A story in the Wall Street Journal March 19 featured an interview with UO Professor Nathan Tublitz and the headline: “Has Serious Academic Reform Of College Athletics Arrived?”

The article describes Tublitz as a neurobiology professor who is co-chairman of the faculty driven Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics.

The WSJ describes theoretically tough new standards on academic progress by the NCAA, but raises the question about whether they will actually be enforced.

Article author Mark Yost writes that the idea that players are “supposed to be students first and athletes second” is “a quaint notion in an era when CBS is paying $6.1 billion for the broadcast rights to the college basketball tournament that will draw far bigger ratings than any of the presidential debates.”

Tublitz describes the royal treatment the UO gives recruitment targets with “female chaperones” and “fancy hotels.” Tublitz told WSJ that only 3 percent of division 1 players get an NBA career. If the other 97 percent lack an education giving them other job skills, “They’re lost.”

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