Athletes Need to Succeed in Classroom, Too

Only one in 10,000 of our high school student-athletes will ever play professional sports. How can we look the other way in preparing the remaining 9,999 for what lies ahead?

Can we afford to sacrifice yet another generation of our youth to false hopes and expectations? Don’t student-athletes have just as much right to an education in the classroom as other students?

I think they do, and more important I know that if given the opportunity by the adults responsible, their coaches and teachers, these student-athletes will most certainly succeed.

Indeed, the college graduation rate for all athletes is 51% compared to 42% for non-athletes, according to the Center for the Study of Sport in Society. However, a shameful and seldom reported fact is that in the revenue-producing sports of football and basketball, an estimated 25% to 30% of the nation’s high school seniors are functionally illiterate.

Is economic gain for the schools being accomplished at the expense of the student-athlete?

I think so. And who can change this result?

The coach and the teacher must take the responsibility. And yet, it is the coach and the teacher who seem to have lost sight of the value of the sports experience.

The short-term, result--winning--appears to dictate their approach. Lost is the emphasis on the invaluable lifelong lessons that sports can teach--the importance of learning, goal-setting, hard work and the necessity of dealing with disappointment.

As we celebrate National Student-Athlete Day, it is imperative that as teachers, coaches and parents, we rededicate our efforts to ensure that our student-athletes are not allowed to sacrifice academic achievement for success on the playing field.

Our expectations for academic performance from our student-athletes must be as high as their athletic performance.

Corporate America must also refrain from putting additional pressure on high school sports for the sake of television advertising revenues.

It is time to stop selling our student-athletes short.

ANITA DeFRANTZ

Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles, President; Member of the International Olympic Committee