Death Threats for Exposing College Athlete Literacy Rates

[Scrib]

The death threats, Mary Willingham expected.

More shocking is that the University of North Carolina is now disavowing her research as a whistle-blower -- research that showed between 8% and 10% of the school's football and basketball players are reading below a third-grade level.

UNC issued a statement Wednesday night saying it did not believe Willingham's account of a basketball player who could not read or write.

It went on: "University officials can't comment on the other statistical claims mentioned in the story because they have not seen that data. University officials have asked for that data, but those requests have not been met."

As well as questioning UNC many times about the story before publication, CNN has also detailed Willingham's research.
And purported e-mail exchanges obtained by CNN since August show that Willingham did share her findings at least twice -- once with Executive Vice Provost James W. Dean Jr., and once with a member of a university committee on academics and athletics.

In addition, Willingham says her research on the students in the athletics programs that make money for the university was done based on screenings that the university itself paid for. And, she says, she has gotten permission from the university several times since 2008 to access those findings to continue her research.

"It's already available to them," Willingham said. "It's in their system. ... They have all the data and more. It belongs to them, and they paid a lot of money for it."

Last year, when CNN asked UNC for comment on Willingham's research, officials initially denied knowing about it, and said: "Such analysis is not part of her job duties at the university."

Then, after being shown the e-mails, a spokesperson admitted that Willingham did share her findings and did have permission from the university to do the research in the first place, and said a meeting with Willingham was being scheduled.

Apart from Wednesday's statement, UNC has not responded to CNN's request for an explanation.

In the meantime, Willingham said she has heard from one branch of the university -- the Department of Public Safety.
Since CNN's report, Willingham said she's gotten four death threats, and more than 30 other alarming messages.
"Not people who disagree, people who put in the subject or body (of the e-mail) straight-up hate speech," she said.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/09/us/ncaa-a ... -response/.

[Jaevric]

Here's something I'm curious about. Do western Europeans get death threats at the drop of a hat or is this strictly an (United States of) American thing? It seems insane to send someone death threats for something like this (or most any other reason) but it seems to happen frequently.

[Rogue 9]

Eh. I've had death threats before over even pettier bullshit than this; it's almost always blowhards who think they're just going to scare you from anonymity and don't intend to act or believe anything else will come from it.

At any rate, chalk up another reason why university athletics should be banned. If the professional leagues want farm teams they can pay for them their own damn selves rather than fuck up higher education over it.

[Scrib]

Here's something I'm curious about. Do western Europeans get death threats at the drop of a hat or is this strictly an (United States of) American thing? It seems insane to send someone death threats for something like this (or most any other reason) but it seems to happen frequently.

Don't think it's a US thing at all. When the creator of World Soccer Daily implied that Liverpool Football Club's fans held some of the blame for a disaster they hounded him off the internet. They went so far as to go after his stepkids.Of course, YMMV on what exactly qualifies as "a drop of the hat" because, if I recall, this was a tragedy in Liverpool he was blaming them for, one they're very touchy about.

I think it's just what happens when people online discover they have the freedom to be a fuckwad, the tribalism of sports and the media focusing so much on these issues get mixed together and especially the ones that happen in America.It can happen to anyone. In retrospect I'm not really helping by focusing on that aspect instead of the actual issue.

[Zaune]

Don't think it's a US thing at all. When the creator of World Soccer Daily implied that Liverpool Football Club's fans held some of the blame for a disaster they hounded him off the internet. They went so far as to go after his stepkids.Of course, YMMV on what exactly qualifies as "a drop of the hat" because, if I recall, this was a tragedy in Liverpool he was blaming them for, one they're very touchy about.

You're thinking of this, and "touchy" is putting it mildly.

[Rogue 9]

In retrospect I'm not really helping by focusing on that aspect instead of the actual issue.

Indeed. Speaking of, the actual issue.

CNN analysis: Some college athletes play like adults, read like 5th-graders

By Sara Ganim, CNN
updated 1:05 PM EST, Wed January 8, 2014

(CNN) -- Early in her career as a learning specialist, Mary Willingham was in her office when a basketball player at the University of North Carolina walked in looking for help with his classwork.

He couldn't read or write.

"And I kind of panicked. What do you do with that?" she said, recalling the meeting.

Willingham's job was to help athletes who weren't quite ready academically for the work required at UNC at Chapel Hill, one of the country's top public universities.

But she was shocked that one couldn't read. And then she found he was not an anomaly.

Soon, she'd meet a student-athlete who couldn't read multisyllabic words. She had to teach him to sound out Wis-con-sin, as kids do in elementary school.

And then another came with this request: "If I could teach him to read well enough so he could read about himself in the news, because that was something really important to him," Willingham said.

Student-athletes who can't read well, but play in the money-making collegiate sports of football and basketball, are not a new phenomenon, and they certainly aren't found only at UNC-Chapel Hill.

A CNN investigation found public universities across the country where many students in the basketball and football programs could read only up to an eighth-grade level. The data obtained through open records requests also showed a staggering achievement gap between college athletes and their peers at the same institution.

This is not an exhaustive survey of all universities with major sports programs; CNN chose a sampling of public universities where open records laws apply. We sought data from a total of 37 institutions, of which 21 schools responded. The others denied our request for entrance exam or aptitude test scores, some saying the information did not exist and others citing privacy rules. Some simply did not provide it in time.

See the details of our findings

Academic vs. athletic scandal

As a graduate student at UNC-Greensboro, Willingham researched the reading levels of 183 UNC-Chapel Hill athletes who played football or basketball from 2004 to 2012. She found that 60% read between fourth- and eighth-grade levels. Between 8% and 10% read below a third-grade level.

"So what are the classes they are going to take to get a degree here? You cannot come here with a third-, fourth- or fifth-grade education and get a degree here," she told CNN.

The issue was highlighted at UNC two years ago with the exposure of a scandal where students, many of them athletes, were given grades for classes they didn't attend, and where they did nothing more than turn in a single paper. Last month, a North Carolina grand jury indicted a professor at the center of the scandal on fraud charges. He's accused of being paid $12,000 for a class he didn't teach.

When Willingham worked as a learning specialist for athletes from 2003 to 2010, she admits she took part in cheating, signing her name to forms that said she witnessed no NCAA rules violations when in fact she did. But the NCAA, the college sports organizing body, never interviewed her. Instead, it found no rules had been broken at Chapel Hill.

UNC now says 120 reforms put in place ensure there are no academic transgressions.

But Willingham said fake classes were just a symptom of the bigger problem of enrolling good athletes who didn't have the reading skills to succeed at college.

"Isn't it all cheating if I'm sitting at a table with a kid who can't read or write at college level and pulling a paper out of them? Is this really legitimate? No," Willingham told CNN. "I wouldn't do that today with a college student; I only did it with athletics, because it's necessary."

NCAA sports are big business, with millions of dollars at stake for winning programs.

In 2012, the University of Louisville earned a profit of $26.9 million from its men's basketball program, according to figures that schools have to file with the Department of Education and were analyzed by CNNMoney. That's about 60% more than the $16.9 million profit at the University of North Carolina, whose men's hoops team had the second-largest profit.

Willingham, now a graduation adviser with access to student files, said she believes there are still athletes at UNC who can't do the coursework.

UNC Athletics Director Bubba Cunningham told CNN the school admits only students it believes can succeed.

"I think our students have an exceptional experience in the classroom as well as on the fields of competition," he said.

Anecdotally, NCAA officials admit there are probably stories that are troubling, but they also say the vast majority of student-athletes compete at a high level in the classroom.

"Are there students coming to college underprepared? Sure. They are not just student-athletes," said Kevin Lennon, vice president of academic and membership affairs at the NCAA.

But he said the NCAA sees it as the responsibility of universities to decide what level athlete should be admitted to their schools.

"Once the school admits them, the school should do everything it can to make sure the student succeeds," he said. "(Universities) don't want a national standard that says who they can recruit and admit. They want those decisions with the president, provost and athletic directors. That is the critical piece of all of this."

Scarce information

The NCAA admits that almost 30 athletes in sports that make revenue for schools were accepted in 2012 with very low scores -- below 700 on the SAT composite, where the national average is 1000. That's a small percentage of about 5,700 revenue-sport athletes.

However, the NCAA did not share raw data. The U.S. Department of Education does not track statistics on the topic, nor do the conferences.

In fact, CNN only found one person in addition to Willingham who has ever collected data on the topic. University of Oklahoma professor Gerald Gurney found that about 10% of revenue-sport athletes there were reading below a fourth-grade level.

So, after consulting with several academic experts, CNN filed public records requests and concluded that what Willingham found at UNC and Gurney found at Oklahoma is also happening elsewhere.

The data CNN collected is based on the SAT and ACT entrance exam scores of athletes playing the revenue sports: football and basketball.

In some cases, where that information was not available, CNN then asked for aptitude test scores administered after the athlete was accepted by the university.

Based on data from those requests and dozens of interviews, a CNN investigation revealed that most schools have between 7% and 18% of revenue sport athletes who are reading at an elementary school level. Some had even higher percentages of below-threshold athletes.

According to those academic experts, the threshold for being college-literate is a score of 400 on the SAT critical reading or writing test. On the ACT, that threshold is 16.

Many student-athletes scored in the 200s and 300s on the SAT critical reading test -- a threshold that experts told us was an elementary reading level and too low for college classes. The lowest score possible on that part of the SAT is 200, and the national average is 500.

On the ACT, we found some students scoring in the single digits, when the highest possible score is 36 and the national average is 20. In most cases, the team average ACT reading score was in the high teens.

"It is in many ways immoral for the university to even admit that student," said Dr. Richard M. Southall, director of the College Sport Research Institute and a professor at the University of South Carolina.

Scores aren't the whole story

Officials at the universities from which CNN collected data all said they recognized the low scores -- and gave several possible reasons for them:

-- Some athletes don't aim for high scores when taking entrance exams, looking only to score high enough to become NCAA eligible.

-- Many times, low scores are indicators of learning disabilities.

-- Entrance exams are just one factor taken into consideration when deciding whether to accept a student-athlete.

The officials also said they believe excellent tutoring and extra attention from academic support allows these athletes to excel off the field as well as on, and many cited the high graduation rates of athletes.

Robert Stacey, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington, said the conversation should be about the achievement gap -- the difference between the academic levels of the athletes and their nonathlete peers at the same university.

"We know how to close the achievement gap. It's just very expensive," he said. "A student who scored a 380 on his or her (SAT) critical reading is going to face tremendous challenges, won't be able to compete the first year with a student who has a 650 or 700. But with intensive tutoring -- and I'm not talking about cheating, I'm talking about tutoring -- by the time they get to be juniors, they're competing. But it's a very expensive process. It takes intensive work."

But some of the universities from which CNN sought data didn't even have remedial classes for student-athletes to attend. Athletes, many times, take the field before they even get to a classroom. And even if, over time, they can be brought up to speed, how are they getting through the first few semesters?

We found one plausible explanation at Iowa State -- where the achievement gap between students and student-athletes was fairly low.

There, any athlete who is specially admitted -- they would not have gotten in on academics alone -- is mandated to start school in the summer term, where they are given remediation.

Tom Hill, senior vice president for student affairs, said it's done partly because the school recognizes that it is simply too much to ask athletes to jump into a tough schedule of practice and games, plus keep up classwork, especially if they are already academically behind.

"We'll provide them with support and help to begin the process to shore up deficiencies," Hill said. "It's not just throwing them in there."

Hill also said that Iowa State -- a land-grant university that takes many students from small, rural towns across the state -- doesn't separate academic support for athletes from the rest of the student population. Anyone can get the same tutoring as an athlete does.

Hill, who has a long background as an administrator in college athletics, said he is well aware of the practices of pushing athletes through at more competitive schools. And he is blunt about what he thinks of it.

"Those people who do that should be arrested," Hill said. "We should make it against the law. I know it happens. I've spent time in athletics."

Former and current academic advisers, tutors and professors say it's nearly impossible to jump from an elementary to a college reading level while juggling a hectic schedule as an NCAA athlete. They say the NCAA graduation rates are flawed because they don't reflect when a student is being helped too much by academic support.

"They're pushing them through," said Billy Hawkins, an associate professor and athlete mentor at the University of Georgia.

"They're graduating them. UGA is graduating No. 2 in the SEC, so they're able to graduate athletes, but have they learned anything? Are they productive citizens now? That's a thing I worry about. To get a degree is one thing, to be functional with that degree is totally different."

Hawkins, who says in his 25 years at various universities he's witnessed some student-athletes fail to meet college reading standards, added: "It's too much for students reading below a college level. It's basically a farce."

Gurney, who looked into the situation at the University of Oklahoma, put it bluntly: "College presidents have put in jeopardy the academic credibility of their universities just so we can have this entertainment industry. ... The NCAA continually wants to ignore this fact, but they are admitting students who cannot read.

"College textbooks are written at the ninth-grade level, so we are putting these elite athletes into classes where they can't understand the textbooks. Imagine yourself sitting in a class where nothing makes sense."

Risks and rewards

All of the university representatives we talked to deny that their tutors do too much work for student-athletes who come in at such low reading levels.

"I lose sleep about a lot of things; I don't lose sleep about writing tutors. We are extremely strict," said Brian Davis, associate athletics director for football student services at the University of Texas, acknowledging there were, of course, challenges.

"You have to minimize the risk as much as you can. If you're signing 20 (recruits), you can't have 30 to 50% extremely at risk. It puts way too much pressure on the system. That's when you get into more nefarious issues, and I'm very proud of how we've addressed the risk factors," Davis said.

There are anecdotes of student athletes who do succeed. Christine Simatacolos, the associate athletics director for student life at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, talks of a student whose low scores fell below the college literacy threshold but who graduated from Louisiana State University and is now in medical school.

But far more anecdotes of failure were recounted to CNN during our monthlong research.

Kadence Otto, who once taught at Florida State University, recalled one situation where an academic support tutor would call every week to check up on a starting player.

"I would say, 'He's not doing well. He can't read and write.' And (the tutor) said, 'Well, we'll see what we can do,'" Otto said. That stopped with a career-ending injury. "He's worth nothing to the team, and I never once heard back from the academic support adviser. He never showed up to class again, either."

Otto, who now teaches at Western Carolina University, says that experience had a big impact.

"That's one of the reasons I got into working in corruption in college sports. Sending messages that maybe they don't really care about the athletes as people," she said. And as for claims by institutions that they can bring poor readers up to speed with tutoring, she said: "Honestly, it feels to me it's like trying to turn a Little League Baseball player into a pro."

Periodically since the 1980s, stories have surfaced of athletes who could not read.

-- Former basketball player Kevin Ross told ESPN's "Outside the Lines" about his struggles at Creighton University in the 1980s.

-- In 1989, football player Dexter Manley told Congress that he got through college and into the pros without ever learning to read.

-- Dasmine Cathey's compelling story of struggle at the University of Memphis was recounted by The Chronicle of Higher Education in 2012.

And as far back as the 1980s, faculty and staff have spoken up about illiterate athletes who are pushed through with passing grades to keep up their eligibility to play, while their reading was little addressed.

Linda Bensel-Meyers, who worked for Tennessee until 2003, said a university-hired psychologist would diagnose learning disabilities in athletes and put them in a program without the graduation requirements set for other students.

"Many of the records I looked at revealed that these athletes came to us essentially illiterate and still left the school functionally illiterate," Bensel-Meyers told CNN.

When contacted by CNN, Tennessee did not answer questions.

Then there was Brenda Monk. In 2009, the former Florida State University learning specialist told ESPN's "Outside the Lines" that she was forced to resign from the university as a cheating scandal surfaced in which the NCAA said that tutors were writing papers for athletes and giving them answers to test scores.

Monk denied the allegation that she did too much work for athletes, but she said she saw some of them reading at second- and third-grade levels.

The NCAA levied sanctions against Florida State in 2009, including vacating wins and reduced scholarships.

Florida State did not provide CNN with records in response to our request.

Change ahead?

In December, the Drake Group, which pushes for academic integrity in collegiate sports, organized a lobbying trip to Washington to push for an amendment to the College Education Act of 1965. Director Allen Sack said he wants to see a College Athlete Protection Act -- legislation that would keep athletes on the bench as freshmen if they are academically more than one standard deviation lower than the average student admitted to the university.

"That's unconscionable, to bring in a young athlete who does not fit in the general profile of the student body and have them play football on national television before they've entered the classroom for the first time in the fall," Sack said.

U.S. Rep. Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania introduced legislation in the House last year that calls for a complete overhaul of the NCAA. When he talked to CNN, he cited the lack of consistency in the way recent NCAA investigations into various improprieties were handled at Auburn, Florida State, Miami, North Carolina, Ohio State and Penn State.

"I think (the NCAA) needs to be looked at. I think they need to be reined in," Dent said.

Mary Willingham went on the trip to Washington and said she came back feeling that they could make some progress in bringing change.

Others aren't so confident that a beast as big as collegiate athletics can be tamed.

So in short we have blatant public corruption and academic misconduct in the name of tossing a ball around, with millions of dollars at stake. Which is not a surprise to anyone who's paid attention to college athletics. Why is this tolerated, again?

[Zaune]

So in short we have blatant public corruption and academic misconduct in the name of tossing a ball around, with millions of dollars at stake. Which is not a surprise to anyone who's paid attention to college athletics. Why is this tolerated, again?

I think you answered your own question there.

[Thanas]

It is tolerated because americans watch and pay for it. I too am not in favor of college athletics, but the real problem here is the american consumer is throwing absurd amounts of money at it.

[Wicked Pilot]

About UNC:

UNC May Have Passed Football Players With Phantom Classes

If this were true I'd death penalty the entire university athletic department if I were in charge. And I'm not some anti football hippy, I played in high school goddamnit!

[Zixinus]

If the average American consumer is throwing that damn much money at it, why bother having it tied to university? Just make the teams independent and allow universities to do their primary job: educating (and arguably, research).

[Thanas]

If the average American consumer is throwing that damn much money at it, why bother having it tied to university? Just make the teams independent and allow universities to do their primary job: educating (and arguably, research).

Because tradition and because most of the people playing in it won't make it to the pros. Less than 1% iirc. Which means that they need to get an education or otherwise they are screwed.

[Wicked Pilot]

If the average American consumer is throwing that damn much money at it, why bother having it tied to university? Just make the teams independent and allow universities to do their primary job: educating (and arguably, research).

Universities would rather keep the money that it brings in and deal with the consequences. Athletics for the sake of the students, as opposed to athletics for the sake of the school, doesn't do that.

[Wicked Pilot]

Because tradition and because most of the people playing in it won't make it to the pros. Less than 1% iirc. Which means that they need to get an education or otherwise they are screwed.

The NFL could set up a minor league, but why do that when the universities do it for free?

[Thanas]

Because tradition and because most of the people playing in it won't make it to the pros. Less than 1% iirc. Which means that they need to get an education or otherwise they are screwed.

The NFL could set up a minor league, but why do that when the universities do it for free?

Indeed and such a league most likely will not survive competition from the colleges if it were set up. No TV nights leftover, for one. Past "minor" leagues have always been troubled and gone into bankruptcy (See: UFL).

[Rogue 9]

Which is why you end the NCAA.

[Thanas]

Which is why you end the NCAA.

I'm all for it, but the chances of that happening are slim. It is a billion dollar corporation masquerading as noble athletic charity and has enormous entrenched political support in universities, national and local politics, with a billion dollar industry in construction, manufacture and TV/news stations behind it. The only way that will ever happen is if Congress does something, but the chances of that happening.....

[RogueIce]

To me college athletics (at least for football and basketball) are a sick joke where everybody makes a shitton of money...except the players. Without whom there wouldn't be any games to watch on TV.

All the rest of it: the corruption, the cheating and the other absurdities (NCAA Football videogames...can't put in the player's name but gee aren't those stats suspiciously like those of the standout athletes) are just the icing on the cake.

This whole notion of the "amateur" student-athlete is absurd. I can't wait for High School sports to get this bad. Well, they're already starting down that road (various tales you'll hear, plus shit about people moving or falsifying addresses so they can go to the "right" school, etc) and fucking ESPN nationally televises some Friday night games already.

[Block]

The problem with getting rid of the revenue producing sports is that it immediately kills all women's athletics at the college level. The only reason most schools offer those scholarships is due to Title IX rules, which state that you have to provide a certain level of funding to the other sports if you're going to spend on football, basketball, etc.

[Siege]

Here's something I'm curious about. Do western Europeans get death threats at the drop of a hat or is this strictly an (United States of) American thing?

It is not, because we do. Politicians on all sides of the political spectrum as well as public figures on this side of the pond receive death threats with saddening regularity. Most of them are from blithering idiots who don't even realize what they're doing when they fire off a threat, at least not until the police come knocking. Recent numbers I recall hearing put the number of Twitter death threats Dutch police intercept at several dozen every average day. I suppose that's one of the unfortunate side-effects of all this groovy modern communications technology; it makes it real easy for people to compose and send their hateful crap in a single fit of blinkered rage. Not an excuse, but certainly an unfortunate reality.

Just like it's an unfortunate reality, I suppose, that if you value athletic achievement over academics because big bucks are on the line you might end up selecting for athletes instead of academics. Who knew?

[Ralin]

The problem with getting rid of the revenue producing sports is that it immediately kills all women's athletics at the college level. The only reason most schools offer those scholarships is due to Title IX rules, which state that you have to provide a certain level of funding to the other sports if you're going to spend on football, basketball, etc.

Why exactly do there need to be any athletics programs in universities?

[Thanas]

There shouldn't. Most universities do not have it over here (except if you really study sports, but that is not "just play X and be good at it".

[aerius]

Well, every employer who isn't an idiot will now automatically shitcan every resumé from anyone who played NCAA football or basketball if they aren't already doing so. Congratulations on making a US college degree even more worthless than it already is.

[Block]

The problem with getting rid of the revenue producing sports is that it immediately kills all women's athletics at the college level. The only reason most schools offer those scholarships is due to Title IX rules, which state that you have to provide a certain level of funding to the other sports if you're going to spend on football, basketball, etc.

Why exactly do there need to be any athletics programs in universities?

Because a most of these kids become productive members of society and wouldn't be able to go to school without the scholarships?

[Alkaloid]

Why exactly do there need to be any athletics programs in universities?

Well they're great socially, as long as money is not the point. (Having a good way for people from all over the country who have just moved to a new city to meet people and be able to socialise is pretty important for undergrads) I played basketball for my uni team, but we just ponied up 50 bucks a game between us to cover our insurance, gear etc and played against other local uni teams. We weren't interested in playing professionally, knew there was no chance. If we had been we would have had to go outside school to play in the SEABL or something like that, and we would have spent most of our teens playing in rep squads for our cities or regions rather than our schools.

The ideal thing to do would be to decouple all of the NCAA conferences and teams from universities in one swoop and have them set up in independent second tier leagues. That way the NFL still has feeder leagues and players can still play and train part time and study/complete apprentice ships part time as well. (realistically there's nothing to stop actual NFL players doing the same thing given the way most training is structured, there are a lot of VFL players that do it here and more than a few AFL players as well.)

You'd probably have to do the same with high schools though or you will just move the same problem there. Set up regional leagues for the 12 to 18 year old players separate from academics.
I don't imagine any of the schools (or universities) would be wild about the money they would loose from it though.

EDIT: Spelling

[Zixinus]

Because a most of these kids become productive members of society and wouldn't be able to go to school without the scholarships?

Isn't scholarship something you receive to learn the major your applied scholarship for? Like, I receive an IT scholarship and I must therefore learn IT things and eventually get a degree in IT?

How does being an athlete be relevant to that? Or is this a US situation where politicians don't want to pour money into scholarships but will happily pay for the university's team to compete on TV?