Malloy: High academic standards necessary
By TIM LOGAN
Senior Staff Writer
The challenges facing universities which strive to maintain academic integrity and field top-quality athletic teams are greater than ever, said University president Father Edward Malloy Thursday in a broad-ranging talk about sports and study at Notre Dame.
In an era in which most schools lose money on sports, fewer student-athletes graduate and the promise of professional contracts lures many to leave college early, building programs that emphasize academics while remaining competitive is difficult. This leads colleges and universities to make sacrifices, financial and otherwise, to justify their sports programs by excelling in them.
"There are intense pressures to have competitive salaries, to have state of the art facilities, to keep up with the Jonses so you can stay in the running," Malloy said.
Notre Dame is nearly unique in the fact that it makes money on its sports programs, according to Malloy, who noted that 85 to 90 percent of athletic departments nationwide operate on a deficit. But those departments spend still more money, in order to be competitive and potentially recoup their losses. This, in part, has led to high salaries for coaches. Malloy noted that more than 30 college football coaches earn at least $1 million a year.
Academic standards is another area in which universities make sacrifices in the name of athletic success, Malloy said. But, pointing to the high grade point averages and graduation rates of Notre Dame student-athletes, he argued that the University is a good example of what can be done by a school which resists that temptation.
"I think all of us here should be proud of our success in that area," he said. Notre Dame benefits from having built a strong support network for its student-athletes, Malloy said. Tutoring, academic support services and other programs go a long way towards helping to ensure success. The people who lead those student-athletes are a big influence, too.
"I think the coaches have a very important role to play, in whom they recruit, in how much emphasis they place on academic success, on how they celebrate that success and how they deal with failure," he said.
The University president expressed faith in the idea that Notre Dame can continue, and expand, its success in intercollegiate athletics despite the trends towards professionalism in football and basketball. He dismissed, at least for now, the notion that Notre Dame should join with other academically elite schools in a separate league from the rest of the NCAA, and said he is committed to trying to both compete at the highest level and hold student-athletes to the highest academic standards.
"As long as we can do what we do with integrity," Malloy said, "We'll go whole-hog in that direction."
The discussion was part of "The Bridge" series, a monthly convocation about the relationship between athletics and academics at Notre Dame. It was sponsored by the University's Center for Sports, Character and Culture.
All News Stories for Friday, February 23, 2001
