UW dean: Report perpetuates myth of ‘dumb jocks’ in college sports

It should come as no surprise to anyone that colleges and universities accept students with low test scores because they can run the read-option or dunk a basketball.
Athletics are a huge money maker for these schools. The football and basketball programs pay for all the other non-revenue sports and provide value to college experience for all.

But CNN reported this week that many of these athletes can barely read or write because they scored below 400 on the critical reading and writing portions of the SAT. It reported those scores mean these players can read at the 5th grade level or below.

Robert Stacey is the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington. He’s also the chairman of the faculty advisory committee on athletics.

He doesn’t buy the stereotypes that the CNN report perpetuates. “We have no evidence for that. We have looked very hard for that kind of evidence and we have not found any in the scholarly literature.”

Fourteen percent of UW student-athletes scored 400 or below on those portions of the test. Dean Stacey admits the school takes 30 special admits a year, but those kids also provide value to the university.

“We take a certain number of students, as the article points out, who, based on their test scores and grades alone, wouldn’t otherwise be admitted here.”

But it’s not just athletes who test low but still get into UW. “Some student-athletes are going to get in because they’re student-athletes, that is true. So are some musicians. So are some artists. And so are some engineers.”

Grades and test scores alone will not get you into the University of Washington. Even the kid with great grades, scores and a bunch of extra-curricular activities can be passed over for someone who has different skills and attributes. It’s just the way Washington builds its classes.

Stacey said he’ll put Washington’s graduation rate for student-athletes up against any other school with pride.

“Seventy-four percent of our football players graduate – and they graduate with good degrees. Eighty-one to 82 percent of our student athletes overall graduate, which is exactly the same as it is for the student body as a whole.”

Now Dean Stacey doesn’t have his head in the sand. He knows there are abuses: No-show classes and no-oversight online classes that some student-athletes enjoy.

But he doesn’t believe that’s happening at UW.

He believes this CNN article does nothing but perpetuate the stereotype of the “dumb jock” and doesn’t give kids credit for the work they do put in.

“To have all of those students and all of that hard work denigrated, in a way, it just makes me sad,” said Stacey. “These kids just work so hard.”

Given their schedules outside of the classroom, Stacey believes most UW students wouldn’t be able to handle what these student-athletes do.