The College Court | Do student-athletes deserve college credit?

Emma Carmichael Columnist

My hardest course of the year has an untraditional schedule. It starts about halfway through the first semester, but it’s no six-week class. I must put in about three hours of work each day for it, and sometimes more. My classmates and I hardly get breaks from the workload; it continues through finals week and over winter vacation, and meets regularly in the month of January with the two professors. It finally ends in late February.

The funny thing about this work-intensive course, though, is that neither my peers nor I receive credit for it. Sure, it’s time consuming, it’s arduous, it infringes upon my sleep schedule and my other academics and commitments, but the College does not recognize it as a legitimate part of the curriculum.

The class that I’m talking about, of course, is not actually a class. It’s varsity basketball.

The issue of awarding academic credit for participation in collegiate athletics has been raised quite frequently over the past few years. In August 2004, The Washington Post published an investigative article that found that a number of colleges and universities throughout the country were not only granting their athletes class units for team membership, but were actually grading their efforts. Post Reporter Mark Schlabach found that Kansas State University’s then-head football coach, Bill Snyder, was the official professor of the course entitled ATHM 104: Varsity Football. Snyder had 69 students enrolled in the fall semester, only one of whom failed to receive credit and only four of whom did not receive an “A” on their transcripts.

Additionally, wrote Schlabach, a Post-conducted “survey of physical education courses taught at the 117 schools that field [National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)] Division I-A football teams found that nearly three dozen universities award academic credit for participation on intercollegiate sports teams,” including the University of Southern California, Pennsylvania State and the University of Georgia—all schools with renowned athletic programs.

Ohio State University, for example, listed a course entitled SFHP 196.06 with “Professor” Jim Tressel, otherwise known as the Buckeyes’ head football coach, in which students could enroll up to five times to accumulate a total of up to 10 credits before graduation. At Ohio State, these units could not count toward the athletes’ degrees, but they did ensure that they would meet the 12 credit hours required each semester to remain academically eligible for football. In each semester in which 60 percent or more of his players earn a 3.0 GPA or better, Tressel receives $50,000 from the University for a scholarship fund of his choice. I think it’s safe to assume that he picks the football program.

While it is valid to question both grading and assigning credit toward degrees I find it surprising that the question of earning credit for athletic participation is so contested. At the Division I level, playing varsity athletics is akin to having a full-time job. Except with this job, the boss makes you run wind sprints, and you risk tearing your ACL and finding suddenly yourself “ineligible” for your paycheck (in this analogy, the scholarship).

The Athletic Department at the University of Michigan earned the school an astounding $17.6 million in profit in 2005-2006. If schools cannot honor their efforts and their monetary contributions to the university through direct compensation, then why shouldn’t they at least recognize it as a co-curricular feature of their educations?

To argue that sports do not add to a student-athlete’s educational experience reflects an ignorance about what being a collegiate athlete really means. Often other “extra”-curricular activities are valued over sports participation.

Here at Vassar, members of any musical ensemble (Wind Ensemble, Jazz Ensemble, Orchestra, Choir, Women’s Chorus and Madrigal Singers) receive a half-credit for every full year of participation that they complete at the College. None of the ensembles meet more than three times in a week, not including periodic performances. Orchestra, for example, has just one three-hour rehearsal each week. A varsity athlete at Vassar, or at any college for that matter, easily puts in three hours of work for his or her sport per day. Indeed, in a given week during basketball season, I would estimate that I easily spend a combined 24 hours in the gym, in the athletic trainer’s office both before and after games and practices, in a bus, in the locker room and so on.

This is in no way meant to diminish or question the commitment that students invest in other extra-curricular activities. If anything, I mean to highlight their dedication and effort. At the same time, though, it’s important to point out that the College itself recognizes their endeavors as academically legitimate while ignoring those of its student-athletes. How can we pay tribute to the academic value of singing in a choir and not the time, effort and commitment spent on a playing field and the social skills and work ethics that come with it?

The administration and the Athletic Department, in conjunction with the Student Athlete Advisory Committee, have the opportunity to move forward with this concept and integrate it into the Vassar philosophy of achieving a “thorough, well-proportioned, and liberal education” and recognize “the different kinds of knowledge and their scope and relevance to one another” (Vassar Mission Statement, Student Handbook 2008).

Athletes are not looking for grades, degree credit or even a symbolic pat on the back for their participation, but they at least deserve equal recognition of the service that they provide to the school and the scholastic benefits that come with another game played and another season past. Failing to observe these benefits and question their very existence is an injustice to athletes in all divisions of the NCAA.

—Emma Carmichael ’10 is an urban studies major and a member of the Vassar women’s basketball team. This semester she is editorializing on issues in all divisions of college-level athletics.