When and How Did Colleges Lose Oversight of Athletics?

Originally, faculty were vested with the authority to control athletics and determine eligibility, however, scandals and negative coverage of college athletics created the need for more oversight of programs.  Although created in 1905 as an answer to regulating football, the NCAA had no real power to set the policy (and punish member institutions) for academic eligibility.  While there has always been impropriety in college athletics concerning eligibility that, in effect, is what has been the driver pushing the reform policies. 

The first documented college athletic scandal (Oriard, 2012) is of a rowing match between Harvard and Yale in 1896.  There was a protest by Yale over Harvard’s usage of a graduate student in athletic competition.  Despite protests, the student competed anyway and Harvard won the match.  From rowing competitions to eventually larger scandals in the 1950 regarding cheating and point shaving (West Point and the University of Kentucky, respectively) required colleges to explore their policies to codify institutional control over athletic programs. 

There is also the aspect of what college athletics does to change culture.  At the turn of the 20th century, 1-2% of Americans went to college (Oriard, 2012).  Athletics was a method to diversify and bring opportunity to groups of people that would otherwise not attend.  Sport was the method by which this was possible.  Oriard (2012) speaks to this dynamic suggesting that the changes in ethnic demographics of student athletes played into stereotypes of the dumb jock. 

“Football played a key role in democratizing American higher education, both actually and symbolically, as a predominantly WASP game celebrated in the nineteenth century for embodying the spirit of Anglo Saxon racial superiority began to be dominated by the sons of working of working class superiority began to be dominated by the sons of working class Irish, Italian, Polish, Slavic, and Jewish immigrants” (2012, p. 9)

             Some of the first questions concerning NCAA research centered on the question of freshman eligibility.  This question was raised from a policy perspective in reaction to scandals that in college athletics (Petr & McArdle, 2012).  The rationale was that by raising initial eligibility standards, it would bring integrity to major college sports (specifically, football and men’s basketball).  In 1983, Proposition 48 established NCAA eligibility standards for freshmen, however, it was not established based on empirical data.  The proposed reforms to take effect in the fall of 2016 is a commitment by university presidents to academic success by increasing eligibility standards based on quantitative research (Hosick & Sproull, 2012)   

Academic Research and Reform: A History of the Empirical Basis for NCAA Academic Policy (Petr & McArdle, 2012) explored factors that determine the success of incoming freshmen that are “initially eligible” (eligible for athletic competition upon matriculation at a NCAA member institution).  It was determined that high school core course grades better predict future academic success than standardized test scores.  What was also determined was that a combination of GPA from core courses (not extra-curricular) is a better predictor than either being used alone.  Petr and McArdle (2012) concluded that using GPA from a specific set of courses (core curriculum) is more accurate than utilizing overall GPA.

Paskus (2012) takes Petr and McArdle’s (2012) research further by analyzing the same data to determine outcomes of junior college transfers into four year institutions.  “We have learned that student-athlete transfers as a group are unlike two year transfers in the student body.  Only about one-third of two year transfers (Hackett & Sheridan, 2013) in the sports of football and men’s basketball met Division I IE [initial eligibility] standards coming out of high school”.  In other words, junior college transfers are already facing academic issues prior to being admitted into a four year institution.  Paskus’ (2012) analysis is what sets the new NCAA policy on academic eligibility effective in Fall 2016.  His research concludes that:

1.         By far the best predictor of student athlete success at the four year school is GPA at the two year school.  To succeed at the same rate as freshman non-transfers, the transfer must exhibit upwards of a 2.6 GPA at the two year school.

2.         GPA at the two year school are good predictors of four year college success to the extent they are not based on PE credits.  20% of two year transfers were transferring with twelve or more PE credits.

3.         Two year transfers who meet a minimum core curriculum at the two year school of six English, three math, and three science credits have ineligibility and failures that are half those of transfers who do not take such core academic classes.

The research is suggesting that GPA is a great indicator of academic success in college but standardized tests, give a clearer understanding.