William G. Bowen
President, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

New research about intercollegiate athletics, included in a recent book, Reclaiming the Game, by Bowen and Sarah Levin, a research associate at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, argue for renewed attention to the relationship at many institutions between students’ academic performance and participation
in sports.
     Bowen said he came to this controversial topic through a growing sense that all was not well in college athletics. So he set out to find the facts; built a database that took four years; and focused on 33 colleges and universities.
     Among the findings, according to Bowen: “There has been a steady drift over the past 25-30 years away from the idealized conception of college sports that many of us still hold; athletes are less representative and more single-minded in their pursuit of sports; they are not involved in the school community; and institutions spend much more on sports. In addition, sports at the college level are more intensive than ever—there is more preoccupation with winning, and much more recruitment of athletes by coaches, sometimes to excess in terms of the extent of admissions advantage given to athletes. This emphasis on recruiting athletes does not, however, result in more racial diversity on campus. The real consequence of this intense attention to athletics is a decline in academics among athletes. Eighty percent of recruited athletes end up in the bottom third of the class, and there is a bunching of majors in certain fields and classes, so there exists a culture that surrounds this aspect of college life for athletes. Underperformance of athletes is a real phenomenon.”
     Paradoxically, Bowen notes that this underperformance phenomenon does not appear in other high-intensity co-curricular student groups, such as musicians or the editors of school newspapers. “They spend a great deal of time on their activity, but they tend to overperform—they graduate at higher rates than other students.”
     The key question, Bowen said, is “What is responsible for the underperformance of recruited athletes?” His hypothesis was that these students don’t have time to go to the library and study—but he found that to be a false assumption. “Recruited athletes who never play underperform to the same degree as those who play—so it can’t be just the time.” Rather, he added, “it is their focus, interest, and priorities—what they think about, which is more often the next contest, not the lab report.”
     Reflecting on collegiate athletics over the past few decades, Bowen noted how many of the problems associated with athletics have spread—from larger institutions to smaller ones, from less selective to more selective institutions, and from major to minor sports. “The forces that are driving this boat are deep-seated and they are spreading to other schools. Something deliberate needs to be done to change the culture of athletics on campus.”

     Among Bowen’s recommendations: