EDITORIAL- Taking the student out of student athelete

It’s called the Doug Flutie effect.

Heisman-winning quarterback Doug Flutie threw a 48-yard… It’s called the Doug Flutie effect.

Heisman-winning quarterback Doug Flutie threw a 48-yard pass in November of 1984 to complete a huge win against the Miami Hurricanes, then led his Boston College Eagles on to a Cotton Bowl victory. The next year, BC had a huge surge in applications.

That laid the groundwork for the idea that a great national sports program could increase the number — and therefore quality — of applicants for a university.

Now, 20 years later, the National Collegiate Athletic Association has released a report on the graduation rates of scholarship athletes. The good news is that certain programs, like track and football, are doing very well and are around the national average in terms of graduation rates (i.e., around 60 percent).

The bad news is that men’s basketball players are graduating at a rate of 44 percent. Especially distressing is the state of black men’s basketball players, who were graduating only about 38 percent of the time, a year ago. That racial disparity has lessened somewhat, in part because white men’s basketball players are graduating at 10-year lows.

NCAA President Myles Brand doesn’t know why, shockingly, but he does know that academic standards are increasing. Collegiate athletes are now required to have 60 percent of their degree requirements completed by their junior year, 80 percent by senior year, and can only participate as fifth-year athletes if they are completely done with degree requirements. And the NCAA has promised more reports about the issue.

The fact of the matter is that many student athletes in high-profile, high-budget programs like basketball come to places like Pitt with very little interest in being students, despite the advantages of free tuition and exceptional tutoring and academic support. And it’s hard to blame them.

Universities are often guilty of keeping their student athletes secluded, of sending the message that there is no viable career option aside from professional sports for someone on a basketball scholarship. Consequently, academics are seen as an NCAA hoop through which to jump, not an opportunity to get something to back up the incredibly remote chance of an NBA career. Doug Flutie’s pass may have been magical, but its legacy at this point seems as much exploitation as anything else.

Last year, huge amounts of press were devoted to Connecticut center Emeka Okafor, who was not just an incredible player but an all-around brilliant man. As much as specimens like Okafor may not be the norm, there is no reason that universities like Pitt and UConn could not make it a little clearer to their scholarship athletes that an academic experience, if not academic excellence, is something to which they are entitled when they come here.

For some accomplished players, sports will be their working life. But most will not have lucrative professional careers, and, so long as schools like Pitt are willing to invest in their talent, they might as well also invest in their future.