In an Oct. 3 guest column in The Chronicle, Professors Richard Hain and Fred Nijhout called for "a thoughtful debate about the role... of athletics on campus" and said "Let the debate begin."
Actually, this "debate" began, at Duke and elsewhere, more than 100 years ago. In 1906, Palmer Pierce of the United States Military Academy rose to address the inaugural convention of the National Collegiate Athletic Association as its first president. He did so in a time of heightened controversy surrounding college athletics. The President of Columbia University had just abolished football at his institution, calling it an "academic nuisance." As early as 1893, Harvard President Charles Elliot, charging that coaches had turned football players into "powerful animals" with dulled minds, decried the resultant image of universities as "places of mere physical sport and not of intellectual training."
In his address, President Pierce characterized college athletics in a way that may not seem unfamiliar to us today: "considering victory alone, and not the means of attaining it... looking with a favoring eye on proselyting [sic] and professionalism... deprecating legitimate academic work in favor of athletics." In that same year, Duke's own president, William Preston Few, added his voice to the discussion: "There is good in intercollegiate athletics, when properly conducted. They have made considerable contribution to American college life and deserve to be saved from the perils that threaten them and the evils that now actually beset them."
Not many would deny that athletic participation can play an important role in one's educational experience and in the life of an institution, but few would also deny the danger, for the individual and for the institution, of an athletic program that becomes so fixed on winning above all else that it loses sight of its proper role in the mission of the university. The problem of the definition of this role is much, much older than intercollegiate athletics in America. The "debate" is, in fact, ancient. In the Republic (III, xvii), Plato talks about the value of athletics in training those who are to be the guardians of the republic, as long as athletics are kept in balance with the other elements of their education. The answer, then, appears to be simple: balance. The execution is the hard part.
Recently, there seems to have emerged a sense that the University has uncritically allowed Athletics to go its own way, unchallenged and unexamined, oblivious to the academic concerns of its students and focused entirely on the next game.
We have been accused of being "arrogant" and "non-reflective." Nothing could be farther from the truth. We are, in fact, continuously evaluating the role of varsity athletics at Duke. And this effort in not unilateral. The cooperation between Dean of Trinity College of Arts and Sciences Robert Thompson's office and the athletics academic support program, for example, is extensive and has involved, among other things, detailed studies of the academic performance and choice of majors of student-athletes. The Athletic Policy Statement of 2003-which addresses many of the issues raised by members of the faculty-was the product of extended and serious discussions among the president, the executive vice president, the provost, the vice president for student affairs, the dean of Trinity College, the director of athletics and the senior associate director of athletics. Far from being "non-reflective," we are never fully comfortable that we have the balance completely right, we constantly evaluate what we do and how we do it, and we never lose sight of the fact that we owe it to our student-athletes to encourage them to embrace all of the challenges and opportunities that a great university provides.
And at the heart of the matter, as far as we are concerned, are our student-athletes-more than 600 young men and women who chose Duke precisely because it offers a balance between first-rate academics and athletics at the highest amateur level. Our promise to them when they are recruited and when they arrive is that that balance is not an illusion. Part of fulfilling that promise means that we think carefully about the student-athlete experience, understanding that the "athlete" side of that equation must always be regarded as part of a larger whole-a Duke education-and not an end in itself.
We have never claimed to have all the answers, but at the same time, it is erroneous for Professors Hain and Nijhout to assume that they are raising these issues for the first time. Moreover, their characterization of this kind of discussion as a "debate" approaches the issue in the wrong way. "Debate" implies two opposing sides, one of which will emerge as a winner at the end. I'd like to think that Professors Hain, Nijhout and I are on the same side: Duke's. We are happy to have anyone who wishes join in the ongoing discussions of the role of athletics in the lives of serious students.
For those of us who have devoted our professional lives to intercollegiate athletics and, more importantly, to the welfare and ultimate success of the remarkable students who represent our University, it is too important an exercise to ignore the advice, the suggestions and, yes, the criticism, of others who, like us, want only the best for Duke and its students.
Chris Kennedy is the senior associate athletics director and an adjunct assistant professor of English.
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