NCAA Must Stop Exploiting Black Athletes

I originally read this on field negro:

The following article is old (almost five years) but it is the kind of article that could be posted for the next twenty years and it would still be relevant. I thought about posting it today as I watched all those athletes bust their asses for their schools, while their well paid coaches pranced along beside the court.

"Editor's Note: The nation's top college basketball and football athletes earn millions for their schools, but see very little of it. And yet these so-called "student" athletes have little time for their studies and often earn no academic degree.

It's an exploitative system that must be changed, the writer says.SAN FRANCISCO--With the 2005 collegiate football season underway, African-American athletes are exciting the crowds, drawing in thousands of fans and driving up revenues from TV and radio coverage. And they're being exploited. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) pretends that elite African American athletes filling the stadiums and arenas are student-athletes. In reality the majority of top players, like quarterback Vince Young of the University of Texas and running back Adrian Peterson of Oklahoma University, are first and foremost athletes. Their lives center on practice fields, not classrooms. Coaches dictate their schedules, which are packed with meetings, practices, lifting weights, rehabbing injuries and travel.

Economists Todd Jewell and Robert W. Brown in the late 1990s calculated that athletes of the caliber of Young and Peterson generate $500,000 per year for their universities. It's even more today, considering revenues from college basketball's March Madness, a six-year, $11 billion contract with CBS, and the Bowl Championship Series on ABC, at $500 million over eight years. Premier basketball players generate over $1 million a year.These players are being exploited, receiving only a few thousands in scholarship money while earning enough cash for their universities to provide substantial salaries to a cast of coaches, trainers, administrators and support personnel for non-revenue generating sports such as golf, soccer, lacrosse, swimming and tennis. Those opposed to paying student-athletes argue that a college education is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Indeed, according to Census Bureau 2002 figures, those with B.A. degrees earn an average of $2.1 million over their lifetime, compared to high school graduates' $1.2 million.Unfortunately, not enough of these "student" athletes earn degrees of any kind. Despite efforts to improve graduation rates, the latest stats from the NCAA show that for black football players who entered college from 1997 to 1998, the graduation rates were 49 percent for each of the two years.

In basketball the rates were 41 and 42 percent. Some elite universities have far lower rates.There are also serious doubts about the quality of these athletes' educations. It is true that they have tutors and compulsory study halls not available to most students. They have the security of scholarships, so there are no financial pressures that force other students to drop out. But even if the black athlete graduates, his degree may not be worth much if he has filled his schedule with less than challenging courses. "

More here.

So is Donal Brown right? Are the NCAA schools pimping these young men? Personally, I think some of these coaches are doing just that. When you see coach K crying over losing his kids to graduation, it's not because he is happy that they are going out into the world with a Duke degree. No, he is crying because his basketball team will be losing a great player. Coach K and the NCAA well be fine, thanks to CBS and other corporate sponsors they are swimming in money.

Still, these student athletes have to remember that there is a student before the word athlete, and they should be realistic about their chances of playing the sport they love for money. They need to make the best of their college experience and get their degrees. I know that their pim....I mean coach is always in their ears to watch game films and practice, but they have a bigger responsibility to themselves than to their coach and old State U.

Wouldn't it be nice to hear a coach tell a kid that he should put in as much time in the library as he does at the free throw line? It would be nice, but ain't ever gonna happen. Coach has too much to lose, and he can't stand the risk of having his most valuable commodity forget why he needs him in the first place.

An Ode to Grammar

Does the internet negatively shape the literary minds of the masses? Would you agree that splitting infinitives and ending sentences with prepositions is becoming standard because of the global, grammatic influence of the net? Could it be that its isolated forums provide comfortable locals for casually reinforcing relaxed notions about writing that would otherwise be cast away under societal pressure?

Wikipedia is one internet local that reflects such a forum. After perusing a random articles, an act made easier by the convenient "random article" link on the site's homepage, the result was enough to make an editor sigh: the article about Xi'an Subway, a metro system in Shaanxi province of China, lacked commas and misused a word that I am unfamiliar with, approximatively. Many random articles follow this pattern. This reflects poorly on the authors of user driven content.

The dulled eye of the common internet user will lazily glaze past the same mistake time and time again. One error, the misuse of the word approximatively, survived six edits over the course of fourteen months. I put the poor "illegitimate" out of its misery today, finally changing it to its close cousin, approximately.

In locations where the typed word is less permanent, such as chat boxes and instant messengers, grammar is more horrible as misspellings and missing punctuation shove accurate writing to the wayside. Unless these inaccuracies are so egregious that other lax typists judge them illegible, any attempt to criticize ones lack of grammar is met with phrases such as: "this is the internet not school", "its a informal setting", or, more pointedly, "stfu".


This might not be so bad if people were learning and using grammar off line, but most people do not become proficient writers, ever. First-year English professors are used to the sub-par writing skills of their students. If online culture would reinforce proper writing, perhaps it may not create Pulitzer prize winners, but it may ease the burden of our professors. In addition, this increased proficiency might spill into the more permanent areas on the internet.

If you're reading this, consider exerting a little bit of grammatic pressure while you're on the internet. You never know, you might just keep an infinitive from splitting.

President Obama lifts the ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research

President Obama fulfilled a campaign promise to lift the ban on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research put in place by President Bush in 2001. Obama's new executive order now allows scientists to apply for government grants to study the versatile cells. (Time/CNN)

Kanye West's Shift from Music to Fashion and the Ignorant Response from the Hip Hop Proles

In an interview in the January/February issue of Details Magazine, Kanye West expounds on his status within his generation, style, personal drive, the importance of titles, his interest in fashion, and just being himself.

West uses language and anecdotes that cause heads to turn just as easily as his clothes do for those who are unaware. Kanye West speaks in absolute terms referring to himself as "one of the greatest rappers in the world", a "superhero" and confirming his belief that he is "the voice of this generation". Emphasizing the point he eloquently states, "If not me, then who?"

Many, including African Americans from the Hip Hop generation, take these words as those of a delusional man boasting beyond credentials. For example, comments left on Black Planet.com are saturated with men and women criticizing West for his confident crowing. YOURNAWTEEGIRL writes:

SOMEONE PLEASE TELL KANYE HE IS TRULY NOT ALL THAT
HE NEEDS TO GET OFF HIS OWN NUTS…FAST

I’VE NEVER BEEN A BIG KANYE FAN AND THE MORE THIS MAN SPEAKS THE MORE IT SOLIDIFIES MY DISGUST FOR HIM ‘Dude, that’s so good it’s almost…gay.’”??? WTF AS IF THE WORLD DIDN’T THINK YOU WERE GAY ENOUGH AS IT IS

These comments are in response to five quotations taken out of context. I doubt many who replied took the time to read the articles. The quotations remain equally provoking within context, but the point of the author appears to be one of degradation rather than objective analysis of what Kanye West is saying in the interview.

People upset by Kanye's hailing himself the greatest would be best to keep in mind that Black expression of individual greatness has always been a part of song. From Aretha Franklin saying "I am the Queen", to James Brown's "I'm Black and I'm Proud", to Dead Prez calling out "I'm African/And I know what's happenin'". It's the same type of offense that people took when Ali called himself the greatest.

We've always been a braggadocios people, and with good reason. We accomplish much. Kanye West as an individual has accomplished much and he has every right to raise his voice in self praise, especially if we won't do it for him. We should echo that praise and not try to diminish the merit in what he has done.

Regardless of how we judge West, he tells us he doesn't care. Just like Redman taking everything in stride, rapping tongue-in-cheek that people say "My first name must be He Ain't Shit" and "My middle name must be Fuck You", Kanye tells us bluntly that he'll be serving "A" material, no matter what we think, in all that he does because he's dedicated to excellence.

Kanye West describes multiple drives and says he rerouted the same type of energy that will send a young man to a club at 3am searching for sex into developing music. That's why he was signed to Roc-a-Fella. That's why he was able to develop four incredible albums with wide appeal.

This same appeal will no doubt find its way into Kanye Wests clothing design. Sneakers ran down the runway in Paris hold unparalleled potential as West finds himself following Marc Jacobs who he describes as the Jay-Z of the fashion world.

I'll be waiting to see what this music great comes up with. I expect no less than excellence from him.