My school’s men’s basketball team won the America East Conference tournament and this Friday will play against the University of Connecticut in the NCAA tournament. We only moved into division 1 in 1999 – we were in division 3 when I arrived in 1994 – and two years ago the basketball team had a record of 5-23. I think this is the first time any SUNY school has ever gone to the tournament.
One report says that “Albany could receive as much as $800,000 for its first NCAA game, money the school has to share with other members of the America East Conference.” I have no idea how much of that will stay at Albany. But surely, by far the greatest benefit will be the publicity of making it to the tournament. How many people this week are looking over the brackets in their office pool and seeing the name “Albany” for the first time? I am sure that applications will jump. I’ve seen it happen before – when my brother decided to go to Colgate.
The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports has released their analysis (pdf) of graduation rates of the teams participating in the tournament. They report a few different measures, but the bottom line is that compared to last year, significantly more teams are graduating at least 50% of their student athletes within 6 years. (It’s unclear whether this is a genuine improvement or just the luck of the draw.) The bad news is that there is a large gap between graduation rates of black and white student athletes. Still, the Institute commends NCAA President Myles Brand and points out that “African-American student-athletes are doing better historically.” Further: “African-American basketball players graduate at a higher rate than African-American males who are not student-athletes.” (By itself, of course, this could be a half-empty / half-full kind of observation.) The report doesn’t give data for making a general comparison, but at my school student athletes graduate (pdf) at a higher rate than the general population.
{ 11 comments }
Delicious pundit 03.15.06 at 10:31 am
It’s been ages since I lived in the Capital District; back then we called it Albany State. Too declasse, I guess; I notice that Memphis State (top seed, Oakland Regional) has also given itself the Sting-Bono treatment.
Funny, the next tab on my browser is a review, via Arts & Letters Daily, of “To Hate Like This Is To Be Happy Forever,” about the Duke – UNC rivalry. As awful/sleazy as college sports are, I often feel bad for enjoying them so much. But then I suppose you could say the same thing about meat.
The Unknown Professor 03.15.06 at 12:13 pm
As a UConn alumni (and owner of about a dozen pieces of UConn-branded swag), I’ll be rooting against y’all.
I was talking once to the MBA director at a previous school. He noted that the rankings of colleges’ business schools were highly correlated with the performance of their football teams. He thought it had something to do with alumni money – it was easier to put the bite on alumni when going to the game was a treat.
So, hopefully it will have some positive effect on enrollment.
Tim 03.15.06 at 12:24 pm
“The concerns of the University are universal and eternal: sports for the alumni, parking for the faculty, and sex for the undergraduates.”
–Francis Collins, Director, Human Genome Research Project (University of Virginia commencement address, 2002 IIRC)
Jared 03.15.06 at 3:07 pm
I’m at Boston College (they’ll play Albany in the Final Four, I’m sure), which is the classic example for the argument that athletic success can be used to raise academic standards by increasing name recognition and attracting more applicants. It’s called the “Flutie Factor,” but a lot of people doubt it has much of an effect. Short version: the jump in applications around the time the football team was doing so well seems to be coincidental, and the University was moving towards being a regional rather than a commuter school anyway.
Graduation rates among athletes are a different matter. Student-athletes here have access to much more assistance (tutors, progress reports) than most other students. This is fine; they’re very busy people and any extra help is appreciated. My point is simply that graduation rates have less to do with how smart the athletes are, and how much they share in the general academic life of the campus (such as it is), than you might think.
Robert 03.15.06 at 6:13 pm
I always thought the name of the school was “SUNY Albany”, or just “SUNY” if it was clear that you were talking about the capital district.
I cheer for the Syracuse Orange, even though I never attended any classes there. I have worked with a couple of professors there, though. Syracuse is the biggest school around.
Caveat: when Jon’s brother was at Colgate, I also cheered somewhat for them too.
And to show you how confused I am, I like both Duke and UNC too.
Jon Mandle 03.15.06 at 6:56 pm
These days we’re official the University at Albany. When I arrived, we were SUNY-Albany (aka SUNYA). Albany State was before my time, but a neighbor still calls it that.
John Quiggin 03.15.06 at 8:16 pm
Jon, I’d be interested in your thoughts on my proposal here which is that
'As you know' Bob 03.15.06 at 11:34 pm
“But surely, by far the greatest benefit will be the publicity of making it to the tournament.”
I’ve always taken it as given that a reputation as a sports school was a negative for a serious academic institution.
SUNY-Albany is the school that fired its Classics department in order to find enough money in its budget to air-condition its gymnasium – in order to prostitute itself to as a training camp for an NFL team.
It really sank in my estimation after that.
'As you know' Bob 03.15.06 at 11:37 pm
And I should be sure I close the bold tag after negative. I wish CT had “preview”.
“But surely, by far the greatest benefit will be the publicity of making it to the tournament.â€
I’ve always taken it as given that a reputation as a sports school was a negative for a serious academic institution.
SUNY-Albany is the school that fired its Classics department in order to find enough money in its budget to air-condition its gymnasium – in order to prostitute itself to as a training camp for an NFL team.
It really sank in my estimation after that.
Jon Mandle 03.16.06 at 9:50 am
John – the idea is intriguing, and definitely addresses some real issues, but it has the feel of a let’s-make-the-hypocrisy-explicit proposal. (Which isn’t to say it might not be an improvement.) Schools would then be a position of fielding teams with even less pretense that the athletes are or are expected to be even marginally acceptable students. There still could be admissions standards, I suppose, but – as presented – your proposal would eliminate current minimal eligibility standards. It’s hard to see how schools would be doing something other than just hiring professional teams. And if that’s right, then the players certainly should be paid. I suppose there could be standards for graduating a certain percentage of athletes, but this could only be calculated nearly a decade out, which would be too long to use for meaningful incentives or penalties.
Bob – Albany has certainly made some bad decisions in the past – including how it handled Classics. (By the way, just the other day, our new provost said she agrees that it was handled poorly.) But it’s just silly to suggest that the administration was casting around for a way to pay for air-conditioning and landed on firing the Classics Department.
The local paper has a story today suggesting that the basketball team’s success isn’t likely to boost alumni giving much (at least in the short-term) but is likely to increase student applications significantly.
A friend wanted me to help him make picks for his office pool. I wanted to know whether I could pick Albany over UConn in the first game, but then UConn to win the rest of them and go all the way. He wouldn’t let me.
John Quiggin 03.16.06 at 8:47 pm
The time lag is a problem, but, assuming it could be resolved, I’m relaxed about the idea of lowering admissions standards. I think access to tertiary education should be expanded across the board, so it would be great to push universities to develop teaching approaches that would achieve decent graduation rates for poorly-prepared students.
While my idea would kill off the student-athlete ideal, I don’t (given my non-US background) have any feelings about that. I see athletic scholarships as being desirable as a route for poor students to get into university.
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