As almost every University student knows, the Ducks are currently ranked as the top college football team in the nation. But while the team excels on the gridiron, off-the-field incidents and poor graduation rates stain an otherwise exemplary program. Only 53 percent of Oregon football players graduate, compared with 69 percent of football players nationally.
Last year, Jeremiah Masoli, Garrett Embry and Jamere Holland were kicked off the team for repeated incidents of questionable decision-making. LaMichael James faced charges and was suspended for a game this year after a confrontation with a lady friend got physical.
And the list goes on.
These blemishes have not gone unnoticed by the athletic department. From the moment these athletes step foot onto campus, they have athletic staff members prepared to hold their hands. From intensive tutoring and study hall time to the obligatory Nike swag, every attempt is made to help the student athlete succeed academically so as to find similar success on the gridiron. However, these steps appear to not be enough.
Tim Bruegman is the University’s academic coordinator for football. His job is to ensure football players meet the academic standards required by the NCAA to stay on the field and keep Oregon’s title hopes alive. He’s spearheading a new program he hopes will safeguard against any temptations players face that could distract them from their studies and hopefully cut down on any negative occurrences outside football.
“Our desire is to be able to accurately monitor student-athletes on campus and in the Jaqua Center,” Bruegman explains. “That’s what we’re trying to accomplish; making sure people are where they’re supposed to be, when they’re supposed to be there, on time, prepared, engaged and so forth.”
He plans to use athletic department funding to employ a group of “academic monitors” — ROTC cadets moonlighting as scouts — and have them go from classroom to classroom to make sure that football players are in attendance and on time. The academic monitors will be split between two separate tasks: making sure that student-athletes are attending class and checking that those student-athletes with tutor appointments show up and participate.
A monitor assigned to campus duty arrives outside a designated classroom approximately 15 minutes before the class starts or ends, gets stationed in a prime viewing position, and waits for the athletes to arrive or leave the classroom, and promptly reports that information to Bruegman. The monitors working inside the John E. Jaqua Center for Student Athletes patrol the second and third floors, watching and noting the student-athletes as they arrive or leave their individual tutoring sessions, and passing that information onto Bruegman. This brand-new program is currently being finalized, and will begin at the start of winter term.
Bruegman estimates that six cadets will be hired by the end of this term, a number that could be adjusted based on the initial effectiveness of the shadowing program. The budget currently authorized by the athletic department allows for two monitors per hour from noon to 5 p.m. on school days with standardized pay.
“It’s very comparable to any other student employment type wage,” he said. “It’s approximately minimum wage.”
As shocking as this new program appears to an outsider, it’s just the latest addition to a long list of current practices designed to baby-sit and cosset student-athletes into producing the expected results. Like an overly attentive and anxious parent, the athletic department ushers these football players through their college education. It quietly and efficiently makes sure athletes tick all the right boxes and achieve the right grades, ensuring that they can perform their primary function as highly skilled athletes. Athletes who bring wins, publicity, recruits and ultimately money to the University.
Where does the line separating helping these athletes be all they can be and commodifying a slowly maturing adult get crossed?
“It’s a daily battle for us to try to not crutch them and prop them up too much, but to also keep trying to educate them and keep trying to show them the way to do things,” Breugman said. “That’s a question we wrestle with all the time.”
This latest form of espionage isn’t without precedent. The athletic program has monitored its football players for the past 25 years, a practice replicated at other major athletic programs throughout the country. However, this is the first time the University has employed students to follow and observe other students.
As a man with family members who have served in the armed forces, I’m mildly offended that ROTC cadets are being employed as watchdogs, running around with clipboards playing baby-sitter to a bunch of football players who can’t be bothered to make it to class on time.
College athletics is big business and dubious ethical procedures are employed by many of the other big-time athletic colleges trying to balance education with athletics. But the athletic department is doing its student athletes a disservice by not allowing them to make their own decisions.
It’s time to stop treating our football players like children and then expecting them to behave like the adults they’re slowly becoming.
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