In the New York Times Op-Ed Column, "Orwell and March Madness," Joe Nocera draws our attention to a very frequently run NCAA advertisement that champions the academic successes of "student-athletes" in the NCAA's "collegiate model." In Nocera's critical and cogent analysis, he argues that the NCAA is clinging to the student-athlete collegiate model because it serves to keep players from being designated as "employees" which would entitle them to benefits, or even profit sharing. Nocera calls the advertisement "Orwellian" because it claims that "African-American males who are student-athletes are 10 percent more likely to graduate," and thus "glosses over" a more condemning "reality" as represented by Southall, Eckeard, and Nagel who found that, when compared with other full-time college students, "athletes are 20 percent less likely to graduate than nonathletes."
If you get a chance to read the article, notice how Nocera begins with a communicative artifact, the NCAA commercial, and analyzes it in a way that uncovers a larger systemic problem, the exploitation of "student-athletes."
After reading that article I was completely shocked. I watched Kentucky play in the championship game last night and I was amazed at how well the freshman starters played. I had no clue that they were recruited as "one and done" freshman. I have lost all respect for John Calipari. College sports today have become so competitive that people have lost sight of student part in "student athlete" and unfortunately the media is portraying that African American males can only succeed in college if they are athletes, which statistics show is completely wrong!
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