of a college football player is in the neighborhood of 80-90, with plenty of outliers in the 70s. Minds not equipped for high school, let alone college. Most CFB players receive intensive assistance in order to get through an academic career that is watered down for them to begin with. It's an open secret that a football player with a degree in "general studies" is as dumb as a post. In order to preserve the status quo, we pretend that the situation is not absurd.

One could argue a more appropriate move would be to subject all athletes to the same admission standards as non-athletes, and reduce their sport obligation to put academics first.
Click to expand...

That's one heck of an assumption (plus IQ scores are not a particularly reliable measure of aptitude). Not a lot of Phi Beta Kappa keys around these guys' necks, but you're saying a lot of them should be in special education programs.
 

If you coupled this idea with applying minors in broadcasting and coaching among others, it could be effective. The pro leagues could also use it as a recruiting tool to support their business functions. After all, it is pretty hard to get into the business side of sports without having some sort of connection to an organization. If sports is their passion, why not let them pursue it. Of course there will always being academic advisers who will tell them what they should and should not do, but in the end the player has the freedom to make any choice they like.

You could always apply normal minors (such as management) to this type of program as well.
 

Sports Management is a legitimate degree, there are a whole lot of jobs in sports besides playing sports. That kind of degree is already available. His proposed Sports Performance degree is bogus. He compares it to Dance, Music and Theater majors, but just like sports, there are a lot more jobs in theater than just acting. It takes a whole lot of people behind the scenes to put on a football game or a put on a theatre production. A Sports Management degree isn't a degree in playing sports, and a Theater degree isn't just a degree in acting.

He asks "Why do we impose upon young, talented, and serious-minded high-school seniors the imperative of selecting an academic major that is, more often than not, completely irrelevant to, or at least inconsistent with, their heartfelt desires and true career objectives: to be professional athletes?" His phony degree would be worthless to anyone who didn't make it to a professional team. People entering the draft early just shows how worthless the "degree" is. But if you had a theatre degree, and didn't make it as a Broadway actor, there are other jobs in the in theatre.

With a Sports Management degree, there are real jobs to be had in the world of sports. Is he unaware of the existence of such things as Sports Management degrees?
 

I disagree with the entire idea. What happens when these kids who plan on making the NFL don't make it? It's safe to assume that this will be a lot of them (perhaps even majority?). Now they're in the real world with a degree in Football. A future employer would laugh them out of an interview.

Many athletes choose to major in sports management, which is a fine choice. It is based on the business side of sports. We don't need degree programs for athletes to learn how to take care of their bodies and learn how to play football. They're on scholarship to do that outside of the classroom. Any University that establishes a program like this immediately becomes the laughing stock of higher education.
 



westcoastgopher11 said:
Disagree with his entire premise. This quote in particular stood out to me.

"Those unsuccessful candidates for professional sports positions*&^!#—those who are not signed—would deal with their thwarted dreams in the same way that rejected medical- and law-school applicants and turned-down musicians and actors would. They would keep trying or progress to alternative careers. Most significant of all, what I propose would be infinitely more honest than the charade that now prevails."

To say that preparing these kids for careers in professional sports by giving out degrees in "sports performance" or whatever you want to call it is more honest than the status quo is a joke. Encouraging a kid to try and go into a field (pro sports) where the vast vast majority of student athletes will never get a sniff is ridiculous. You could argue whether or not a sports performance degree would be more worthless than say recreational studies, but plenty of universities already offer programs in Kinesiology and the like that could help student athletes who don't make it a viable and related alternative career path.

You shouldn't be singling out sub-groups of student athletes, in his article it implies male basketball, football, and baseball players (although hockey could probably be added), and institutionally pigeon-hole them into a career path that is statistically extremely unlikely for them to be successful in. Its borderline criminal, especially if they directed walk-ons who are paying their own way into these programs. Not to mention the shorter shelf life of professional athletes versus doctors, lawyers, or actors/musicians that he makes a comparison too.

If you think that the system is a mockery now ending the charade would be creating semi-pro/minor league systems, not further watering down what a degree means.
Click to expand...

Let's not be unfair to hockey. According to the NCAA, among men's sports, ice hockey had the second highest APR average from 2007-2011, losing out only to gymnastics and by only one point (gymnastics had a score of 983, ice hockey 982).

http://www.ncaa.org/wps/wcm/connect/public/ncaa/pdfs/2012/apr+2012+trends
 

How about their sports count for their general education credits. Then they only have to worry about their major classes.
 

What happens when a very good high school football player is also an excellent student and wants to take engineering courses? Will the coaches want him distracted from football by a challenging class load? How much pressure will be placed on players like this to take remedial football studies?

The flip side, a young man grows up poor, has a bad family life, and the public school he attends sucks. He couldn't qualify for college. However, he is a 4 star athlete that could improve his life by playing college sports. Because the only minor leagues for the NFL is college football, he will never get that opportunity because of his ACT scores. Is that fair?
 

I have more respect for the argument that says college sports should be abolished since they aren't relevent to education blah blah blah. To make up a phony degree not only misguides the athletes but reduces the credibility of the institution issuing the degree. Makes no sense. As others mentioned, a minor league system could eliminate the issue and truly limit participation to student-athletes.
 



JimmyJamesMD said:
How about their sports count for their general education credits. Then they only have to worry about their major classes.
Click to expand...

Football would count toward the physical eduation requirements, but it couldn't apply to the other requirements. Here's the University of Minnesota's general education requirements. You have a lot of choices within each area, but football would not substitute for math, science, etc.

Arts/Humanities 3 credits
Biological Science 4 credits; must include lab or field experience
Historical Perspective 3 credits
Literature 3 credits
Mathematical Thinking 3 credits
Physical Science 4 credits; must include lab or field experience
Social Sciences 3 credits
 

RodentRampage said:
With a Sports Management degree, there are real jobs to be had in the world of sports. Is he unaware of the existence of such things as Sports Management degrees?
Click to expand...

I can vouch for that.

Like most others, I'm not a fan of this. I think it would also encourage some to take the easy way instead of a legitimate degree. I'm sure there are countless examples of student athletes who came in as freshman and thought they would go on to the NFL, NBA, or whatever, and didn't give a rats @ss about the education. But after a year or two, they realized how important it was and got serious about getting their degree. Would that happen as much if they offered this bogus degree? Probably not.
 


drinks at Northpoint said:
Because the only minor leagues for the NFL is college football, he will never get that opportunity because of his ACT scores. Is that fair?
Click to expand...

It would be unfair if it were true. Anyone who can fog a mirror can get into a junior college. An associate's degree will get you into any number of high-level football-centric universities. Your ACT score (or whether you took the ACT at all) is irrelevant to any of that.
 

What's the difference between a performance major in athletics and a performance major in music?
 

drinks at Northpoint said:
What happens when a very good high school football player is also an excellent student and wants to take engineering courses? Will the coaches want him distracted from football by a challenging class load? How much pressure will be placed on players like this to take remedial football studies?
Click to expand...

That already happens. Read the story from a few years ago that talks in detail about Rick Neuheisel's teams at Washington. In addition to basically fielding a team of criminals, the coaching staff (allegedly of course) discouraged smart kids from taking harder classes as it would distract their time from football.
 

50PoundHead said:
That's one heck of an assumption (plus IQ scores are not a particularly reliable measure of aptitude). Not a lot of Phi Beta Kappa keys around these guys' necks, but you're saying a lot of them should be in special education programs.
Click to expand...
Knowing that the average African-American IQ is roughly 85, I'd suppose that the mean black CFB player IQ is a little lower than this, with the minority white portion (average IQ ~100) pulling up the average of CFB players as a whole.

Whatever the measurement of aptitude, blacks tend to bring up the rear.
 

RodentRampage said:
Sports Management is a legitimate degree, there are a whole lot of jobs in sports besides playing sports. That kind of degree is already available. His proposed Sports Performance degree is bogus. He compares it to Dance, Music and Theater majors, but just like sports, there are a lot more jobs in theater than just acting. It takes a whole lot of people behind the scenes to put on a football game or a put on a theatre production. A Sports Management degree isn't a degree in playing sports, and a Theater degree isn't just a degree in acting.

He asks "Why do we impose upon young, talented, and serious-minded high-school seniors the imperative of selecting an academic major that is, more often than not, completely irrelevant to, or at least inconsistent with, their heartfelt desires and true career objectives: to be professional athletes?" His phony degree would be worthless to anyone who didn't make it to a professional team. People entering the draft early just shows how worthless the "degree" is. But if you had a theatre degree, and didn't make it as a Broadway actor, there are other jobs in the in theatre.

With a Sports Management degree, there are real jobs to be had in the world of sports. Is he unaware of the existence of such things as Sports Management degrees?
Click to expand...

I have an M.S. in Exercise and Sport Science (Sport Administation) with a B.S. in Secondary Ed (Composite Social Sciences). Courses for Sport Admin that I took were: Facility Planning, Sports Psychology, Assessment of PE / Athletics, Sport In American Culture, Ind. Study: MSHSL Management, Sports Law, Sport Marketing, Interpretation of Current Research, Financial Management of Sport, Sport Administration, and Internship in the School District which employs me. Plenty of options and career paths one can choose with Sport Management / Admin degree.

Majoring in Football certainly limits one's options. For example, it may land you with a professional team in some capacity if you are lucky, it may allow you to continue your non-existent education if your are lucky, or may open up an avenue to stand in a broadcast booth with Jesse Palmer if you are unlucky.
 

discochris said:
That already happens. Read the story from a few years ago that talks in detail about Rick Neuheisel's teams at Washington. In addition to basically fielding a team of criminals, the coaching staff (allegedly of course) discouraged smart kids from taking harder classes as it would distract their time from football.
Click to expand...

I can say with certainty that it happened here under Brewster as well. I know a guy who was on the team and when he went to register for his classes one semester they said he couldn't because his major had changed. He asked who changed his major and eventually found out it was a member of Brewster's staff. He had to go through a huge pain to change it back and by that time couldn't get into some of his required classes because they had filled, even though he had already been enrolled in that major.

The explanation? They didn't think his GPA would be high enough in engineering and were worried about the APR of the program.

I have no idea how common this is, but there's a cynical side of me that wonders if this happens everywhere...
 



Gotta agree with the bulk of responses here...The courseload this guy prescribes seems like it would do the exact opposite of what I presume it's intended to do. If this major includes a bunch of sports strategy/scrimmage/labs coaches would just end up pushing all of their athletes to take these classes/majors instead of something that might help them outside of athletics after they graduate.
 

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