UC regent’s views stir debate on athletes’ need to get degree
By Nanette Asimov
University of California Regent Eddie Island says athletes who drop out of school are not failures, and UC should stop acting as if they are.
“I think a college degree is very valuable. My point is that not everyone will get one,” Island said in a rare interview days after he caused a stir by noting at a meeting of UC’s governing board that “a college degree is not the goal of every athlete that comes to the university. They come for athletics.”
Island made his remarks as the regents hashed out the question of whether UC coaches should forfeit bonus pay if their team’s academic performance drops too low — an idea meant to encourage athletic departments to take classwork seriously after two UC teams posted the worst graduation rates in the country. Some regents argued that the proposed academic level was too low for a top-tier university like UC. Island and others disagreed.
But Island’s unique reasoning appeared to surprise fellow regents in its blunt defense of unscholarliness for some students — notably black athletes. He suggested that those from poor neighborhoods benefited from being at the university even for a short time, diploma or not.
“They get an opportunity to leave their communities and come to a great university. They get mentoring and tutoring,” Island told the regents last month in San Francisco. “That it does not result in a college degree is not necessarily a bad
thing.”
Some UC-watchers applauded Island’s remarks, while others called for his resignation and labeled his comments racist.
Island, who said he normally does not give interviews, agreed to elaborate on his comments to the regents. He told The Chronicle he is simply attentive to students of color who come from inner cities and barrios.
“First of all, I’m an African American,” Island said. “And I am particularly sensitive to poor kids, African American and Latino kids.”
Island acknowledged growing up poor, but would not discuss his personal background beyond the information posted on the regents’ website. He graduated from Fisk, a historically black university in Nashville, and took a law degree from Harvard. He retired in 1998 as a vice president at McDonnell Douglas, the aerospace manufacturer and defense contractor that is now part of Boeing.
No degree not a failure
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed Island to a 12year term on the Board of Regents in 2005.
“I would hope that any student who wants a degree would have an opportunity to get one. But for those who decide not to go forward, that should not be regarded as a failure,” Island said.
He offered a long list of accomplished people who never earned degrees, including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and TV magnate Oprah Winfrey, as well as Walt Disney, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and even William Shakespeare.
He didn’t mention his fellow regent and former state Assembly Speaker John Pérez, who also lacks a degree and had argued in January for the tougher academic standards for athletes.
At the same meeting, Island cautioned his colleagues against putting “harmful stumbling blocks” in the way of low-income students of color.
“Raising that bar too high suggests we don’t understand properly the role of athletics for communities in distress,” Island told them in San Francisco.
He warned the largely white governing board against the “cultural arrogance” of ignoring the importance of athletics, particularly for many students of color. “It’s no less than a course in biology. Or a course in mathematics,” he said. “For thousands of students, especially African American and Latino kids, this is their ticket into society.”
Like many universities, UC enrolls a certain number of students with subpar academic records because of their athletic prowess. The result at Cal in 2013 was that its football and men’s basketball teams posted the nation’s worst graduation rates among universities that compete in sports at the highest level. Embarrassed officials at Cal and UC headquarters have since looked for better ways to support athletes academically all through school.
So the regents expressed no support when Island said that being enrolled at UC for only a limited time might be good enough for athletes who wouldn’t otherwise have a chance to attend.
“This discussion is not about the value of athletics,” said Regent Bonnie Reese, skirting the subject of race. “It’s what minimum academic requirement we feel we owe those athletes.”
The regents tabled that issue altogether. But Island’s comments inspired a range of reactions outside of UC — many of them negative.
“Regent Eddie Island should resign from the Board of Regents,” one reader wrote to The Chronicle. Island’s idea that it’s OK to drop out “is an insane statement,” said another. The role of the university is “not just to play games,” someone else said. Another declared Island’s statements “racially biased.”
“Some folks probably were aghast when I said that a degree isn’t necessarily the endall of a college experience,” Island said.
One guy who was aghast was Harry Edwards, professor emeritus of UC Berkeley who taught the sociology of sports, race and ethnic relations. He has also consulted for the San Francisco 49ers and the Golden State Warriors.
“It’s really tragic. The mission of an educational institution is to educate students,” Edwards said. He noted that only 2 percent of student athletes go on to play professional ball, with careers lasting just four years on average.
“So this idea that we’re doing them a huge favor by bringing them into college — but not preparing them to meet the challenges and obligations of the classrooms — this is a bankruptcy of academic integrity at the highest level,” he said.
Academic wake-up call
He recalled his days at Fresno City College. “I couldn’t pass a college admissions test. I could barely read it,” said Edwards, a star discus thrower at the time. His history teacher took him aside. “He said, ‘I don’t care what kind of athlete you are. If you don’t do the work that you have to do in this class — and I’ll help you — you’re not going to ride through here.’ ”
Edwards said he “caught fire” at Fresno thanks to teachers who cared, and went from near illiteracy to winning a full academic scholarship to Cornell.
“The notion that a person just goes to the university for athletics is not really a signal we want to give to people,” said Pat Callan, president of the Higher Education Policy Institute in San Jose. “What we want to do is get low-income poor kids into the middle class or better. Flunking out of school isn’t the way to do it.”
DeSean Jackson cited
Unless you’re DeSean Jackson, “who earns $30 million plus and still hasn’t graduated,” said Chad Nightingale, a varsity football coach and advanced-placement biology teacher at Salesian High in Richmond, who sympathizes with Island’s perspective. Jackson played football at Cal from 2005 to 2007 before turning pro and earning millions. He’s now a wide receiver for Washington.
“So what is the true argument for going to college? To prepare you for life and job?” Nightingale asked. If so, then a mere three years at Cal worked out well for Jackson, he said. “A lot of times the regents don’t know what it means to be a student athlete.”
At Cal, senior Destiny Iwuoma understands both sides. He went to Cal for football and believes the university should be as supportive of students who want to play in the NFL — and leave before graduating — as of students who want to become doctors. But Iwuoma quit football after earning an academic scholarship and now works as a college adviser at Castlemont High in East Oakland.
He said the conversation sparked by Island isn’t really about sports.
“We’re talking about black, male students,” Iwuoma said. “The larger question is why aren’t more black students getting into the university — and not through sports?”
In 2013, less than 8 percent of the 35,670 black students who graduated from California high schools entered a UC campus that fall. At Cal, though, it was less than 1 percent of those graduates. As for black men, well below half of all 6,942 black undergraduates at UC that year were male: 2,713, or 39 percent.
“If we’re trying to keep (black) students in school, then we’re doing it right” by not raising academic requirements for athletes, Iwuoma said.
On the other side is Regent Gavin Newsom, the state’s lieutenant governor. Newsom has sent a petition around to students on campuses across UC and the California State University asking them to urge the regents and CSU trustees to prioritize academics and hold athletic directors accountable for academics in their employment contracts.
He has gathered 3,539 signatures.