The past week kept Foundation University busy, proposing reforms that will improve the management of sports programs in Negros Oriental.
Two particular issues were at the center of the discussions: 1) the academic qualification that will be imposed on athletes participating in a proposed Negros Oriental Colleges & Universities Athletic Association (NOrCUAA), and 2) someone’s call for a boycott of the FU Futsal and 7-a-Side Football Tournament scheduled this weekend.
In a recent meeting among coaches of basketball teams from 11 colleges and universities presided by Paultom Paras, newly-appointed head of the Negros Oriental Sports Development Program (NOSDEP), majority voted that athletes playing in the NOrCUAA need “to pass 50 percent of their academic load” to play and represent their school.
Mark Twain once said, “Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform.”
The rest of the story is told in this letter of FU President Dr. Mira D. Sinco to the heads of the other institutions: Silliman University, St. Paul University-Dumaguete, Collegio de Sta.Catalina de Alejandria, Metro Dumaguete College, Negros Oriental State University, Negros Maritime College, Diaz College, Asian College of Science & Technology, Villaflores College, AMA, and sales team leads.
“Paultom Paras, NOSDEP coordinator, informs Foundation University of the formation of a Negros Oriental Colleges & Universities Athletic Association (NOrCUAA).This initiative taken by Mr. Paras is noteworthy, and should be supported. We hope it will not suffer the same fate as the other similar sports associations formed in the past in our Province.
Mr. Paras informs us that the minimum academic requirement for participating in the NOrCUAA is for athletes to “pass 50 percent of their academic load”. Foundation University considers this academic qualification for athletes to play unacceptable.
Sports plays an important role in collegiate education. It is recognized for its potential to develop good moral values and fine character among participants.
However, when the sports program is founded on a wrong philosophy, it could prove to be a gigantic disaster to the institution, as exemplified by the imposition recently of a $60 million fine and other sanctions leveled by the NCAA on Penn State University. Certainly, we in the University Town, could learn a lesson from this.
In the Philippines, similar sanctions were imposed in the UAAP, where world-class De La Salle University was suspended from participation for one year.
Likewise, the biggest Protestant institution in the country, the Philippine Christian University, was banned from the NCAA for one year, and its sports program appears not to have recovered from this experience to this date.
All these malfeasances were committed because of unsound institutional policy and practices in sports–mostly rooted on athletes’ academic eligibilities. Thus, Foundation University proposes that the academic requirement for athletic participation be a grade point average of 2.75, and not 50 percent of the academic load.
We must depart from the mindset that athletes are less- academically capable than non-athletes, a belief that is engendered as early as basic education where young athletes are given special privileges to enable them to meet academic requirements, and oftentimes, are given passing marks even if they don’t deserve to pass.
When these athletes reach collegiate studies, the same practice is perpetuated, and the result, as shown by FU experience, many varsity athletes drop-out and never finish their studies. There is need to prevent this, and save them from a lifetime sense of failure.
I share with you this advice of former Philippine Basketball Association player, Ricardo ‘The Fox’ Brown in a recent interview reported in the national media. Brown is now a school principal of a prestigious junior college in California. To the current basketball players, he said: ‘Your competitive years are temporary. Education is permanent.’
I hope you will support this proposal of Foundation University, and set a trend and practice in the conduct of higher education sports program that could be emulated by other similar sporting leagues in our country.”
If NOrCUAA will adopt FU’s recommendation to raise the academic standard for collegiate athletes playing in higher institution athletic leagues in our Province, we will serve as an example of the reform movement in sports that is now underway worldwide.
Next week, I will share with you a shameful and selfish act of a sports official in this University Town who ordered the boycott of FU-organized football tournaments, and earned for himself the distinction of being the first person in our country to violate the “right of children to play” one of the provisions in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
A violator of children’s rights in an academic community should receive the severest sanction reserved for those who put personal interest over those of children and young people.
