14The Tar HeelThursday, July 20, 1978
Fraud: a part of intercollegiate athletics
by Mark Naison and Jim Ford
Special to The Tar Heel
The following article is reprinted with
permission from the )une 1978 issue oLef tField,
a publication of F.A.N.S. (Fight to Advance the
Nations' Sports). F.A.N.S. is a Washington-based
sports consumer group representing the nation's
sports fans.
Recent revelations of fraud and
favoritism in college athletics dramatize
what many people have believed for a long
time: Big-time intercollegiate athletics is
one of tne most corrupt and exploitative
areas in American sports.
The payoffs, bribes and doctored
transcripts so graphically exposed in the
House Subcommittee on Oversight and
Investigations hearings on the National
Collegiate Athletic Association are only
one part of the story. Just as serious is the
placing of scholarship athletes into
programs that give them almost no time
to attend classes in return for the
spurious promise of a "free education"
and a shot at making the pros.
' No systematic statistics have ever been
compiled on the percentage of scholarship
athletes who graduate with their class
or ever. But the records of some highly
successful athletic institutions suggest a
problem of staggering dimensions.
It can be argued that examples like
Texas Western University, where none of
the starters on the 1966 NCAA
championship basketball team received
degrees, or Arkansas, where only one of
25 black scholarship athletes graduated,
are not representative of the vast
majority of educational institutions that
field big-time sports programs in this
country. Yet, on what seems to be a daily
basis, the nation's sports pages contain an
ever expanding list of controversies
associated with intercollegiate sports
programs. During the first three weeks in
May the following items appeared in the
Washington Star:
Lawrence Boston, a senior basketball
forward, became the 11th Maryland
player among the last 20 recruited by head
coach Lefty Driesell to leave school
without graduating on time.
Dexter Manley, a first-string
linebacker on the Oklahoma State
University football team, claimed he
couldn't remember the name of the dealer
from whom he bought his Mercury
Cougar or the name of the construction
company where he worked to pay for the
car. At least six other OSU athletes were
also known to be driving late-model
Cutlasses.
Coach Frank Lollino of Chicago's
Westinghouse High School said that his
star senior forward Mark Aquirre had
been offered cash, cars and trips by
recruiters the coach declined to name. In
addition, Lollino said he and his wife were
offered trips to Hawaii and jobs by two
men if he helped with their recruiting
efforts.
John Parker, a much-travelled
college football player, said Wichita State
University gave him $600-$700 a month
and a new car for his services.
Old Dominion University English
professor Robinson Gehman sparked a
university investigation by alleging that
assistant basketball coach Jerry Busone
pressured him not to flunk All-America
basketball player Nancy Lieberman.
The NCAA and the Association for
Intercollegiate Athletics for Women,
according to Physical Education professor
Charles B. Corbin of Kansas State
University, "should be the voice of the
universities. However, in recent years the
NCAA and the AIAW have not been a
collection of university representatives
but a collection of representatives of the
vested interests of college athletics. The
two are not the same." Because delegates
to the regulatory associations "were
athletic department representatives, not
true representatives of the universities,
costs skyrocketed and studies showed
that 100 of 129 Division I schools were
running deficits in college football."
What can be done to turn college
athletics around?
For one thing, concerted action by
faculty, student and community
organizations (such as a university or
local F.A.N.S. chapter) to draw attention
to the problem of the professionalization
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of college athletics and to propose
solutions at the local level is essential.
Another useful step would be for
university presidents to look beyond
athletic department representatives for
solutions to the growing sports dilemma.
For example, Stephen Horn, president of
California State University at Long
Beach, represents his own institution at
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Lawrence Boston
NCAA and AIAW meetings. It would be
also appropriate for university presidents
to establish blue ribbon commissions
(which include representatives from the
student body) to study and report on the
overall effectiveness of athletic
departments, with special emphasis to be
placed on determining whether
satisfactory intramural programs and
recreational facilities are available to all
students.
A third step one that would reduce
the disparity between the athletic
factories and other schools would be
greater sharing of TV revenue among all
NCAA members. Presently, only teams
- that appear on local and network telecasts
share in the distribution of broadcast
receipts.
In testimony before the House
subcommittee, representatives from
Mississippi State University and the
University of Denver, schools which have
felt the axe of the NCAA's arbitrary
enforcement of regulations, said there
was only one way to bring about genuine
reform in intercollegiate sports. They
called upon Congress to enact legislation
to create a national intercollegiate athletic
board which would in effect strip the
NCAA and AIAW of their power, and
achieve the following objectives:
Examine collegiate sports programs,
with the power to investigate and
subpoena.
Require athletic departments to
publish annual financial statements with
detailed breakdown on recruiting
expenses and make them available to
students, faculty and the public.
Require universities to annually
report the percentage of scholarship
athletes who receive degrees and
graduate with their classes, and to provide
this information to prospective recruits.
Guarantee student athletes a
"property right" to participate in college
sports, which would in effect provide
athletes with the right to be represented
by counsel in all negotiations with athletic
departments regarding academic or
athletic status.
One thing clearly emerges from the
recent disclosures and congressional
investigation: The problems of
intercollegiate athletics in the United
States are reaching crisis proportions.
Sweeping reform such as the kind that
is not likely to result from the people who
have perpetuated and benefited from the
present system is necessary.
Mark Naison teaches Afro-American
studies at Fordham University and
coordinates sports coverage for In These
Times.
Ford ponders future playing plans
Fans all over the country continue to
wonder where Carolina's all-time leading
scorer, Phil Ford, will finally end up
playing next year.
Ford has said that he would rather not
play in Kansas City with the Kings who
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drafted him in the first round. Phil has
thus been looking for some alternatives.
A team from Italy offered him $100,000 a
year to play with them. However, more
recently, Seymour Kilstein, president of
the Lancaster Red Roses of the Eastern
League matched that offer.
Kilstein plans to meet with Ford's
agent, Donald Dell, within a week to talk
over the offer.
R.L. Bynum
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