PRESS RELEASE – JULY 30, 2019
For immediate release
For more information:
Fritz Polite, President
The Drake Group
(407) 758-0811
[email protected]
www.TheDrakeGroup.org
The Drake Group Applauds U.S. Senator Murphy’s Report on Need for Intercollegiate Athletics Academic Reforms
NEW HAVEN, CONN. – The Drake Group applauded U.S. Senator Christopher Murphy’s (D-CT) report, released on July 25, on the how the NCAA and its member institutions of higher education are failing college athletes: Madness Inc. – How colleges keep athletes on the field and out of the classroom.
Dr. Fritz Polite, president of The Drake Group and Dr. B. David Ridpath, past president, commented: “Senator Murphy properly raises the issues of academic fraud and athlete compensation as civil rights issues that disproportionately impact athletes of color in football and basketball but are epidemic among many sports in all competitive divisions. When athletes are admitted through waivers of normal academic standards with reading levels that do not enable them to compete in the classroom against better prepared peers, academic fraud is the inevitable result. Athletic departments start offering their own academic support programs despite their obvious conflict of interest and lack of jurisdiction over academic affairs. Coaches and athletic department counselors push athletes into less demanding majors or courses with athlete-friendly professors. Tutors feel pressured by powerful coaches to keep athletes eligible at any cost, including doing coursework for athletes they have been assigned to help. Coaches are allowed to demand that athletes spend 40 to 60 hours a week on athletics-related activities, leaving insufficient time for academic endeavors. The result is the promise of a bona fide college education falling by the wayside and embarrassingly low graduation rates for the most vulnerable college athletes. We concur with Senator Murphy that college athletes deserve a better shake – a meaningful education, more time to devote to their studies and better protection of their health and well-being. The Drake Group urges the Senator to continue to play a leadership role in demanding that institutions of higher education protect athletes from the unrealistic time demands of coaches, place a higher priority on providing a real education and commit to complete transparency with regard to the academic data of their college athletes in order to allow faculty oversight. We hope the Senator will convince his colleagues to embrace a bipartisan Congressional effort to address these issues as it appears the NCAA will not do so itself. The Drake Group also remains committed to assisting Senator Murphy and others in this important endeavor.”
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Questions on issues related to academic fraud in college athletics should be addressed to The Drake Group expert on this subject, Dr. Gerald Gurney, [email protected]