College athletics programs often use women and alcohol to lure potential recruits. The resulting culture of abuse needs to be reformed with action by the NCAA, as well as by university presidents.
Published March 22, 2004
College athletics may be the last bastion of Neanderthal culture in higher education. Even before rape allegations were lodged against players and recruits at the University of Colorado, college athletics programs across the nation had sunk into a racket for cheaters and thugs.
Schools are accused of having provided strippers, booze and money as inducements for high school recruits to sign, and several universities have seen their top talents arrested on criminal charges. Not only are sleazy recruiting practices common, but those who are supposed to enforce the ethics of intercollegiate athletics - university presidents, and the NCAA - have failed to keep money and image-building from corrupting modern collegiate sports.
Three women have filed federal lawsuits claiming they were raped by Colorado football players or recruits. All told, seven women have said they were sexually assaulted. While no charges have been filed, the state attorney general is investigating, and an independent panel appointed by the Board of Regents met and began work last month. The women blame the university for failing to control athletes and for fostering a hostile environment. The school said it is "vigorously" pursuing all claims, and also this month unveiled sweeping new limits on what visiting recruits may do. "There's no question circumstances have thrust us into taking a national leadership role in reforming college sports recruiting," university president Betsy Hoffman said.
Colorado's case may be the extreme, but the details mirror a pathology found in other troubled programs. A Boulder prosecutor said recently she put the school "on notice" in 1998 to stop using women and alcohol as bait to lure potential recruits. Similar allegations of sex-laced recruiting efforts have cropped up elsewhere.
A common thread that runs through the dozens of scandals in recent years is the unwillingness of school administrators to keep athletic programs in check. That lack of control creates an environment in which people such as Bobby Bowden, Florida State's longtime football coach, whose program has had its share of problems, feel comfortable popping off on the Colorado case. Bowden told reporters recently that an alleged victim's delay in reporting a sexual assault at Colorado "raises a red flag" about her credibility.
Some members of Congress want a broad inquiry of the scandal. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., says recruitment practices "are spiraling dangerously out of control." The NCAA has formed a task force to examine recruiting violations. NCAA president Myles Brand deserves credit for candor, calling some of the allegations "morally reprehensible."
This new approach is an aggressive change. The number of major infraction cases within the NCAA has stayed constant in recent years, suggesting that even major embarrassments have not spurred schools to clean up their act. The number of violations last year was higher than at any time since 1994, involving schools in Illinois, Georgia, Florida, California and seven other states.
The NCAA has room to act, especially if it adds more people to the task force who are not connected to collegiate sports. But the big push must come from university presidents. Time and again, in disciplinary cases, the NCAA cites schools for a "lack of institutional control," which means the people in charge did a sorry job of riding herd over athletics.
Until schools start firing their presidents - not merely the assistant coaches - not much progress will be made in stopping the corrupt recruiting, academic fraud and underhanded payments to student-athletes. If our universities can't embrace equal protection and honesty, what values are they instilling in tomorrow's leaders?
