Filed under: Basketball
The commission's results were connected to a report by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics at The University of Central Florida. The institute's recent study found that 10 of 68 teams in the NCAA men's tournament did not meet the NCAA's required academic progress of their athletes. These schools did not have at least half of their players on track toward graduation. The NAACP backs the statements by Secretary Duncan, who says that schools that don't graduate players should not have the right to participate in the tournament.
"If you can't manage to graduate half of your players, how serious is a coach and the institution about their players' academic success?" asked Duncan.
As it stands, each conference receives $1.4 million for every win that one of its member schools has in the NCAA tournament. Roughly 44 percent of the revenue distributed by the NCAA to various conferences went to schools that did not meet the necessary academic threshold.
NAACP President Ben Jealous says that he plans to visit every school with graduation rates that are below the standard. He has also mentioned "unconscionable" disparities in the graduation rates between white and black players. This year, the gap in graduation rates between white and black men's players rose to 32 percent, ringing alarm bells for those with a concern for racial equity. The disparity is made even more interesting by the fact that most of the players earning the lion's share of NCAA revenue are black, while the individuals (coaches, commentators and administrators) receiving the money are white.
"Shame is a great motivator," Jealous said. "Right now we tolerate coaches that are preparing their athletes for success on the court, but failure in life... Word has to be going down the line that we expect all their athletes to graduate and that the schools will help them to."
President Jealous is correct to get involved on this important issue, for the NCAA's exploitation of black families is one of the more significant civil rights issues of our time. While most families do not have a relative who plays college sports, most black American families have at least one black boy who involves himself in athletics. The exploitation of these young men starts as early as middle school, as the powers-that-be have started to realize the tremendous economic value of the blac- male-athletic commodity.
As a result, the NCAA now earns post-season revenue on par with (and actually exceeding) major professional sports leagues, such as the NBA and Major League Baseball. This results in a massive wealth extraction from the black community to the tune of roughly $1 billion dollars per year. Added to the lost billions is additional lost productivity in the black community coming from athletes leaving college without an education (I've seen athletes get a degree without ever learning to read beyond a 5th grade level). Not only are many of these men not graduating, but many of the graduates aren't actually being educated.
Given that uneducated college athletes must eventually return to the black community to become husbands and fathers, it becomes critical that the NAACP and other organizations advocate for these athletes to have the chance to become productive members of black America. Part of the reason black athletes have a lower graduation rate than whites ones is because black athletes represent the bread and butter of many athletics programs. They are the ones who score most of the points and the reason that the corporate sponsors pay hundreds of millions in ad revenue each year. Therefore, they are also the ones who are going to have the most pressure put on them to perform on the court or field, which makes it most difficult for these men to get an education. Even Jalen Rose from the Fab Five at Michigan joked that the white guys at the end of the bench were on the team partly to keep the average GPA up. But in my experience, Rose's assertion is not all that far-fetched.
When it comes to the NCAA, the bottom line is this: All black civil rights leaders should become involved in this issue. The experience of the black male is typically (and unfortunately) defined by hip-hop, sports and the criminal justice system. In order for us to build a better black male in America, all three of these institutions must be directly confronted. I am glad that Arne Duncan has taken up the cause. Perhaps he can convince the high-powered black males in the Obama Administration (President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder) to back him up. Black men must stand up for black men and not wait for other men to come and save us.
Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your e-mail, please click here. To follow Dr. Boyce on Facebook, please click here.