College Athletes Studies Guided Toward 'Major in Eligibility'
Jill Lieber Steeg
MLA Citation:
Summary:
This article provides an insight into the life of a college athlete that shows the darker side of college sports. It discusses how schools are urging their student-athletes to take up easier majors, and promoting an overall sense of "athletics first, academics second." While it maybe a mechanism for students to cope with the demands of being a student-athlete, picking an easier major is debatably making the idea of "amateurism" obsolete. The authors argue that the schools influence on the student-athletes borders grounds for academic fraud.
About the Author:
Jill Lieber Steeg is the owner and co-founder of Steeg Sports Management and Media Consulting. She is also a former senior write for both USA Today and Sports Illustrated. She has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize twice and is an award-winning sports journalist.
Key Terms:
Clustering: the tendency of athletes to pick similar, less-challenging minors.
Social Sciences: the main degree many student-athletes at Kansas State University were "clustering" in.
Quotations:
"Cline says he found not-so-demanding courses that helped him have success in the classroom and on the field but did little for his dream of becoming a veterinarian" (Steeg).
"Some athletes say they have pursued — or have been steered to — degree programs that helped keep them eligible for sports but didn't prepare them for post-sports careers" (Steeg).
"Education specialists say such clustering raises a range of potential problems, including academic fraud; certain majors and classes having dubious academic requirements; and coaches and athletics academic advisers inappropriately influencing students' decisions on majors and classes" (Steeg).
Value:
This article presents possibly the best example of how privatization is effecting college sports. It shows an interesting trend that schools are starting to show. That is, pushing student-athletes more toward athletics and less toward academics. This definitely takes away from the idea of amateurism, and exposes the seemingly corrupt side of the NCAA and its constituents.
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