Athletics and the admissions game

James Shulman doesn't hate sports. In fact, he and William Bowen, the former president of Princeton University, rather enjoy athletics. But the two authors of the newly-released The Game of Life: College Sports and Educational Values have presented some ideas that are shaking up the college athletics community and attracting national media attention. The Game of Life, according to Shulman, uses hard data -- rather than anecdotal evidence -- to examine the roles that athletics play in schools. "What we wanted to do was to gather some real data so we could see the larger trends rather than just the anecdotes," Shulman said. Shulman and Bowen examined the admissions, academic performances and "life outcomes" of tens of thousands of athletes and non-athletes from 30 different schools -- ranging from NCAA Division I-A to Division III colleges and universities -- from the 1950s, 70s and 90s. The results, to say the least, are controversial. Shulman feels the major issues that the book raises -- especially considering Ivy League schools -- concern admissions. In the book, Shulman and Bowen use the hypothetical example of a school recruiting an outside linebacker who can blitz and rejecting a student who has made a documentary film. "If you give a kid a chance to get into one of these places, then somebody else isn't getting in," Shulman said. Based on their data, the authors conclude that this hypothetical situation often reflects reality at highly selective schools. Shulman added that the trend among athletes is that they don't do as well in school as their non-athlete classmates, and that they underperform compared to what their standardized test scores predict for them. "The question is, are those the best [uses] of what is really the scarcest resource an Ivy League school has -- spots in its class?" he added. Shulman took pains, however, to point out that the book's findings don't mean athletes are somehow "bad" human beings. "People can get into a huge anti-athlete fervor," he said, noting that his data indicate student-athletes graduate at very high rates. Even so, Shulman and Bowen feel it should be difficult for selective schools to reconcile their academic missions with the perceived recruitment of students simply because they are skilled athletes. While The Game of Life addresses issues other than admissions -- such as the examination of long-held "myths" in college sports -- it seems to be the admissions issue that has caught the eyes of college administrators and college and national media. And despite Shulman's wish that people not whip themselves up into an anti-athletics frenzy because of the book, there have been incidents of just that in some portions of the national media. For instance, the title of one editorial about The Game of Life in the Houston Chronicle included the phrase "dumb jocks." Reactions to the book in the world of college sports have been mixed. Penn Athletic Director Steve Bilsky, for one, disagrees with portions of the book's findings and methodology, but welcomes their potential for catalyzing discussion about college athletics. He also said he feels the book's findings may not apply to the Ivy League as much as other schools. "One of the things I think that separates the Ivies [from] everybody else is that I think the Ivies take the cellist and the artist and the singer and the athlete," Bilsky said. "My perspective would be that having athletic programs is an opportunity to gain rather than an opportunity to lose," he added. Bilsky also questioned whether the authors' use of the GPA is the best way to gauge academic success. He wondered whether or not they took into consideration the detrimental effect of a student-athlete's time commitment on his or her GPA. "There are a variety of questions about how the data are presented that I think are very important," said Jeffrey Orleans, executive director of the Ivy League. He added that it is "very hard" to figure out what a chosen category of data -- such as GPA -- should be telling the reader. "I think [the book] omits a good deal of discussion about just what should be measured in trying to assess how athletics fits into an educational program. "And I don't think there is any serious discussion about the value of athletics as an educational activity.... The whole thing the book doesn't deal with that's not as easily measurable is, what kind of people are they because they've been athletes?" he said. Bilsky and Orleans both feel that the book isn't successful in separating the Ivy League and its athletics philosophy from other types of schools. Indeed, Bilsky called this "the failing of the book throughout." Bilsky's main gripe with Shulman and Bowen, however, was that he felt they didn't do what they claimed they would. "I was disappointed, as much as they said earlier in the book that they were not going to fall back and rely on anecdotes and subjective comments and stereotypes, that they did," he said. "They perpetuated some of the stereotypes that exist that athletes must be dumb jocks. They came across as condescending." Orleans agreed and took this criticism of the authors one step further. "They really should've been more humble in acknowledging the limits of what the book can do, what it does do, and the limits of the answers," he said, adding that he thought if The Game of Life were a manuscript submitted to an academic journal, it wouldn't pass the refereeing process. College presidents and trustees, athletic directors, admissions officials, coaches, athletes and students across the nation will soon face off in what is sure to be a heated discussion of the book. Orleans and Bilsky look forward to it. "[This is] a book that really presents a lot of factual issues that should be looked at," said Bilsky, who said that a "dream outcome" of the book would be for universities across the nation to gravitate toward the "Ivy ideal." "They're serious issues. I'm not saying the Ivies shouldn't look at it. We should look at it, too, because it's always good to self-examine," Bilsky said.