Central Oregonian

The role of athletics in schools called into question

University of Oregon study suggests that winning football teams hurt academic achievement

Lon Austin

For years, studies have shown that in high school, participation in athletics improves academic performance.

One of the best such studies has been run at Aloha High School in Beaverton. The school has been tracking academic performance since it opened in the 1970s. They have carefully categorized students by whether or not they participate in extracurricular activities including music and athletics, as well as whether or not the students participate in public service projects, after school work, or summer jobs.

The study has consistently shown that students who engage in extracurricular activities and hold down jobs have better grade point averages than the student body population at large.

Interestingly, the group with the highest grades at the school are those who hold down jobs, participate in public service projects, and also are involved in extracurricular activities.

The implication is that the busier students are, the better they perform academically.

Information from Aloha as well as other similar studies have been cited frequently to demonstrate that athletics are an important aspect of academics in our schools.

The studies have gone unchallenged until recently.

Now, a recent study by three University of Oregon researchers may call some long-held assumptions about the connection between athletics and academic achievement into question.

It should be pointed out that the new study only looked at academic achievement at the University of Oregon. The results may or may not be typical. Nonetheless, they are worthy of discussion.

According to the study, the more successful the University of Oregon football team is, the lower the academic performance of male students at the school becomes.

The study, which tracks the success of the football team alongside grade point averages of students from 1999 to 2007 shows that the better the football team the lower the grade point averages become.

The conclusion that researchers reached is that the more the Ducks win, the more students celebrate and the more grades suffer.

“They drink more when the team wins, they party more when the team wins, and they study less when the team wins,” said professor Jason Lindo, who is one of the three co-authors of the study, which is the first of its kind.

According to the study, women’s grades were impacted less than their male counterparts. Worse still, there is already a gap between the GPAs of men and women on the campus. The gap merely becomes larger when the football team is winning.

The researchers concluded that for each three additional wins from the football team, there is a corresponding drop in male GPAs equivalent to what would be expected from students scoring 27 points lower on their SAT?tests.

When the Duck football team was 5-11, the average GPA of men on campus was 2.94 compared to 3.12 for women. However, for each three wins, the difference in GPAs between men and women rose by 8 percent.

The researchers believe that female grades also suffered, they just benefitted because the lower male grades brought down the grading curve for everyone.

The researchers blame partying for the difference due to a survey that they conducted to go along with their tracking of academic achievement.

According to participants in the study, 24 percent of men admitted to decreased studying when the football team won compared to nine percent of women. At the same time nearly half of the men and 28 percent of the women admitted to increased partying after a victory.

The study raises several issues, as women are already more likely than men to earn a college degree.

Currently, nation-wide men between the ages of 24-29 are 29 percent less likely to complete a baccalaureate degree than women of the same age.

The study calls the importance placed on major college athletics into question.

Does the emphasis on winning and the money involved in college sports jeopardize academics at universities in general, or is this a phenomenon that only occurs at schools that are major football powers?

In any case, the study suggests that both schools and students may well be putting too much importance on athletic success.

It is unclear whether schools such as Stanford that have a reputation for academic achievement or schools that are not traditional football powers will show the same results. It is also unclear if the study will apply to high school students at schools with winning teams.

It is also unclear if students are just looking for an excuse to party and would choose other excuses if football were deemphasized.

What is clear, however, is that there are obvious connections between athletics and academic achievement, both good and bad.

Athletics are an important part of the school experience, both in high school and college.

However, the study would suggest that it is important to keep athletic programs in perspective. Academics necessarily should come first.

Although winning is nice, and is something that every team should strive for, winning should never be placed ahead academics.

As researchers from other universities examine the University of Oregon study and begin studies of their own it will be interesting to see what conclusions, if any, are reached.

The obvious conclusion, at least for now, is that at least at the University of Oregon, athletic excellence comes with a price. Now it is up to the university to decide how high a price they are willing to pay to have a winning football team.

It makes me glad that I’m a Beaver fan and can say with some assurance that neither wins nor the parties that follow are doing a thing to hurt my grades. I would really hate to think what would have happened to my SAT?scores or my GPA had Oregon State had a winning football program during the 1970s when I was in college. I’m not sure that either could have withstood the subsequent lack of study that might have occurred.

All kidding aside, the discussion is important, and something that every university and high school in the country should carefully consider.