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| Saturday, May 6 Updated: May 7, 1:00 PM ET UT football players benefit from grade changes By Tom Farrey ESPN.com |
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Last week the faculty senate at the University of Tennessee ordered an investigation into allegations of academic abuse involving football players at the university. It is the latest twist in a story that first came to light last September. At issue is a report filed by English professor Linda Bensel-Meyers, who analyzed the academic transcripts of 37 football players and two other athletes and found, among other things, that football players often were steered toward easier majors, benefited from many grade changes and that some were permitted to continue at the university despite spending most of their careers on academic probation. Moreover, an ESPN.com review of Bensel-Meyers' report and one released Monday by the faculty athletic committee indicates that not only do football players benefit from grade changes and the use of "incomplete" grades at a far greater rate than the student body at large, it is the players who are most at-risk academically who receive the greatest benefit.
In a letter to the faculty athletic committee, Peters wrote that the disparity in his report should not be of concern. "I believe this is understandable given the time demands of athletic competitions near the end of the terms," he said. The athletic committee concurred. Doug Dickey, Tennessee athletic director, told ESPN last week that athletes deserve more incompletes because of competition schedules and injuries that get in the way of their school work. "I do not feel that's a part of any success pattern we have here of any significance," Dickey said. "We will have probably one or two people at the end of every year that come down to an extreme situation of some sort. And some of them make it and some of them don't." Bensel-Meyers' report, however, indicates that members of last year's football team who were most in danger of losing their eligibility were 31 times more likely than non-athletes to receive a grade of incomplete that later would be changed to a passing grade. "Thirty-one times more likely to get an incomplete?" said Burton English, chair of the Tennessee faculty senate athletics committee. "That's something that needs to be looked at." According to the University of Tennessee student guide, grades of incomplete are only supposed to be granted under extraordinary circumstances, such as a death in the family, and only when the student is doing passing work at the time it is granted. But according to the records cited in Bensel-Meyers' report, the I grade appears to have helped a number of athletes who were marginal students remain eligible for NCAA competition by giving them more time to finish their classwork.
Using the same criteria as Peters as to what constitutes a grade change -- changing an incomplete to a passing grade, changing an F to a passing grade or changing a passing grade to a different passing grade -- and applying that criteria to the academic records of the 24 players on last year's team who started at least three games on offense or defense, ESPN.com found that:
Additionally, Bensel-Meyers' report found:
Lorayne Lester, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Tennessee, said she is "alarmed" by the number of grade changes given to the worst students on the team. There should be a relatively even distribution of grade changes among students, she said. Additionally, Peters and the athletic committee considered only three types of grade changes in their analysis. They did not review other types of grade changes that were counted in Bensel-Meyers' report, including F grades that became incompletes; incompletes that became F grades; and NR (No Report) marks that were changed to any grade. Some of those categories of grade changes have proven valuable for football players. One player on last year's team who was on academic probation for six of his seven semesters at Tennessee was dismissed from the university in December after failing two of his four classes and getting a D in another. University rules require students who are formally kicked to wait at least one semester to re-apply for admission. That player, however, was allowed to enroll in spring classes and practice with the team last month, said Bensel-Meyers. The reason? After he was dismissed, an F grade in a Religious Studies class was changed to an incomplete, which does not count against a student's grade-point average. That lifted his overall GPA enough to keep him in the university. After enrolling for spring classes, however, that I grade reverted back to an F. Charles Reynolds, head of the Religious Studies department, said no special favor was being given to the athlete to keep him eligible. The instructor in that class originally changed the failing grade to incomplete because he had forgotten that he had agreed to allow the player to re-take an exam. The grade was changed back to an F when the player subsequently failed that exam, Reynolds said. "This is a faculty member who tends to be very opposed to athletics -- there's no way he was doing this because the student was an athlete," Reynolds said. "He was doing it because of his general way of handling a class when a student has missed an exam. He tends to give them a chance to take the exam if they have a good reason for having missed it." Reynolds, whose classes are popular with athletes, said that four years ago he got a call from an athletic department employee asking him to change the grade of a football player and that he rejected the request. But he said that was the only time he received pressure from athletic officials to change a grade. Palmira Brummett, an associate professor of history, believes pressure to accommodate student-athletes begins at the start of each semester, when instructors with athletes in their classes are sent copies of the athletes' competition schedules and asked to allow the athletes to structure their school work around those games. "There is a lot of pressure to give leeway to student-athletes that other students don't get, and in this regard I think it's both unfair to the student-athletes and unfair to the students who are not student-athletes, as well," Brummett said. "... The entire student body has injuries, has automobile accidents. They certainly don't tend to have a practice schedule as many of the athletes do, but many of them are working considerable hours as they are trying to get their education." Maybe, English said, athletes just know their rights better than other students. He said his committee found that academic advisors in the athletic department regularly encourage athletes to seek incompletes and other grade changes from professors. "Ordinary students have advisors as well, but athletes have a mechanism to get that advice," English said. Athletic department advisors generally have more contact with athletes than regular students do with the advisors in their chosen college. Some instructors are more flexible than others when it comes to accommodating athletes. The math department, for instance, gave no grade changes to any of the starters on the team. On the other hand, certain classes in Geology, Religious Studies, Sociology, African American studies and Urban Studies were more generous with grade changes. "Obviously, things could be improved for the athlete," English said. "Athletics is obviously taking time away from class. If the requirements of their sport were reduced, the percentage of incompletes would probably go down." Tom Farrey is a senior writer for ESPN.com. |
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Outside The Lines - Tennessee football academics
