University Daily Kansan, April 30, 1981
Page 5
Athletics
From page 1
feeling is that every student-athelete should be integrated into the University, not isolated in his own world.
The athletic department is now under contract with Jajayawker Towers until May 19, according to a letter from the college.
Jayhawk Towers is a major attraction for recruits, according to Fisher.
"But closeness breeds contempt, and the merits of staying in the Towers have been tested."
JOHN WELTMER, former KU assistant sports information director, said the living room of his office is on the first floor.
Though it is too late for a different living arrangement for male scholarship athletes to be made for next fall, officials may move athletes out of the Towns in the future. Fisher said.
"KU revenue athletes are catered to," he said. "If they really are a true student-athletes, they should be able to live wherever they want to." "You can't expect any amount of maturity from those guys because they don't think they can really what college is all about. Normal students have to learn to live on their own, cook for themselves, set their own schedules, etc.
Athletic officials at other Big Eight schools have acknowledged that there was no way football or basketball players could fit into normal college life as long as they had to eat with other athletes, had to live with other athletes, had to practice and go to class with other athletes.
"Atlantes don't do an of those things. The athletic department denies them a chance to play."
"But my own opinion is that students should live where they want to, in dorms or wherever."
"The Towers are economical," he said. "You've got your food and training table right there. Allen (Field House) is not far and there is a flat landscape with a realistic point of view, the Towers is the best place."
Sydney said athletes should be allowed to live where they wanted.
SUCH PRACTICES keep the student-athlete insulated from any aspects of college that do not immediately relate to athletics, the officials said.
Sydney acknowledged the isolation and said, "You see the same people every day and get into a situation where you feel alone like the class president, you don't feel inferior, you feel like you can't communicate."
'And that's what college is supposed to be all about, getting to meet other people, all kinds of people.'
MACK SAID the athletes' living arrangements should remain the same.
"You're not a regular student," Mack said. "You're probably one of you, you have a certain amount of responsibility to handle."
"You have to have faith in your coaches and the things they put you into. I'm OK in this set."
Sydney, however, said he thought the tournament, however, made me unsecessary or displeasant players.
"They are supposed to be old enough to handle
their work and to get to practice and meetings on time."
A former KU administrator, who asked not to be identified, said KU learned of the practice of isolating athletes from the southern schools. he mentioned the practice of boarding athletes in hotels the night before every game, home or away, as one example.
"They do it to get the players away from girlfriends and other distractions, to keep them isolated and out of trouble," he said. "The southern coaches started that too, I think it a bit of a joke." Oklaonea said to Joneses' situation. If Nebraska does it, we have to do it. If Oklahoma does it, we have to do it."
ASIDE FROM the problems some KU athletes have with burdensome schedules and isolation from the rest of the student body, black athletes at KU may face additional handicaps. Most sources contacted by the Kansan said they could not freely talk about the black athlete's situation because their positions in the University would be endangered.
All of the black KU athletes contacted by the Kauai either declared comment or said they were unavailable.
Fisher, however, said that black athletes caused "moral and ethical dilemma."
"We can't all be chemists, biophysicists and engineers," he said, "nor should we be. But for the kid who comes from the inner-city and is stunted academically, when he moves from point A to point B, that's as much progress as when an academically well-prepared student graduates.
"It's wrong to avoid the problem. There must be a place at this University for those kids. After going through the system, they need to be able to access levels at levels to their people aspire to."
"I don't know how to address this problem. It's really a problem the nation has to address."
IN AN ARTICLE last May, Sports Illustrated magazine highlights that athletes across the country have been exploited.
The article stated that affirmative action and other civil rights programs had made black athletes more exploitable than ever.
According to John Wright, KU professor of psychology and human development, many of the problems all major-sport athletes faced with isolation from other students were magnified for black athletes without a solid academic background.
"Take a white athlete and a black athlete," Wright said. "The white athlete tends to see more opportunities outside athletics. The black athlete with poor educational background, once he's here, tends to associate only with other athletes, mainly with other black athletes."
THE FORMER KU administrator expanded his comments on the practice of isolating athletes, saying many major-spart athletes, a team came to KU never intending to need a degree.
"As long as you've got the federal government giving federal money to universities, saying open the doors to everybody, you're going to find this sort of thing," he said. "If people are not qualified, they should not be there. I don't care what color they are."
But Linda Thompson, director of KU admissions, said KU had no established policy of affirmative action, often identified as the culprit in admissions.
She also said that state law left her office no choice but to admit Kansas high school graduates, who are automatically admitted to all of the state's universities.
"Our admissions isn't a numbers game," Thompson said.
Del Brinkman, NCAA and Big Eight faculty representative and dean of the School of Journalism, said that admissions problems with educated athletes were "more subtle than."
HE ALLULED TO high school coaches, particularly in large school districts, who placed their athletes in vocational-technical programs rather than in college preparatory courses.
"When you admit people with poor educational backgrounds and then expect them immediately to perform college-level work, I agree there is a problem." Brinkman said.
Inconsistent interpretations of the 1974 Buckley Amendment, which makes student records private, make accurate figures on black athletes difficult to obtain. But at the University of California, an official estimated that among 10,000 high school seniors in 1978, "between 70 and 80 percent didn't graduate."
Figures released in a 1974 study for the American Council on Education concluded that twice the percentage of white athletes graduated from college programs and universities across the country.
GI Dyck, dean of KU's admissions and records department, said no such statistics had ever been reported.
Wright said the explanations for such statistics were the socioeconomic handicaps of being black, the failures of education at lower levels and the declining standards that permitted the "pampered" athlete to be swept through the system until the day diplomas were handed out.
In 1974, a study done at KU by the Kansan with the cooperation of the Office of Admissions and Records revealed that among basketball and football players, only one athlete in four graduated in four years, although more than 66 percent of the athletes eventually graduated. The study compiled 10 years of graduation rates in KU football, basketball and track.
"Even if black and white athletes are being treated equally right down the line, it's still the case that the black athlete is being had more," be said.
Weight said he saw a big difference from getting into a university and getting out with a
MORE THAN one out of three KU athletes never graduated.
The KU basketball team had the best four-year graduation rate of 90.3 percent as well as the highest number of caps earned by a player.
The KU football team compiled the worst four- year graduation rate, 25.4 percent.
The study did not include athletes who dropped out of school or were off the team between their college years.
No Big Eight Conference or national statistics existed when the KU study was done to be used.
In two weeks, the NCAA plans to release its first extensive study on athlete graduation rates. The study is being conducted by the American College Testing program.
BILL MUNN, former athletic academic adviser at the University of Iowa, told Sports Illustrated that no Big Eight program graduated more than 70 percent of its athletes.
Fisher said, "Only 50 percent of all students that enter the University graduate (in four years), it's unfair to place a different criterion on the athletic department."
Although KU has not done a study on graduation rates for any students in 10 years, Dyck had his office was in the process of compiling statistics on the graduation rates of all
Yet Fisher maintains that the "placement and graduation rates among our athletes are above those of the student body. And that's significant because lots of our revenue athletes are minority."
To get former student-athletes jobs outside of athletics, Fisher said, "we try to help as many of the kids we can find a job through the Williams and Scarletts teams and resume letters and asks for help.
"I don't know of any of our revenue-sport athletes who aren' working.
"I know there are abuses and things are wrong here, but people who don't recognize the good things that come out of this department are out of sten. The system can work."
WRIGHT SAID that one thing that made most
college students learn for a pro career was a
college report on college admission.
But, to be sure, few athletes reach the pro ranks.
Out of the almost 2 million high school football and basketball players, only about 200 a year make it into the pros, with a career expectancy of four years.
Based on these figures, an athlete faces 100,000 to 1,00 of making the pros.
Despite the overwhelming figures, sources say that intercollegiate athletics is pervaded by the illusion that athletics—not academics—is the road to success.
As one official said, "They were promised an education, promised a future. There no way they have gotten what they were promised and there's no way they ever will."
Tomorrow: The Art of Eligibility
Action slow on athletic abuse charges
By REBECCA CHANEY and
Staff Reporters
Little has happened since Feb. 6, when the Kansas City Times caused an uprare at the University by alleging that KU's academic standards were easily manipulated and for
Committees have met. Speeches have been made. Yet no changes—at least on the surface—have been implemented at the University to correct the alleged academic abuses.
The Times cited individual cases of cheating, grade change and the steering of athletes into cheating.
"If we discover any truth to the concerns that have been raised, we will learn from any mistakes that may have been made and we will see to it that they do not recur," he said in the
Although few reacted with surprise to the story, the University community was upset by what was considered an attack on the faculty's integrity. Acting Cancellor Del Shankel initiated an investigation and said he would have a report by April 2.
Yet when April 2 came, Shankel sent faculty members a copy of an all-university convocation speech that he made March 27. He said that there was nothing more could be said at the time.
Shankel maintained that those methods available for base by athletes were accessible
A COMMITTEE appointed earlier by Vice Chancellor Ralph Christoferson and headed by DeanNell Tacha, then associate vice chancellor for academics at the University of California; professional procedures relating to athletics.
Yet even Shankel acknowledged the difficulties in proving or disproving the charges, as well as the possibility of a false verdict.
Shankel said that he also asked academic deans to make recommendations and to check their own schools for possible academic abuses. Clark Coan, chairman of the KUAC Athletic Academic Review Board, also was asked to make recommendations.
make comments that might be made.
"We found that maybe there were some changes that could be made," Shankel said.
"But we have to guard against over-reacting and
closing 'loopholes' that are used legitimately by others."
SUSANNE SHAW, KUAC Board member and associate dean of the School of Journalism, said, "I think all of these situations across the country are altered every institution to take precautions."
But Shaw also said reform measures directed
the student population would be buffetful of the
student population would be buffetful of
Tacha said her committee was aware of the numerous complications that many of suggested were to be avoided.
"It goes without saying that some opportunities that are very important to the academic community may, in some cases, result in a failure not out of the highest academic quality." Tchaa said.
Tacha said she could not comment on any of her committee's findings until the investigation was completed.
"A lot can be done if you make up your mind to do it," Tacha said. "With cooperation, understanding of certain problems and a basic ability to teach to academics, we can make progress on this."
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