Juan Williams is a professional. I always listen to what he has to say because he has integrity. He has an open mind, something rare for a liberal journalist. Tonight he was on O’Reilly.
I haven’t watched television news in a few days, so I’m not really up on the latest uproars. But apparently Paul Hornung, the Notre Dame Golden Boy and hero of the Green Bay Packers said something kind of raw. I don’t know exactly what was said, but it had something to do with Notre Dame needing to lower admissions standards so the football team could recruit more black athletes.
Williams was outraged. O’Reilly made the point that if Hornung had said “Irish” instead of “black,” he wouldn’t have been offended. He also pointed out that Notre Dame has a higher percentage of black football players than the average Division I school. They bantered the issue at hand, trying to define what Hornung was trying to say. I think they missed the real point.
I’ve coached baseball at all levels from T-Ball to the junior varsity team at USAFA. I’ve also coached other sports for youth, and had three boys who played most. I also dealt with Proposition 48 athletes at a junior college. These are kids with talent enough to play at a Division I school, but didn’t have the academic qualifications to be admitted.
I’ve seen the problem at every level of play. Kids that make all-star teams, and their parents, are upset if they don’t start. “He’s never sat on the bench.” And my response is, “Neither have any of the other kids on this team.” At each level, some kids who were all-stars last year are also-rans this year. Kids with athletic talent all believe they will make it to play at the highest level. That confidence is essential in a good athlete. What they are taught, from a very early age, however, is that if they can play well, they don’t need to do anything else. The only thing that can save them is adult involvement that teaches them this lesson. Ideally, it will come from parents. Unfortunately, parents are often the ones who want that meal ticket and ego boost that their child’s talent may bring them.
The numbers are not in any kid’s favor. An example with which I am most familiar is Division I baseball. College teams at this level are allowed 11-1/2 full scholarships. That’s all. And those scholarships are usually divided among 25-30 players. Few baseball players get a full scholarship. And those high school players who get them are identified in their junior years. By the time a high school phenom is a senior, it’s too late.
High school football players can expect to see about 1% of their number play Division I college football. From that small percentage, an even smaller number get drafted. Even then, most players drafted by the NFL don’t make the team. There are about 1500 players in the NFL. That’s fewer than the number of students in many high schools. I lived in Florida during Emmitt Smith’s high school years. Even then, pro scouts were watching him. He was one of those who had a future–if he didn’t get injured.
And that’s another issue most don’t consider. They are one injury away from the end of their athletic career.
Okay, now that I’ve said all that, let’s get back to this “black athletes” issue. I don’t care what school any kid goes to, the opportunity is there to learn enough to score 19 on the ACT. Period. That’s all it takes to meet the NCAA requirements. It doesn’t matter if they go to a school with three classrooms (like one I attended for a year) or a giant metropolitan school. The issue is desire. If an athlete doesn’t have a parent making sure he/she (girls don’t seem to have this problem) is doing the work, it won’t get done. If a student doesn’t have familial support and nagging, they need someone else pushing them. Few do. Then, instead of a luminous professional career, they’re wandering the streets working minimum wage jobs. And wondering what went wrong.
This is an issue where Juan Williams has blinders on. I can’t slam him for it, because I know he’s sincere. But people like Williams and Hornung need to look beyond the result and the desire to field the best team. Until people are willing to make real learning an issue (and lowering standards certainly doesn’t do it), kids will continue to be wasted. Perhaps we should be looking at higher entrance standards for athletes than for the general population.
I’m sure all the contributing alums would string me up.
When I was in hugh school, we had an all-star basketball player in my school. I had the basketball coach for a trig teacher, and he repeatedly interrupted our class to take care of his all-star. Nevermind teaching us cosines; the all-star was having trouble with scientific notation. And he was one of two people I know who got full scholarships to Purdue, the other being the kid from our school who got a perfect SAT. Terrible. He had no business going to school at Purdue, much less going for FREE!
Comment by Sarah — April 1, 2004 @ 12:42 am
The typical answer to that is “He probably wouldn’t get a college education without it.” My bitch is that he probably didn’t get a high school education, either.
Comment by Bunker — April 1, 2004 @ 11:37 am
Well, he had to take the ACT twice, and the second time they let him slide in on a technicality. Nope, no high school education to speak of.
Comment by Sarah — April 1, 2004 @ 1:35 pm
So, If he doesn’t get to the NBA, he’ll be back out on the street with no education. It’s really sad, because unless he takes the inherent lesson and does something on his own, he’ll simply wander.
Comment by Bunker — April 1, 2004 @ 2:41 pm
Update for your ACT standards, it was reduced to 17 during my senior year of college, with a push by our man Nolan Richardson.
Hoping to see Eddie Sutton win the big one this year. He has always had one of the higher graduation rates in college basketball.
That said, I think the real problem is that teams are looking for immediate results and not building long-term programs. Those that do do not rely on recruiting the type of people who cannot read, although they do occassionally do so. Oklahoma, the old Steve Spurrier Florida teams, they recruited a lot of smart guys to run their complicated schemes, and it is very difficult to beat them.
Comment by Slice — April 1, 2004 @ 10:13 pm
i too saw that interview and it was very interesting. Williams came into it with the opinion that Hornung had meant that black athletes were too dumb to get into Notre Dame, which upset him. O’Reilly turned the conversation to the possibility that he had meant that the black athletes didn’t get an opportunity for a decent education. Upon that distinction Williams turned and agreed that indeed that issue deserved being addressed and if Hornung had meant that then he was a supporter. That showed me a level of personal integrity and deeply reasoned values that are very rare in the world and especially uncommon in the media. I was impressed.
Comment by rammer — April 1, 2004 @ 11:31 pm
Nolan Richardson…my hero. Well, he’s my favorite slimeball racist, anyway, except for Al Sharton, of course.
My issue is that if they raised the requirements, more kids would be willing to put the effort into learning that they need to get at least a high school education. Right now, there’s no incentive. I was impressed that the basketball player (wimp) Sarah mentioned was actually in a trig class. Many of these guys take Algebra and business math and are done with their math requirements.
Athletes are always talking about pride. Seems to be a selective pride.
For outsiders, my boys all wrestled. In our house, basketball was considered a sport for lesser athletes.
Comment by Bunker — April 2, 2004 @ 5:56 am