“The discipline of colleges and universities is in general contrived, not for the benefit of the students, but for the interest, or more properly speaking, for the ease of the masters.”
— Adam Smith,
“The Wealth of Nations”
The great economist Adam Smith surely wasn’t speaking of the college athlete when he wrote that sentence in 1776.
But as Syracuse and Kansas battled down to the wire for the NCAA title Monday night, as Cingular Wireless and Coca-Cola rang little cash-register bells for the NCAA during breaks in the action, the much larger issue of academic integrity loomed over March Madness.
And the issue is all economics, baby.
I know, I know. You slept through econ and filled out all “C”s on the midterm scantron. And now you’re wondering what the Nash Equilibrium and Adam Smith have to do with basketball.
Here it is: Adam Smith would hate the NCAA for its convoluted view of economics. College athletes are the bearded ladies at the carnival, used for their entertainment value and nothing else.
They’re not paid with the green stuff so, supposedly, athletes receive an education as comeuppance for their role in The Show.
Yeah, right.
According to NCAA numbers, 60 percent of all students who entered universities in 1995-96 graduated within six years. But only 34 percent of men’s basketball players graduated during that span, and 50 percent of football players graduated.
Those numbers are skewered like a shish kebab. When athletes transfer or go pro early, they’re counted against a school’s graduation rate. So when schools like Oklahoma have a zero percent graduation rate for their men’s basketball programs, it could mean that of a three-member recruiting class, one player went pro and two transferred.
But in economics you learn numbers don’t lie, and the numbers are, across the nation, lower than Christina Aguilera’s neckline.
So here comes former Oregon and current NCAA President Myles Brand to the rescue. Brand wants to put the student back in student-athlete. For this, some call him looney tunes. I call him Spartacus.
The first-year president has proposed widespread academic reforms that will sweep across the plains of this nation, through the cities and right to the top of every ivy-covered clock tower at every university. His proposals call for hammering schools that don’t meet rigid academic standards, forcing them to skip revenue-raking postseason events or losing scholarships, the blood pumping through a team’s veins.
His proposals no less than shake the very foundation of the NCAA mansion. He will force the student-athlete scale, currently weighted in favor of the revenue-producing “athlete,” to tip back to the knowledge-spouting “student.”
Brand’s main detractors are college coaches, the villains of Brand’s tale. When Syracuse graduates one-fourth as many players as it did last year, the implication is that Jim Boeheim couldn’t keep his kids in school.
A standoff is coming. On one end of the dusty road is Brand, touting grand theories of academic reform. On the other end are the coaches, who want desperately to hold on to fat contracts and athletes who will focus on three-pointers more than they’ll focus a microscope. They decry Brand’s use of silly graduation rates.
But Brand should win this duel because his plan will do more than harp on graduation rates. He’ll ask for degree-progress reports, expecting student-athletes to keep pace with college like a sprinter keeps pace with his competition. He’ll come up with a fair formula that allows for transfers and other irregularities, a BCS of college life.
The point is, Brand will turn a college education back into something of value. He’ll make sure that if college athletes aren’t paid with dead presidents, they’ll at least get paid in knowledge.
Adam Smith would be so proud.
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His views do not necessarily represent those of the Emerald.