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Getting a Handle on College Athletics
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10194 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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8 / 1986 |
3,493 Words |
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Rise Jill Miller
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When the teacher blew the whistle, the (Georgia) Bulldog roared.
That in a nutshell is the story of Jan Kemp, a University of Georgia English professor and coordinator of the university's remedial English program who spoke out against so-called preferential treatment of athletes. Kemp was demoted and later dismissed by the university in 1982, an action which rubbed her the wrong way. She sought legal redress and ultimately had the last laugh against university officials.
Kemp sued the two professors who fired her and charged in her lawsuit that the university allowed nine football players to pass a remedial English course that they had actually failed. The students went on to play in the 1982 Sugar Bowl, which Georgia nevertheless lost to the University of Pittsburgh. Thanks to her roller-coaster experience at the university and her dismissal, Kemp claimed that she suffered serious emotional distress and was hospitalized for depression. She twice attempted suicide.
Kemp says she was a basket case. As she described it: "I couldn't function anymore. I couldn't cook a meal; I couldn't do the laundry."
Keep in mind that Kemp was a rabid Georgia Bulldog fan. A basketball player in high school, Kemp received her undergraduate, master's, and doctoral degrees from Georgia. What, then, motivated her to bite the "dawg" that fed her? She did it, Kemp said, because she didn't want those athletes "knocking on my door five years from now offering to rake leaves when they could have had an education."
Exactly how does the remedial education department (or Development Studies Program) at Georgia work? The program offers up to four quarters of noncredit remedial help in math, English, and reading to students whose test scores and high school backgrounds show they are not yet prepared for college-level studies. The students have four quarters to complete the course and pass a final exam, or face dismissal.
Many University of Georgia athletes participate in this program, although some of the participants are nonathletes. The program was established in 1976 to help raise the number of minority students at the university. Between 25 and 50 of the 250 students participating in the program are allowed to stay beyond the four-quarter limit, or are even graduated into the regular university program without having passed the course. The school's position is that it gives "more of a chance" to many student athletes who might not get another.
Kemp has not been the only thorn in the Bulldogs' side. In 1985, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) placed both the Georgia basketball and football programs on probation after investigations uncovered rules violations. One of the infractions involved a Georgia booster who, in 1982, took out a bank loan to help a football player finish paying for his car. Members of the basketball coaching staff were accused of having given athletes equipment and provided rides to recruiting prospects and friends.
The NCAA clamped down, reducing the number of athletic scholarships that the Georgia football team could offer and placing recruiting restrictions on the basketball coaching staff. But the Bulldogs can still
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