Athletics and Academics: It’s Not An Either/Or Scenario

On Saturday two Penn State varsity sports teams celebrated Senior Days for their student-athletes in ceremonies that were emotional for the players, parents and coaches involved.

But even for this casual fan, just watching football safety Ryan Keiser amble on to the field at Beaver Stadium, or seeing volleyball star Micha Hancock walk through Rec Hall, were touching experiences.

Imagining the years of effort, dedication and perseverance that led them and their teammates to those heights – well, it can be hard to keep your eyes dry.

Yet there are those who would suggest student-athletes are a pox on the true academic mission of Penn State University. Why the first area of recommendations in the Findings of the Freeh Report dealt with an alleged Penn State Culture that included “…an excessive focus on athletics that can, if not recognized, negatively impact the University’s reputation as a progressive institution.”

I say those people are not only wrong but dangerously so – in that the true academic mission of the university is best served by a great, vibrant and widespread athletics program.

As I’ve said before, I’m a walking billboard for two things: arts and athletics. There are many, many studies that tie participation in the arts to academic achievement, and although there are a much smaller number of studies supporting the academic benefits of participating in sports, they are there if you are willing to look.

If I ran the K-12 public school system art and “phys ed” would be the required subjects students must take every year – all others would be available as electives for when the young scholars deemed themselves ready and interested in the knowledge. Because they eventually WILL BE interested in math, science, geography, sociology, history and on and on, and any teacher will tell you that teaching motivated, interested students beats the alternative every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

At the university level arts and athletics are just as important in providing a well-rounded experience for all students. However, having varsity athletics being an integral component of the university experience goes against the perceptions of many people who want to stress academics. So what do I use in polite conversation to justify my strong opinion on the subject of the necessity of athletics in college education?

I will pose a simple question to the person I am with: If you could turn Penn State into the world’s finest institution of higher learning, a place whose unquestioned scholarly achievements were known far-and-wide, what college in this great country would you use as a role model? Usually it takes very little thought for people to come up with an answer and, more often than not that answer is Harvard. Which I then remark as being a fine, wonderful, thoughtful and insightful answer.

Then I will pose another simple question: What college do you think has the largest Division I intercollegiate athletics program in this country? Again, it usually it takes very little thought to come up with an answer and, more often than not that answer is one or more of the following: Stanford, Texas, Ohio State, USC or Michigan. Which I then remark as being fine, wonderful, thoughtful and insightful answers. Except they’re wrong. And in some cases wrong by a wide margin.

No dear readers, the correct answer is – you could see this coming a mile away, couldn’t you – Harvard.

That’s right, let that sink in for a moment. Harvard, that bastion of academic achievement, says it has the largest Division I Athletics program in the country.

While you are pondering that, here is an interesting factoid to go along with this audacious claim by an otherwise august and learned institution: one out of every five undergraduate students at Harvard is a varsity athlete. To compare, at Penn State one out of every 50 undergraduate students is a varsity athlete – one-tenth the number at Harvard. Why, someone alert the trustees! Penn State is a bunch of athletic slackers!

And it’s not only the varsity athletes at Harvard that get in to sports. One out of every three undergraduate students at Harvard plays a club sport and one out of every two undergrads (yes, that’s 50 percent) plays an intramural sport. Now these numbers are not mutually exclusive (since they total to more than 100%) but add it all up and what do you see? A vast amount of the undergraduate students at Harvard are involved in a sport. But they are students you say, not athletes. How could it be so?!

Harvard has long known what many others are unwilling to admit: sports are not only a necessity to the academic excellence of any educational institution, but they provide an outstanding opportunity for young scholars to learn life-lessons through participation.

So, the next time you hear someone comment that academics should take precedence over athletics at Penn State, feel free to share this information. Academics and athletics are not mutually exclusive. Academics is fabulously enhanced by the presence – and great participation in – athletics.

A final disclosure in case someone is concerned about my allegiances: I did not attend Harvard, have no relatives who did, don’t donate to them, own any apparel with their name, or really care one way or the other about Harvard. Although the fact that Tom Brokaw doesn’t care much for them does raise my opinion of Tom Brokaw. So maybe I do care a little bit. Bottom line: I care about Penn State, don’t mind copying good ideas when I see them, and hope to be alive the day Penn State’s endowment surpasses Harvard’s. Hey, they had a 219-year head start.

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