Comment

March 10, 1997

• Student-athlete view -- NCAA stronger when athlete voice is heard ...By Daron Dorsey -- University of Nevada, Las Vegas
• Comment -- Athletics 'genius' gift, but also a burden
• Opinions -- Adults bear responsibility for counseling young athletes

Student-athlete view -- NCAA stronger when athlete voice is heard

BY DARON DORSEY
University of Nevada, Las Vegas

The 1997 NCAA Convention in Nashville made tremendous strides to better govern intercollegiate athletics. But there will never be another Convention like it.

Beginning this year, each NCAA division will govern itself -- Division I through its representative system and Divisions II and III through legislative Conventions. In doing so, the issues that are pressing to each division can be dealt with more effectively.

One crucial area of concern is the place of the NCAA Student-Athlete Advisory Committee within the new structure. In the past, the SAAC met as a group with representatives from each of the divisions. In essence, the SAAC was a cross-divisional group, just like the gathering at the NCAA Convention.

But in the future, the NCAA will be federated, which means that the SAAC group will break up and that athletes will be involved only in the legislative processes of their own divisions.

In Nashville, the SAAC made a significant impact on proposed legislation, and in the future, the same impact is necessary. The student-athlete is the true measuring stick about the viability of new legislation, since the proposals govern the everyday life of every student-athlete. Indeed, to continue progress, the voice of the student-athlete must be allowed to become stronger.

In the future, unfortunately, the role of the student-athlete is jumbled. For example, the responsibilities of the SAAC are different within each division of the NCAA. In Division III, two student-athletes will have voting power on the Management Council and in reality an equal part in the legislative process. But in Division I, for example, the SAAC does not carry the same weight. The SAAC has a representative on the Management Council, but that slot is only in an advisory capacity. The Division I athletes do not get a vote in the process.

In a similar sense, the athletes in the separate divisions do not have the chance to speak to an issue in a large forum, such as on the floor of the NCAA Convention. The federated Conventions in Divisions II and III will be much smaller than the current Convention, and the Division I process will not take place in a public setting.

We are all in the NCAA together for one reason: to promote college athletics. Everyone involved has to work together for the continued success of the NCAA, and this includes the student-athletes themselves.

A vote for student-athletes in all divisions of the NCAA is essential for the well-being and integrity of the NCAA. With that vote, student-athletes will truly have a say in the policies that govern every day of their college experience.

The Student-Athlete Advisory Committee thinks that is a small price to pay for something as special as college athletics.

Daron Dorsey is a member of the NCAA Student-Athlete Advisory Committee. He is a student at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where he is a member of the men's golf team.

Comment -- Athletics 'genius' a gift, but also a burden

BY MICHAEL KOEHLER

A recent article in the Comment section of The NCAA News provided an interesting and thoughtful perspective on athletics competition in college.

The article was written by Paul Zingg and discussed the value of self-discovery in athlete competition, emphasizing the importance of opponents pushing each other to achieve their individual best. I would like to offer a complementary perspective, one that emphasizes not only the merits of self-discovery but the demands of athletics talent on those who possess it and the responsibilities of the institutions that capitalize on it.

Today's intercollegiate athlete is as gifted as any in the world. Teams are blessed with 6-foot-11 forwards in basketball, halfbacks who run 4.3 40s and field hockey players who score almost at will. Most of them are gifted with a kinesthetic sense that "slows down time," that enables them to "see" everything during the actual performance of their skills, whether such skills involve triple somersaults in the pike position, back walkovers on the balance beam or quick openers up the middle.

Contradictions

They are so gifted and have grown so accustomed to the undeniability of their physical talents that they have learned to "trust their bodies." The softball or baseball player trusts his or her built-in instrumentation when pitching. So does the basketball player when shooting. The wrestler "senses" moves; the football or soccer player "feels" opponents approaching from the side; the diver or gymnast "knows" when to come out of a turn for a landing or entry into the water. This is the initial and, perhaps, most enduring element of self-discovery during competition, an almost-mindless fidelity to one's athletics gifts.

To many of us, the performance of such skills involves little more than a confusing blur of motion, a disjointed moment in time, ended before it begins. It involves an uncoachable skill. The native ability of such athletes increases their value in the sports market and makes them the focus of professional scouts, as well as media.

Once this happens, in essence once they realize they are somehow "special," college athletes experience not only self-discovery but a world of contradictions, admiring but exploitative hangers-on and experiences that are desirable but potentially tragic, exciting but surprisingly short-lived.

Such athletes possess a "special" athletics genius that can take control of their lives. It can assume an existence of its own. From Van Gogh in painting and Mozart in music to Einstein in math and science, genius is so undefinable; it demands expression. Music echoed through Mozart's mind; he simply wrote it down. Completed paintings appeared in Van Gogh's mind; he simply put them on canvas. Einstein's mind worked until entire blackboards were filled with equations. And Michael Jordan found himself in "the zone," making a succession of three-point shots that even he couldn't understand.

The point is, the undeniability of such genius can sublimate everything else in one's life. It can provoke an absence of self-discovery. Athletics is no different. The youngster who dribbles her way through a maze of defenders and "double-pumps" a layup and the young halfback who litters the field with would-be tacklers create moments that mystify themselves as well as everyone in the stands. Their self-discovery affirms their athletics genius but provides few insights into who they are as persons.

But it's no mystery that they like it. They enjoy the crowd's reaction. Even more, they sense fulfillment and personal satisfaction each time they express their genius.

Such expression can become addictive and ultimately leave room for little else in their lives. A result is that classwork can suffer; relationships at home can change; social behavior can transform. Athletics genius, then, can promote not only media and community attention but emotional immaturity.

Addressing the problem

It's no wonder that so many gifted young athletes make so many poor decisions in so many different areas of their lives. Many in the media would have us believe that sports provides a way out of poverty. Such an influence is too obvious to deny; it is also simplistic. Sports also provide an exaggerated self-concept, an elevated social position in the school or community and, most important, the opportunity to express a natural talent that is undeniable, at times tyrannical, in its demands.

That's where universities and colleges assume a large responsibility. Athletically gifted youngsters need help combating the insistence of their own bodies. They need help developing other areas of their lives that may not guarantee such immediate satisfaction or suggest such obvious future advantage. A way out of the ghetto and the yellow brick road to fame and fortune are two of the more obvious temptations confronting athletes. Less obvious, but equally powerful, is the imposition of their own talent.

The insistence of such talent is enervated when aspects of the athlete's social, emotional and educational development are given priority on a day-to-day basis. Such priority is possible when athletes are unable to compete at the varsity level during their freshman years and are encouraged and helped to focus their attentions on their classwork, as well as on their personal and social adjustment to college life and the opportunities it can provide. Colleges and universities must eliminate freshman eligibility for all athletes.

With such help, athletes will translate their talents into an improved sense of self, expanded opportunities for personal and educational growth, and satisfying and meaningful lives. They need our help to realize these benefits. Without the direction provided by a college or university, many of these youngsters travel a road that leads thousands of gifted athletes to a destructive preoccupation with one dimension of their lives.

If colleges and universities really believe their athletics participation develops character, then we must expect athletes to display it whenever they find themselves in the limelight. Expecting them to display it and helping them develop it, however, are two different things. College coaches and university officials share a complementary responsibility with athletes. They are expected to do everything in their power to make the athlete's involvement in sports as character-building as possible. The elimination of freshman eligibility is a step in that direction.

Every high-school coach understands that the difference between gifted athletes and the average athlete is not just a matter of talent. We're familiar with the saying: "Adversity doesn't develop character; it reveals it." Well, so does athletics competition. Such is the essence of Zingg's concept of self-discovery. It can pose a higher degree of adversity to the young athlete with average talent. He or she has to work harder to "make the team" or to achieve any kind of recognition, especially something as competitive as an athletics scholarship. These are moments of self-discovery.

High-school coaches also realize that such athletes constitute the core of the team. Not everyone can be a scholarshipped athlete, even though many youngsters want to be. With the insight that comes with experience and the help of a knowledgeable coach, such "average" athletes learn the lessons of courage, hard work and commitment. Relieved of the demands of athletics gifts, they learn the value of hard work. This is the essence of the character-building nature of athletics participation and the most revealing aspect of self-discovery.

Reward overshadows work

The point is, it is more available to average athletes. Gifted athletes often miss such moments of self-discovery and fail to realize the benefits of hard work. Their talents are so obvious and their skills so natural that participation comes easily to them. The recognition they receive, then, from friends, acquaintances, teammates and opponents, and the media is inconsistent with the effort they have exerted. And whenever reward overshadows hard work, problems result.

At that point, the athlete expects recognition and the immediate gratification that results from the expression of his or her talents. Such expectations can spill over into schoolwork ("Pass me to keep me eligible; I'm scoring 25 points a game"), chores at home ("I don't have time") and social relationships ("Give me anything I want; everyone else does").

Fortunately, such expectations don't characterize every talented athlete, but they reflect the behaviors of a surprisingly large number of them.

These are the athletes who genuinely need our help. These are the athletes who need help achieving self-discovery, especially during the first year of their college experience. Without such help, many of these gifted athletes seek immature, underdeveloped goals in life. Like children, they disregard long-term satisfaction in favor of immediate pleasures. They accept scholarships to college only to play a sport, only incidentally to further themselves personally and professionally. They expect professional sports futures and the immediate attention of friends and acquaintances. At the extreme, they can become so spoiled, they disregard social protocols, rules and even laws to satisfy their own needs.

Obviously, these are extreme characterizations. The media, given their attention to atypical behavior, however, have established such characterizations as almost normal. Talk shows and television tabloids devote so much attention to the social anomalies and extremists among us that they may, in fact, be redefining normal behavior.

In essence, definitions of normalcy, once the responsibility of academics, is now shared involuntarily with television programmers. The impact of such media coverage serves to influence impressionable youngsters, many of whom are young athletes, if not to sanction, at least to legitimize such behaviors.

This is all the more reason why college coaches and university officials must work closely with athletes during the first year of college to compensate for such media and other external influences. We must impress upon gifted athletes the value of hard work in all areas. Think of the NCAA's more demanding initial-eligibility standards as just such an opportunity for high-school athletes. If not adversity, it may pose challenges to gifted athletes to learn the value of hard work in the classroom and at home in areas where their natural gifts are unable to make life easy for them.

The elimination of freshman eligibility would extend such learning well into each athlete's college experience. The year of adjustment would enable all student-athletes to shift the focus from their athletics genius to their need for increased effort in the classroom and to realize revelations of self-discovery that are unrelated to athletics. Such is the ultimate mission of all colleges and universities.

Mike Koehler is executive director of Ideation, Inc., in Scottsdale, Arizona. He is a former adjunct professor of educational administration at Northeastern Illinois University and has written extensively on college sports issues.

Opinions -- Adults bear responsibility for counseling young athletes

Joe Gross, columnist
The Annapolis Capital

"Recently, several county high-school athletes were stunned when they were deemed ineligible for sports when grades came out for the second marking period. Those young people who didn't believe anything like that could happen to them are prime candidates for the failure that stems from the notion that they can survive in life on sports ability alone.

"Being an outstanding athlete makes some high-schoolers think they're special. It makes them think they are going to play their way into college or even into the pros, rather than having to work their way up to bigger and better things.

"Unfortunately, they are dead wrong.

"Nearly all of those young people who fit into that star athlete category have the idea that their abilities on the field or court ensures them a successful future. Too many are sure their physical skills are enough to get them into the college of their choice, or at least one where they will be revered for their athletic prowess.

"Those young people who think that way are about to get the shock of their young lives. The vast majority of scholastic standouts are about to find out that their stardom in the arena is meaningless if they do not fare as well in the classroom.

"That's a fact of life that young people don't seem to believe until they are turned away by the schools they want most to attend. Colleges have their own standards for admission of athletes, as well as any other students. In addition, the schools must also abide by the NCAA's eligibility rules.

"It is the responsibility of every adult who has contact with scholastic athletes to warn the young people about the importance of maintaining their grades as well as their scoring or rushing or batting averages. It is, in a large way, also the responsibility of well-known college athletes and particularly of those who are fortunate enough to reach the professional level of any sport. Giving of such advice would be the greatest service a professional athlete could provide, considering how those pros are idolized by high-school youngsters."

Recruiting

David Climer, columnist
Nashville Tennessean

"Some coaches flat refuse to exceed the number of available scholarships with signees. In particular, schools that do not accept partial qualifiers (players who do not achieve the mandated minimum ACT or SAT score) play it close to the vest and close to the limit.

"But others push the envelope and stockpile prospects, comfortable in the knowledge that a couple of those signees can't spell ACT and will crash and burn academically between now and then.

"It's like the airlines' practice of overbooking flights. The airlines know that not everybody who makes a reservation for a given flight will show up at the gate before takeoff, so they sell more tickets than there are seats.

"But what happens if you have 24 scholarships to give and 25 new players show up on the first day of preseason practice?

"That's when the real recruiting job begins. After working so hard to sell a prospect on your school, you have to convince him that he really doesn't want to come there after all.

"It's death by numbers."

Wrestling

Sonny Greenhalgh, wrestling coach
Seton Hall University
The Associated Press

Discussing how colleges and universities are complying with Title IX:

"Wrestling is the first place they look. There is not an offsetting female sport. It is not a big spectator sport, and they won't get ostracized by the press for dropping it.

"I think you'll see a lot of programs go. I'm afraid for my own program."