Only 1 percent of college athletes graduate to the pros. Yet, 95 percent of the students NFL player Bryan Scott meets in inner-city schools tell him that they want to play pro sports.
Speaking at a panel in Atlanta on Wednesday, Scott said although he admires the children’s drive, he worries that the message that sports is their best chance is being “force-fed” to most of them.
“I meet new mothers and fathers, and they tell me that they are going to keep a football or basketball in the baby’s crib because he is going to be the next Michael Jordan,” Scott said.
Moderated by former CNN sports analyst Larry Smith, the panel also featured NBA legend Dikembe Mutombo, Redan High School student athlete Akil Dan-Fodio, former Atlanta Brave and Falcon Brian Jordan, former Detroit Lion Ryan McNeil and Atlanta Falcon fullback Ovie Mughelli.
Along with their successful athletics careers, the panelists were all accomplished students; at least two had been considering medical careers before they turned pro. They agreed that their parents cared more about test scores than football scores.
Sponsored by the W.E.B. DuBois Society, the panel was given this question as a starting point: Is there a greater focus in communities, families and schools on athletics than on academics for young black men?”
A recent report noted that although 91 percent of white basketball players in Division I colleges graduate, only 59 percent of African-American players graduate.
And according to the High School Athletic Association, only .09 percent of high school seniors playing football — less than one in a thousand — end up in the pros. Among basketball players in high school, it’s only one in 3,400.
As a sports reporter, Smith cited the media’s complicity, noting the imbalance in the attention accorded achievements of students on the field compared to those in the classroom.
“You can’t fit 70,000 people in the classroom,” he said. “We don’t say, ‘Tune in to see the star quarterback go for an A in his physics exam Friday morning, 8 a.m.’”
One of 10 children from an African family, Mutombo said he never doubted that he was at Georgetown University for an education. Two strong men, his father and his coach, made certain of that.
When his father put him on the plane to fly to Washington from the Congo, he told his son, “Next time we see you will be when you graduate from college.” His father didn’t tell him that they’d next see each other again at the NBA draft, said Mutombo, who lives in Atlanta.
Although he had an extraordinary 18-year career in the NBA, Mutombo said the average tenure is now less than four years. Athletes can see their entire careers dashed with a single injury.
“You need to have insurance. It is not just buying life insurance. Your insurance is your education,” he said.
At Georgetown, Mutombo said basketball coach John Thompson stressed that academics came first. Players who skipped classes routinely could find their bags packed, a ticket purchased and a cab waiting to transport them to a flight home, he recalled.
In his four years of college, Mutombo said he missed class once because of a toothache. When he showed up for practice later that day, Mutombo said he ended up sitting in Thompson’s office for more than two hours explaining himself.
Although Thompson finally relented, Mutombo said there was a ticket back to the Congo ready for him at his locker.
The problem, said Brian Jordan, is that kids and teens can’t be dissuaded by the numbers on how few athletes ever attain pro status.
“They believe, ‘I am the one who is going to make it. That is what I am hearing from my parents; that is what I am hearing from these colleges coaches,’” Jordan said. “Kids are young. They are gullible. If you are going to sell to them that they are going to be the next Michael Jordan, they are going to believe it.”
Parkside Elementary School Principal Phillip G. Luck, himself the father of a fourth-grader with NBA ambitions, told the panel that schools favor social cooperation models and sit-and-listen formats that better suit girls than boys.
“Go to any school and you will see girls outperforming boys at all levels of education,” he said. “We treat boys like defective girls. And we are turning boys off to school.”
As a football player and honor student with a 3.9 grade-point average, Redan High senior Dan-Fodio said far more acclaim flows to athletes.
“If you make honor roll, your name is put on a list that goes up in the hall,” he said. “But if you are athlete of the week, it’s in the newspaper. There are cameras. Your game might be on ESPN. Everybody knows about it,” Dan-Fodio said.
“The only way people know about academic scholarships is if you tell them,” he said. “Every kid wants to be recognized for what they did. You get that more with sports than you do with academics.”
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