Gambling and the New Scholar-Athlete

By Christian Hummel | Wednesday, April 15, 1998

In the essay 'Jump Shots' in his collection Just Beyond the Firelight, Robert Waller describes his transition from high school basketball to the world of Big Ten athletics at the University of Iowa. Waller discovered that now people outside of the team cared if a player was hurt, or who was playing well. He found that 'tutors' had astonshingly accurate information on up-coming exams. He discovered that winning mattered as much, if not more, than the proverbial 'how you play the game.' Few things gave changed from the 1960's when Waller made this transition.

Ultimately he found the culture surrounding the athletic department unsatisfying and transferred to another school where he could play basketball in a less intense environment. Within a few years he earned a Ph.D., became a professor at the University of Northern Iowa, and embarked on a writing career highlighted by The Bridges of Madison County.

College athletics is big business. Movies such 'Blue Chips' and 'The Program' attempt to depict the underworld nature of some athletic programs.

These movies are probably more indicative of the spirit of the revenue-producing programs than 'Rudy' or 'The Knute Rockne Story.' While coaches may still try to inspire their teams to win one for the gipper, they are likely to be equally concerned about their careers. It is difficult to imagine any other industry where fifty-yearold men get fired because of the performance of nineteen and twenty-year old kids running around in shorts. We have left the world of amateurism and have now entered the world of professional sports.

What is at stake when the student-athlete takes the field? For the great majority of teams it is a matter of pride or personal achievement. If its the Nebraska football team on New Year's Day its a question of a national championship, of draft hopes, of the big dollars awarded to the school for a victory.

College athletes at such programs are placed under intense scrutiny both by their coaches and their fellow students but also by the NCAA, sports agents, gamblers, and the fan sitting in a sports bar. It is a culture of contradiction as American as apple pie; the pursuit of glory attached to the possibility of a financial windfall.

Needless to say it is should be no surprise when we hear the bad news on occasion. The shock has worn off by now. Headlines of athletes beating up their girl-friends, point-shaving, accepting 'gifts' from alumni, and foregoing a senior (or junior or even sophomore, for that matter) year to play the roulette wheel called the draft.

Ideally some programs are, if not above this, removed from this culture. The Ivy League does not allow the awardance of athletic scholarships.

Ideally, everyone attending classes in Ithaca, or Princeton, and Hanover, is a student first and a solid point-guard or goalkeeper second. But even the Ivy League is not immune.

In December, the University of Pennsylvania football team had its entire season rendered no more meaningful than an asterisk when the NCAA ruled that it had used an ineligible player. One of the athletes had not enrolled in enough classes and despite some half-hearted efforts to have him magically enrolled in some tutorial, it was too late and the team had to forfeit all the games in which he had competed. This is likely to merely be the tip of the ice-berg. As this case has shown, no team or conference is immune from the improprities associated with professional athletics.

It has been rumored that Ivy League athletics are the most heavily bet on contests in the gambling centers such as Atlantic City or Las Vegas. With such a high preponderance of rich alumni coupled with the fact that there is a great parity among the teams in the conference, it should come as no surprise that the money flows freely. To what extent individuals are willing to attempt to influence the outcomes of events remains to be seen. Gamblers have arranged influence at other schools, why should the Ivies be any different?

With the spate of point-shaving investigations around the country in recent months concerns have been raised regarding the extent college athletics have been corrupted.

The balance between playing for the joy of the game and for astronimical amounts of money is becoming more and more precarious.

Sports have been long seen as a means to a better end. However with the rise of the revenue-producing programs in select sports at select institutions, the entire academic community in the United States has been bastardized. Colleges ceased to be associated with scholarship and became more known for touch-downs and last-second shots.

What is more likely — that the boy wearing the Michigan shirt is excited about its Classics department or is excited about its basketball team?

I am a firm believer that the problems surrounding the professionalization of college athletics will remedy themselves.

In any situation driven by simple economics the market system will find a way to
correct any imbalances. Perhaps at some point schools will realize that the revenues lost from sanctions levelled following a rules violation are greater than the little it costs to maintain compliance.

Perhaps some athletes will just begin to skip attending school altogether and attempt to go straight to the NBA or NFL leaving college athletics to those who truly want an education and the chance to play four more years of a sport. It is likely though that things will get worse before they get better. So be it. I am not one about to advocate the abolition of the NCAA Basketball Tournament, the College World Series, or the Rose Bowl.

The Ivy League was originally a football conference consisting of four teams (Ivy being derived from the Roman numeral for this number rather than a botanical phenomena). Only later did it come to be a symbol of academic prowess. Too often this bit of history is overlooked. The League must continue to set the standard both academically as well as athletically. To continue to strive for success, though not enjoying the benefits afforded to through scholarships, is a sign of a collective level of character not evident anywhere else in the collegiate athletic world.

Spare me the arguments about NCAA Division III teams; they are not competing against the same caliber of opposition that is found in Division I athletics.

The Ivy League has stood apart for many decades now and must continue to do so.

Gambling and the New Scholar-Athlete

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