Academic standards

Kevin Leininger, columnist
Fort Wayne (Indiana) News-Sentinel

Discussing recent published remarks about lowering academic standards to increase black student-athlete participation:

"(R)ace is not destiny; it cannot prevent achievement any more than it can predict failure. People who need help, therefore, should receive it -- regardless of race. Conversely, people who need no favors should not receive them at the expense of those who do.

"But that help surely should come by helping everyone achieve to the best of their ability -- not by lowering standards for some perceived but hopelessly false short-term benefit. Such a philosophy, according to Project 21, a black leadership organization, only 'demeans blacks because it suggests they cannot be held to the same standards as other races.'

" 'The last time I checked,' Project 21 member Michael King wrote in 1999, 'the primary purpose of college was to get an education, not act as a farm system for the National Basketball Association.' Or the National Football League, either. ...

"(E)ducation, not athletics ability, offers the only reliable path to victory in the contest that really matters -- life.

"For whites and Blacks alike."

Basketball issues

Jim Haney, executive director
National Association of Basketball Coaches
USA Today

Discussing the increase in schools hiring assistant men's basketball coaches for head-coaching vacancies:

"Every year has its own forces at work, and I'm not prepared to say there is a trend, but I think one reason there are only 25 jobs open is the number of assistants being promoted from within or hired from another school.

"What we've seen in recent years is when assistants are given a chance, they've done a good job. There is a greater confidence (among major programs) that assistants deserve a chance. My basic instinct is that this is a time when assistants are faring very well, and they will continue to get opportunities.

"The more assistants you elevate, the more you lessen the domino effect of head coaches going from one job to another."

NCAA image

Jeff Schultz, columnist
Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"The NCAA doesn't stigmatize -- infractions do."

Athletics funding

Richard S. Jarvis, chancellor
University of Oregon system
San Jose Mercury News

"What I have seen is the power for building positive relationships for the university that intercollegiate athletics can bring. It's also an area that's open to substantial problems, serious management challenges. But in terms of building support out there, a well-run intercollegiate athletics program can be extremely important.

"I think it would be very important to think through what any fundamental change in the status of the athletics program would mean to the perception of an institution. When you are facing tough budgetary times, if you have to resort to a very radical elimination of a major activity, you send out a set of signals to the community and to your partners. Some of those signals could be, 'I'm being a responsible leader, I have to do these things.' But others could be, 'We're in some sense diminishing this institution, it is not what it was.' "