Opinion: Scholar (sort of)-athletes

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If everybody in Pittsburgh is a Steelers fan (except me), every denizen of the District of Columbia is a Hoya -- at least before Georgetown’s loss to Ohio State. As I know from my time as an editorial page editor in Pittsburgh, the local paper is expected to join in the communal celebration for the home team.

The Washington Post complied last week with an editorial that nicely sidestepped from wishing the Hoyas well (the headline was “Go Georgetown”) to making a Serious Editorial Point: that Georgetown and other basketball powers should do a better job of graduating their hotshot players. Saith the Post:

‘Georgetown University, which happily made the Final Four, posted poorly with a graduation rate for its basketball players of 47 percent. Contrast that with its overall graduation rate of 93.2 percent and one wonders about the university’s priorities.”

So What Is to Be Done? “It’s clear… that more work is in order -- both by the schools, which need to show real commitment to academics, and by the athletes, who need to take responsibility for their own educations.”

But is it all that clear? The assumption of the Post’s editorial is that Georgetown can have it both ways: maintain its status as an ultra-competitive academic institution and serve as a farm team for the NBA. Obviously there are scholar-athletes (remember Bill Bradley at Princeton), but colleges that bestow athletic scholarships are interested primarily in the recipients’ athletic ability.

If those colleges are otherwise selective when it comes to academic ability, athletes will be a disadvantage – even if colleges follows the Post’s advice and provides incentives for athletic programs to make sure their players hit the books.

The Post also notes approvingly that the NCAA is looking at “the common practice of lowering admissions standards for athletes.” But no one expects the NCAA or sports-power colleges to eliminate the disparity between the grades and test scores required by athletes and those demanded of the rest of a particular institution’s student body.

To do so, everyone knows, would impoverish the quality of play. And that’s a price fans and alumni aren’t willing to pay. Fair enough, but as long as that’s the case, college athletes shouldn’t be hectored to “take responsibility for their own educations.”