There was a day when colleges focused on what a few holdouts still quaintly call the “cultivation of the whole person.” In that education, which took seriously the role of the college as a place of intellectual discipline and moral training, athletics could have a role — but as part of that larger cultivation. Physical health was encouraged because it served pursuits of mind and spirit. Additionally, athletics offered the opportunity to exercise strength, courage, sportsmanship, and grace (in loss, and in victory).
The pressure, however, of keeping up name-brand athletics programs has turned the focus of many schools away from any substantial concept of education. Who is surprised that, as UNC demonstrates, academic standards slide as a result?
Moreover, UNC’s athletics obsession harmed not only student-athletes. Half of the enrollees in UNC’s paper classes were not involved in athletics; they were simply students Crowder thought “deserving of special assistance — from sexual assault victims to students with mental health issues.” They, too, were steered into the diploma EZ lane, and not a single UNC staff member or administrator thought that troubling.
For these students — and no doubt many more, nationwide — college was largely a waste.
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