Jason Whitlock of the KC Star has penned one of the best columns on college athlete graduation rates, broken down by race, that I have read in a long time (maybe ever).
On Friday, shortly after Kansas knocked off North Dakota State in the NCAA Tournament, a sports writer for Minneapolis’ African-American newspaper asked me to comment on Lapchick’s latest study. I’m speculating, but based on the line of questioning, the reporter seemed to believe Lapchick’s report proves that the top basketball schools fail black athletes academically.
Never mind that the stats showed black athletes graduate at a higher rate than black non-athletes at the same schools.
Re-read that sentence. Think about it for a minute. I’ll wait.
...Many of the black athletes playing big-time college football and basketball have been recruited from at-risk environments — tough neighborhoods and single- or no-parent families.
I don’t know the stats on this. They’re never published by Lapchick or anyone. When it comes to academic studies, we always tend to break things down along racial lines. I’d love to see the stats broken down along parental lines.
I’ll bet every dollar I have that athletes from two-parent families perform better academically than athletes from one- or no-parent families, regardless of race.
For the most part, the universities don’t fail black athletes. They struggle to educate athletes from at-risk situations. And I’m not all that comfortable using the word “struggle” because the schools actually do a marvelous job supporting kids from difficult circumstances.
Read the whole thing. It isn't often that we see intelligent columns about such racially-charged issues such as racial graduation differences. Then again, Whitlock isn't your average newspaper columnist.