7 The History of Academic Requirements for Division I Student-Athletes

Department of Educational Foundations, Leadership and Aviation, Oklahoma State University

HESA – 6753: Historical Development of Higher Education

Dr. Tami Moore

December 6, 2021

This semester I looked at how Academic Requirements for student-athletes at the Division I level have changed over the years. More specifically I conducted an interview with a former OSU Football player on what it looked like to be a student-athlete at OSU during the 1970’s. During my research this semester I noticed a lack of oral histories on the topic of Academic Requirement changes over the years. When given the option to conduct my own oral history interview I jumped on the chance to help add more information on this subject to the O-STATE Stories Archives. In my paper I will touch on some of the historical moments in Academic Requirements over the years, as well as information on how I went about conducting my oral history interview and what information I took away.

A Historical Look at Academic Requirements

The National Collegiate Athletic Association or NCAA was an organization that came about from the recognized need to better regulate the area of college athletics. While this association was created to help add regulation, it did not immediately begin to regulate student-athlete academic requirements. It was not until 1972 that the “1.6 rule” was created as the only academic standard of that time (New York Times, 1973). This rule was a simple one, student-athletes had to maintain a GPA of 1.6 to remain eligible to participate in their university athletics. This often times meant that college coaches and university administration would place their struggling student-athletes into easy classes with the hope that they could keep their GPA up high enough to stay eligible. There was no rhyme or reason sometimes to the classes they picked, just the ones that were easy. This meant that sometimes students were not moving or progressing towards graduation. In fact, in 1972 they thought the “1.6 rule” was too difficult that they did away with that rule completely. Leaving very little to no national academic requirements for student-athletes. It was not until around 1983 with the implementation of Proposition 48 that there began to be some form of academic requirements again. This piece of legislation was put in place to help increase graduation rates by requiring that students no move or progress towards graduation (Mondello, n.d.). No more just selecting the easy classes, now students had to pick classes that were in line with their selecting degree plan. Additionally a GPA requirement of 2.0 was implemented, again hoping to place more of an importance on the “student” part of being a student-athlete. As time went on and more conversations were had regarding academic requirements in student-athletes some recognized that there were some issues of discrimination. Some believed that those student from lower socioeconomic school districts or homes with little to no family support did not have the same chance of meeting those academic requirements. So in 1996 with the implementation of Proposition 16 the NCAA set out to address this issue. They created a sliding scale that compared the incoming students Highschool GPA and ACT scores, giving the students a better chance to get into college and to get some of the academic assistance while in college (Mondello, n.d.). It also required more core classes be added to the student’s degree plan and an increased minimum GPA requirement of 2.5. Academic standards continue to eb and change over time. Now there are requirements in place that students have to be making so much movement towards graduation each semester among several other academic requirement shifts (NCAA, 2021). In this next section I want to address the what the process of conducting an oral history interview looked like.

The Process of Conducting an Oral History Interview

Once the decision had been made to do an Oral History Interview this semester I started by reaching out to Melisa Echols. Her husband was a former OSU Football player, so her and her husband were very valuable contacts while I was working on this project. Her husband was unavailable for an interview, but she was able to put me in contact with a few of her husband’s teammates. Meanwhile, while I was working to find an individual to interview I was looking up information on how to conduct a proper oral history interview. The OSU Oral Archive library & their staff were a wonderful contact through this whole process. Patrick Deglaris, one of the Oral Archivists at Oklahoma State helped me through the entire Oral History process. Including providing me with resources, such as the Introduction to Oral History Manual. This proved to be a great resource when it came to preparing my questions. In addition to research my topic of academic requirements, I was able to use this book to make sure I was asking the questions that needed to be addressed to complete a good oral history interview. Chapter 2 of that manual provided a “Oral History Life Cycle” that was extremely insightful (Sommer & Quinlan, 2020). Once my questions had been complied and reviewed I set my meeting with Mr. Chipp Latham, the former OSU Football Player. In this next section I will highlight what I discussed with him during the interview.

Chipp Latham Oral History Interview

My interview with Mr. Latham was a fantastic learning experience, and really insightful when it came to my topic this semester. Chipp Latham played Football for Oklahoma State University from 1975-1978. When you compare the things that he said to the research that I found online they were very similar. Mr. Latham mentions that there was much more of an importance placed on the athletics and not as much on the academics. There was not a lot of organized assistance for students, for those students that were struggling often times the answer was to put them in a class with a teammate that was smarter. As I mentioned, at this time in college athletics there was very little to no academic requirements for student athletes. This was something that Mr. Latham spoke to in his interview. He talked about teammates of his that could not read or write past a seventh grade level. He watched them struggle to even write their own name sometimes. His comments aligned with many other articles that I read through talking about academics at this time. In addition to talking about the academic differences during his time playing, he also talked about some fun historical fun facts. Mr. Latham talked about where they used to go to pick up their textbooks. Not only was the textbook pick up in a different place than it is today, the gym was also called something different. It was interesting to hear him talk about Iba Hall, instead of what it is known by today, Gallagher Iba Arena. Not only were there differences between textbook pick up, but also where the student-athletes lived during his time on campus and where they live today. In fact, he talked about some of the female student-athletes living in Willard Hall, which is now a classroom and office space on campus. It was extremely interesting to hear how not only academics have changed, but life on campus as well. The entire time I was conducting the oral history interview I felt like I had stepped back in time.

Conclusion

Through the process of conducting my own oral history interview I was able to see the importance of capturing these stories. Gathering first-hand experiences and stories is an important part of understanding history and how we have arrived at where we are at today. As it specifically applies to my topic, the 70’s and 80’s was a turning point when it came to the area of academic requirements, as I talked about. Mr. Latham’s stories serve as an additional source to reinforce the other information that is out there on the topic. The process of conducting my own oral history interview process was a wonderful learning experience. From finding the individual to interview, to determining a set of questions, to learning the necessary forms and procedures to get something adding to the archives. It was all around a wonderful experience and one that I hope to do again in future projects or assignments.

Academic requirements for student-athletes are an important and necessary part of serving our students well. Having standards in place that encourage and remind coaches and university administration that their student-athletes are there to not only improve as an athlete, but to improve as a student. Even if their goal is to play professional sports and they don’t intend to use their degree they should still leave campus having learned something valuable outside of their athletics. While, we have come a long way since the initial implementation of Proposition 48, we still have a long way to go. Making sure that the requirements in place are evaluated on a consistent basis and adjusted when necessary.