Many coaches charged that the SAT component constituted racial discrimination because blacks average lower SAT scores than whites. The NCAA was unwise when, in 1972, it repealed the prohibition on intercollegiate competition by freshmen. But at least the freshman eligibility standards, which are minimal, have helped high schools press promising athletes to study. The judge's decision has been stayed pending the NCAA's appeal. If his decision stands, it will have an unjustified disparate impact on black players, who are disproportionately represented among the athletes most taken advantage of.
Many schools bring to campus athletes unprepared for college work.
The schools wring millions of dollars of entertainment value from them, then turn to the next crop. David Goldfield, a historian at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and a member of the NCAA's Initial Eligibility Committee, says graduation rates for all athletes, and especially for black athletes, have risen markedly since freshman eligibility standards were implemented in 1986. Writing in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Goldfield notes the standardized test component is crucial because the caliber of high schools varies widely and because of grade inflation in high schools, particularly in inner cities. College football and basketball are, for many players, vocations, not avocations, and academics are unsubstantiated rumors. When the University of Minnesota's basketball team was preparing to play in the first round of the NCAA tournament, the St. Paul Pioneer-Press reported a former university employee had acknowledged preparing hundreds of term papers and other items of schoolwork for four current players, who were immediately suspended from the team, and at least 16 former players.