An HBO report citing the research of an OU professor questions whether athletic departments are handling student-athletes correctly.
Gerald Gurney, professor of adult and higher education, appeared on HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel” to discuss the balance between athletics and schooling.
The segment suggests students incapable of completing college degrees are still being admitted and maneuvered through coursework to maintain on-field eligibility.
Gurney used to serve as Senior Associate Athletics Director for Academics, working in the athletic department from 1993 to 2011. In 2012, he released research detailing the struggles of student-athletes admitted under new NCAA guidelines.
In the segment, Gurney said part of his job at OU included guiding football and basketball players to easier majors due to their inability in the classroom.
“These majors are not designed to develop critical thinking,” Gurney told HBO. “It is not designed to give them a skill that is employable.”
“The enterprise is fraudulent. When you sign a National Letter of Intent, the university is making a contract with the athlete. They are saying they will not pay you as a professional but they will educate you and that’s where we across the nation fall far short.”
This is not the first time Gurney has publicly commented on the issue.
Earlier this year, the professor was cited by CNN for a similar investigation.
The CNN report said Gurney’s research is one of only two of its kind, detailing the struggles some students-athletes have faced since the NCAA introduced a sliding scale to determine eligibility in 2003.
The research found that the new system, which was designed to create greater access to universities, is causing a rise in acceptance of students underprepared for college.
Gurney, along with athletics department academic counselor Carla Winters, looked at 109 students over a three-year period, finding that 10 percent more specially admitted players entered OU with severe learning disabilities compared to those specially admitted just before the switch.
Gurney also found that about 10 percent of OU’s revenue-sport athletes were reading below a fourth-grade level.
Of the students in the study, 19.2 percent scored below a 17 on the ACT or below an 850 on the SAT. The OU admissions website says the average student scored a 26 on the ACT and 1180 on the SAT.
"College presidents have put in jeopardy the academic credibility of their universities just so we can have this entertainment industry,” Gurney told CNN in January. “The NCAA continually wants to ignore this fact, but they are admitting students who cannot read."
"College textbooks are written at the ninth-grade level, so we are putting these elite athletes into classes where they can't understand the textbooks. Imagine yourself sitting in a class where nothing makes sense."
Gurney declined The Daily’s request for an interview.
