STUDENT ATHLETES AND ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE. To recruit student athletes for a winning team, many colleges are willing to go to great lengths, providing full academic scholarships, to athletes, and sometimes putting the colleges academic reputatiori at risk. The tacit understanding shared by college admissions directors as well as the potential sports stars they admit is that athletes do not enroll in college to learn, but to play sports and perhaps use intercollegiate sports as a springboard for a professional career. The situation often embarrasses college administrators, who are caught between educational ideals and commercial realities, and infuriates other students, who resent the preferential treatment given to athletes.
Of late, some universities, such as the University of Michigan, have initiated support programs to improve academic performance and graduation rates of athletes. WINNING Increasing commercialization of college sports is part of a larger trend. American sports are becoming more competitive and more profit-oriented.
As a result, playing to win is emphasized more than playing for fun. This is true from the professional level all the way down to the level of childrens Little League sports teams, where young players are encouraged by such slogans as A quitter never wins a winner never quits, and never be willing to be second best. The obsession with winning causes some people to wonder whether sports in America should be such serious business.