Bomani Jones, a regular contributor on ESPN's "Around the Horn" and "Dan Le Batard Is Highly Questionable," spoke to students about athletes and activism in sports at the Student Center Wednesday, Nov. 7.
The event was set up by the Auburn University Multicultural Center, and Jones' primary focus was speaking about how the college athlete culture can sometimes set players up to fail.
"We're letting guys into school who are often not qualified to be in school," Jones said. "Academically they aren't qualified, and there's no real concern as to whether or not they are ... because nobody's job has been saved by a high graduation rate."
Jones went on to say that the main reason athletes are enrolled at college is obviously for the benefit of the school's athletics, and if they contribute to the team at the expense of their education, nobody really cares.
"The athletes are majoring in the sports they play," Jones said. "Guess what? That's all there is time for them to major in."
Several times through the lecture Jones mentioned that the players could not be at the discussion because they were at practice. He then questioned how they could possibly make it to all their classes if they are practicing at 1 p.m.
Jones said sometimes players have "to hold down 12 hours to be a full-time student, but (their) schedule only allows (them) to have nine hours of work." He said universities then find a way around that.
The way around for some schools, Jones said, is to give athletes a final project, and not require them to come to class. The problem is that if athletes are not going to their classes, they aren't learning anything, and most collegiate players are forced to earn a living in a non-professional sports career.
Though Jones said the players might not get a great education, he did acknowledge that most would receive a degree from their schools.
"They want to keep these guys eligible, and tell them that they're paying them with an education," Jones said. "This is why I brought up the college students and their degrees and whether or not they actually know anything. Go look at the graduation rates for football teams. They're typically pretty high, and now that the NCAA has standards that they're requiring graduation rates to be - trust me, they'll make the numbers."
Jones focused most of his lecture on the problems that go on inside college athletics, but he also spoke about how activism by athletes has declined recently.
He referred to how athletes in the mid-1900s made much less money than they do now.
"It's a lot easier to be an activist when you have nothing to lose," Jones said. "When you're making $10-12 million and somebody tells you that might go away, all of the sudden the discussion becomes different."
There are athletes who are activists for noncontroversial organizations such as NBA Cares, which reaches out to communities and educational facilities, but Jones' point was that athletes no longer stand up to the problems with society, because it can cost them their job and livelihood.
Jones did not only criticize athletes for this, but even spoke about how a change in wealth changed him.
"I can tell you this personally as someone who makes a whole lot more money in 2012 than he did in 2008," Jones said. "I'm no less honest now than I was then, but you could get a lot more fervor out of me in 2008, because I didn't have anything to lose."
Jones shed light on these problems, but admitted he wasn't able to offer a solution.
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