Does Athletics Undermine Academics? Examining Some Issues

When I was a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania in the late 1960s, philosopher Paul Weiss published his ground-breaking book, Philosophy of Sport. I distinctly remember a review of the book from The New York Times being posted on the graduate student bulletin board under a sign with very large letters that said, “Write on this subject only if you already have tenure.” In retrospect, the attitude expressed by the sign conveyed a narrowness that characterized a good deal of the academic philosophy of the time. After all, sport was an important part of the culture surely worthy of study, and involved interesting philosophical issues ranging from the conceptual, such as analysis of the nature of sport, to the ethical, such as the proper role of athletic in colleges and universities. It has been heartening to see more and more scholars become engaged with issues raised by sports and now to help launch a project, initiated by the NCAA, to rigorously study intercollegiate athletics. The existentialist philosopher, Albert Camus, once remarked that the context in which he really learned ethics was that of sport. However, even if Camus learned valuable moral lessons from sport, it doesn’t follow that intercollegiate athletics is, can be, or should be a medium for moral education. Indeed, some critics will argue for the moral bankruptcy of intercollegiate athletics, citing such examples as academic fraud in one major basketball program, falsification of academic records in order to insure eligibility for an athlete at another, misbehavior including alleged criminal acts by some recruited athletes, and dismal graduation rates in some high visibility men’s programs. However, it is important to remember that intercollegiate sports occur at a wide variety of institutions, ranging over different divisions and different educational missions. The problems of some high-profile Division I programs, particularly in men’s high-visibility