Auburn’s Dye Fears New Rules Would Be Harmful to Blacks

Auburn football coach Pat Dye believes tougher academic rules would mainly hurt black athletes.

Discussing an NCAA proposal calling for stricter academic standards, Dye said, “If they even enforce the rules we have now, we’ll have smaller, slower people--more whites. It will be like when I played (at Georgia in the late ‘50s).”

Dye claims that if the proposed rule had been in effect last winter, Auburn would have been unable to get a third of the high school football players it recruited into school.

“I’m not just talking about Auburn,” Dye said. “Aside from Vanderbilt, we have as good an academic program as anyone in the Southeastern Conference. We signed the best group, academically, since I’ve been here. But we couldn’t have taken some of those under the proposed rule.”

Vanderbilt’s George MacIntyre said tougher academic standards would also hurt his school--but for a different reason.

“There’s a limited pool of true scholar-athletes out there,” MacIntyre said. “When the rules bar recruiting the poorer students, other schools will start looking at our kind of players.”

While not concerned about the NCAA raising entrance requirements, Vanderbilt has spent the past six months overcoming a steroid scandal.

“That’s no longer a problem,” said MacIntyre. “We are now testing for all drugs. Steroids are the least of our thoughts. I can tell you, we’re the cleanest team in America--or at least tied for first.”

Dye thinks too much emphasis has been placed on athletes who fail to graduate.

“There is a lot of merit in going four years to college even if you don’t graduate,” he said. “It gives those who do a social grace that stands them in good stead in the outside world. I graduated from Georgia, but that is not the reason I got my job at Auburn.

“There are a lot of athletes who have become better people, better citizens, because of their exposure to college even if they don’t wind up with a degree. There are professions where you have to have a degree, but a lot of good jobs out there for those who don’t.”