Volume 28, Number 3 (Summer) 1993
Maloney, Michael T., and Robert E. McCormick. 1993. "An Examination of the Role that Intercollegiate Athletic Participation Plays in Academic Achievement: Athletes' Feats in the Classroom." Journal of Human Resources 28(3):555-570.
We investigate whether intercollegiate athletic participation affects scholarly success. The overall means of course grades suggest that athletes do not do as well in the classroom as regular students. Background factors explain this underperformance for most sports; athletes come to school with lower SAT scores and poorer high school preparation. However, players in the revenue sports do worse even accounting for this. We investigate the cause of this unexplained underperformance: We find that it is a seasonal phenomenon. To us, this means that the exploitation of athletes extends beyond the sidelines and into the classroom.
The authors are professors of economics at Clemson University. The useful comments of Charles Brown, Eric Hanushek, Mark Mitchell, Curtis Simon, Emily Wood, anonymous referees, and workshop participants at Clemson are acknowledged. The authors are especially grateful to Walter Mayfield and B. J. Skelton of the Clemson University Admissions Office, Joe White of the Academic Learning Center, and Dwight Rainey of the Athletic Department for their indispensable help in this project. The data used in this article can be obtained beginning December 1993 through December 1996 from the authors at the following address: Department of Economics, Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29634 (or electronically from maloney@clemson.clemson.edu or sixmile@clemson.clemson.edu ).
© 2002 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
US ISSN 0022-166X