CNN analysis: Some college athletes play like adults, read like 5th-graders

CNN ^ | 1/7/2014 | Sara Ganim

[RightGeek]

(CNN) -- Early in her career as a learning specialist, Mary Willingham was in her office when a basketball player at the University of North Carolina walked in looking for help with his classwork.

He couldn't read or write.

"And I kind of panicked. What do you do with that?" she said, recalling the meeting.

Willingham's job was to help athletes who weren't quite ready academically for the work required at UNC at Chapel Hill, one of the country's top public universities.

But she was shocked that one couldn't read. And then she found he was not an anomaly.

Soon, she'd meet a student-athlete who couldn't read multisyllabic words. She had to teach him to sound out Wis-con-sin, as kids do in elementary school.

And then another came with this request: "If I could teach him to read well enough so he could read about himself in the news, because that was something really important to him," Willingham said.

Student-athletes who can't read well, but play in the money-making collegiate sports of football and basketball, are not a new phenomenon, and they certainly aren't found only at UNC-Chapel Hill.

A CNN investigation found public universities across the country where many students in the basketball and football programs could read only up to an eighth-grade level. The data obtained through open records requests also showed a staggering achievement gap between college athletes and their peers at the same institution.

[BenLurkin]

Sadly, I don’t think work was ever in these guys’ futures.

[LittleBillyInfidel]

My cousin’s sole job at LSU is to teach some of their scholarship athletes how to read and write.

[FReepaholic]

FSU quarterback/philosopher Jameis Winston

[Jim Noble]

Why is it disgraceful?

[al baby]

He was hilarious Number 27 oh chit 72 !!!!!

[cloudmountain]

athletes play like adults, read like 5th-graders, Boogieman wrote: “Reading on a fifth to eighth grade level is an adult level of reading. It’s enough to read a newspaper. It’s enough to read furniture assembly instructions. It’s more than enough to become a gym teacher or coach your respective sport. Heck, it’s enough to teach fifth grade.”

Nowadays gym teachers need a B.A./B.S., and, in many states, a teacher's credential as well, just to be a "gym teacher." Personal experience.
This is for public schools as private schools can do what they want.

To coach at the college level an M.A./M.S is SUPPOSED to be an eventuality. The coaching jobs are just too visible and desirable to be anything less.
Things didn't USED to be that way.

The desirability of the public schools comes into play when PENSIONS do. No one cares before that time. In theory, the public schools will always have state funds, as private schools won't.

[kosciusko51]

It used to be that bright kids would go to college and compete with other bright kids.

You do know that there are still some colleges out there that place academics above sports and do not have sports scholarships?

[B Knotts]

Nothing new. I once tutored a guy in one of my college classes; he was at about that same level. Nice guy, but didn’t belong in college. He was only there because of football.

[old and tired]

Although does beg the question of what they are doing occupying a seat at a university, but ok.

I would bet lots of public university students read at a fifth to eighth grade level. And I'm not just talking about the athletes. I'm talking about the elementary education majors, the communications majors, the Womyn's Studies majors, etc. And there are probably quite a few brilliant engineering and Math majors who only read at an eighth grade level.

If they want to write a real article about the illiterate athletes, then I'll pay attention. But if they're going to lump together illiterates with functional readers, they're going for the shock value and not a real story.

[Old Retired Army Guy]

That says it all.

[cloudmountain]

My cousin’s sole job at LSU is to teach some of their scholarship athletes how to read and write

That athlete was failed by his parents, extended family, counselors, teachers and COACHES. The failure started BEFORE he was two years old.

It's a good thing he can learn to read. After that he can read to learn.

[HapaxLegamenon]

"Being illiterate is a problem. Reading like an eighth grader? Not so much."

It is not a problem if you don't finish high school. It is a problem if a high school gives diplomas to those who only read at grade school level. It is a problem if colleges are accepting 18 year-old 8th graders for their students.

What is the purpose of secondary and tertiary education if the kids still perform at the primary level?

[goodwithagun]

The NCAA is a joke. This org needs disbanded. Nobody believes it’s about the student-athlete anymore. AJ McCarran’s Tweet was correct about Jameis Winston. He should never have received a high school diploma.

[old and tired]

Nowadays gym teachers need a B.A./B.S., and, in many states, a teacher's credential as well, just to be a "gym teacher."

Which these athletes who read on a fifth to eighth grade level should be able to get. So long as they show up when they're supposed to and they finish out all four years.

[old and tired]

What is the purpose of secondary and tertiary education if the kids still perform at the primary level?

For me, it's to get a skill or proper certification that will allow access to a money making career. If I just wanted my kids to have an education, I wouldn't have spent the money for them to go to college. Google could have given us that for free.

[Paine in the Neck]

Some college athletes play like adults, read like 5th-graders

Is there a demographic breakdown on which college athletes suffer from this problem?

[RightGeek]

See the article. They asked UNC, other schools, and the NCAA.

[pallis]

I helped put myself through college by working in a Learning Resource Center, and some of the football players I tutored needed to go back to first grade readers to find something they could struggle through. I used a homeschooling philosophy. Find out where they were at. Start there, and move them forward as fast as they could go. I figured the university was going to use them as long as it could, and the only education they would ever have was in the LRC.

We had a girl working in there, intelligent, and a world class beauty with class. When guys would come in too stubborn to try an learn I would pass them onto her. In no time they would be trying to read and do basic math.

[RJS1950]

So am I. This has been common knowledge for many years. Then again, this a CNN “journalist” point of view and I know that 40 years ago when I went back to school, the student athletes at that time at my football fanatic school rated at least as high in reading, writing, and academics as the journalism students.

[old and tired]

It is a problem if a high school gives diplomas to those who only read at grade school level. It is a problem if colleges are accepting 18 year-old 8th graders for their students. What is the purpose of secondary and tertiary education if the kids still perform at the primary level?

By the way, I don't mean to say that the educational system in our country isn't a mess. It is. I just don't think athletes reading on a fifth to eighth grade level are the problem. Actual illiterates going to college? Big problem. But the article has lumped actual functionally literate adults together with adults who can't read at all. It's the old bait and switch. And people are falling for it.