End the Charade: Let Athletes Major in Sports

That collegiate sports is tainted by chicanery and a host of moral dilemmas is nothing new. Rarely does a week pass without some embarrassing deviance being uncovered and scrutinized by the ever-vigilant news media. A steady stream of scandalous disclosures depicting illicit communications and relationships among athletes, agents, and coaches, not to mention forced resignations, expulsions, and sanctions, reveals deep dysfunction in college athletics.

Countless published articles, letters to the editor, and essays have railed against those ethical violations for decades in well-intentioned efforts to provide solutions. A recent investigationby The Chronicle's Brad Wolverton revealed a host of quick, cheap, and easy academic credits available to athletes in danger of losing their eligibility to play.

What bothers me as a retired academic with decades of service­—and as an avid college-sports fan to boot—is an issue that may be integral to a good portion of such travesties.

Why do we impose upon young, talented, and serious-minded high-school seniors the imperative of selecting an academic major that is, more often than not, completely irrelevant to, or at least inconsistent with, their heartfelt desires and true career objectives: to be professional athletes?

Acquisition of athletic skills is what significant numbers of NCAA Division I student athletes want to pursue. And this is undeniably why they've gone to their campus of choice. Their confessions about their primary interest are readily proclaimed and by no means denied or repressed. These athletes are as honest in recognizing and divulging their aspiration as is the student who declares a goal of performing some day at the Metropolitan Opera or on the Broadway stage. Student athletes wish to be professional entertainers. This is their heart's desire.

Their family members, friends, and high-school coaches acknowledge and support that goal, so why not let them step out of the closet and declare their true aspiration­—to study football, basketball, or baseball? Why not legitimize such an academic specialty in the same manner that other professional performance careers, such as dance, voice, theater, and music, are recognized and supported? Why treat preparation for professional sports careers differently? Why not establish a well-planned, defensible, educationally sound curriculum that correlates with a career at the elite level of sports?

by David Pargman, Chronicle of Higher Education |  Read more:

Illustration: Tim Foley