From a young age many African American boys dream of becoming pro athletes. These dreams are created through media which is constantly telling them that "black men can jump". In history, African Americans have been known to be incredible athletes, some of the most famous athletes to this day are African American such as, Isiah Thomas, Carmelo Anthony, Bo Jackson, Reggie White, Arthur Ashe and Althea Gibson. A lot of the times it seems that success=sports is driven into these young kids minds therefore striving to become pro is what they think is the best thing out there. Instead of believing that they can become doctors, or lawyers they believe that being pro is the only way to success.
The fact that black males are continuously being recruited to universities at young ages, and according to the NCAA if you are 19 and have graduated high school you are eligible to be drafted into the NBA, the drive to excel academically is lower. Therefore some high school students dont even think about the NCAA they only think about the pros, and in that case education is thrown out the window. Going back to previous research I think it would be very smart if students were not allowed to play sports in their freshmen year; it would help their understanding of why they are attending higher education in the first place and would allow them to become fully immersed in the study body and culture.
Within higher education institutions things start to get skewed on certain levels. In some schools teachers or professors are required to give updates about their student athletes performances in class. They are given sheets to fill out accessing the students in class participation,attendance, overall attentiveness, and marks on assignments. Singling out the student athlete in this way is unfair because how can professors keep track of all students especially in large lecture classes. Some professors in large lectures dont even take attendance. Right away the student athlete is segregated from the rest of the class, putting them in a different lime light. Sometimes when student-athletes receive special attention or teachers are told to give them special attention, teachers automatically assume that something is wrong or dysfunctional with the student. Therefore this segregates them even more. Due to this some students in the class become bitter because now an idea has been in place that some students are more or less important than others.
Due to their athletic abilities African American Studies are treated differently within the classroom. Sometimes they are given special privileges and other times they are not treated with the same amount of respect as other student athletes. Since being a NCAA athlete is like being a super star many of these kids gain lots of attention from their peers, teachers, and obviously coaches. A lot of this attention is positive praise about athletic performance. Instead of teachers focusing on praise about games they should focus on helping their students with academics. It just goes to show that even faculty can be thrown off by their star power.
Black men have been notoriously stereotyped as phenomenal athletes. "To help sustain the American "racial status-quo" (Davis, 1990, p.180), the I.Q myth (Jensen, 1969), and the promotion of sociobiology (Alper, 1978), the over-representation of young black males in revenue-generating college sports can be used to rationalize the existence of social and racial stratification. In turn, institutional patterns and policies emerge in higher education which act to absolve the comparatively lower graduation rate of black vis-a-vis white student-athletes (Wiley, 1991). Such patterns and practices can stem from what Knowles and Prewitt (1969) define as institutionalized racism." (Clarence Spigner)
African American students should not just be measured and applauded for their athletic capabilities they should be encouraged to work hard on and off the field. If academics were stressed as success instead of sports I think the dreams of many student athletes would change.
African American Student Athletes: academic support or institutionalized racism- Clarence Spigner
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