Sideline Chatter
Redefining the term student-athlete
According to the NCAA, the definition of a student-athlete is someone who is a full-time student and full-time athlete at the same time.
The student-athlete must also have a minimum requirement for course-load, a grade-point average must be met each semester, and a maximum number of hours per week can be spent on required athletic activities.
According to a National Survey of Student Engagement, regular college students taking a normal class load must carry 15-20 units in three to four classes in a given semester and complete an average of 15-20 hours of homework a week. Some of these numbers vary depending on particular majors–engineers are either laughing or crying at this point. If you add in a Division 1 football team’s practice schedule, the craziness of this agenda only magnifies.
Yet some athletes not only manage this schedule but thrive. NCAA Division 1 Champion and Heisman Trophy winner Joe Burrow of Louisiana State University just earned his master’s degree in liberal arts. He also broke the NCAA single-season record for most touchdown passes and is arguably one of the best quarterbacks in LSU history. But he hardly steps foot on his college’s campus. As a graduate student, he completed all of his classes online and was therefore able to devote a lot more time and energy into football.
National Labor Relations Board regional director Peter Sung Ohr noted that football players often spend 40 to 50 hours per week on athletic duties during the three-or four-month season.
That alone begs the question. Where is the time to fit in classes and studying? Is the term “student-athlete” a real term, or is it more of a twisted joke–especially for higher profile football players?
The trade-off that student-athletes make when they agree to play for very profitable programs is somewhat crooked: free education in return for risking injury and sacrificing time in order to bring in millions of dollars for their schools. Meanwhile, the education that is received is now increasingly becoming re-configured into online studies.
This has become a twisted joke. As a student-athlete myself, I know just how much effort is required to improve in a sport. But I also know how important my education is and the commitment it demands. Granted, I’m not the face of college football or raking in massive revenue for my school. However, I am fulfilling the standards of the“student-athlete” that the NCAA sets. I take the required number of units, allocate many hours a week to complete all of my assignments and fit all my practices into this schedule. It is a difficult existence.
For me, at least, it is worth the sacrifice. But at the highest level of college sports, the cost for many is just too great. College football icon, Josh Rosen, currently the quarterback for the Miami Dolphins, was a Pac-12 Conference star at UCLA. He famously said “Look, football and school don't go together. They just don’t. Trying to do both is like trying to do two full-time jobs.”
It’s true. Rosen highlights the corrupt structure that college football has created for its athletes–one that forces these stars to choose between academics and athletics. If given the option, I personally might opt for the chance to win a national title rather than complete 20 hours of homework a week.
For that reason, I think it is crucial that the NCAA overall–and specifically the individual powerhouse conferences such as the Big-Ten and SEC–reframe the rules defining the “student-athlete” into what these individuals really are: college athletes.
Rosen is currently in the NFL, and Burrow is soon to follow. Playing football at the highest level in college has launched them into playing football at the highest level in the world.
Collegiate athletics helped them there, as it has helped many other top prospects from other sports reach the professional stage. But rather than maintain the lie of major college football players also being regular students in the minds of fans, it is time to be honest about what is really going on.
We need to get rid of this illusion that the athletes on their way to the NFL are truly experiencing college the same way that other athletes are, because they’re not. They are the legends on campus that you hear about and never see–except on ESPN . . . collegiate athletes, not student-athletes like the rest of us.
Contact Lacey Yahnke at lyahnke@scu.edu or call (408) 554-4852.