Frank Deford's "Sweetness and Light" segment for NPR this week highlighted the story of Mary Willingham, a learning specialist at North Carolina. She previously worked with the athletes, but spoke out about the issues on the academic side. She was then banned from working with athletes, demoted, and had her workload "doubled." As Frank Deford explains:
She found some athletes admitted to Chapel Hill, one of the most elite public universities in the country, with fourth grade reading skills. Worse, some are, simply, non-readers. More upsetting, she found cheating rampant. It troubles her, she admits, that she herself lied about that, filling out boilerplate NCAA forms that affirmed that there was no cheating. But everybody does it. Just tell the NCAA what it wants and sell more tickets.
What is so sad, Ms. Willingham says, is that almost all of the academically deficient players whom she worked with wanted to learn, wanted an education. But their time and energy were eaten up by their sport.
Listen to more of Mary Willingham's story on NPR.
No comments:
Post a Comment