"OUR Blacks are better than YOUR Blacks": The Reality of College Football and Basketball

Kudos to the Soviet-sounding The Center for the Study of Race and Equity in Education for compiling some incredibly impressive data that illustrates just how reliant black males are on college football and basketball scholarships to garner acceptance to some of the top colleges in America (outside of Ivy League schools).

Just take a look at the below graphs (courtesy of The Center for the Study of Race and Equity in Education study Black Male Student Athletes and Racial Inequities in NCAA Division 1 Sports available here) that break down the percentage of black males on the basketball and football rosters, compared to their overall percentage of the undergraduate population.

Breakdown of black males attending SEC schools and their participation on football/basketball teams

Breakdown of black males attending PAC-12 schools and their participation on football/basketball teams

Breakdown of black males attending Big 12 schools and their participation on football/basketball teams

Breakdown of black males attending Big Ten schools and their participation on football/basketball teams

Breakdown of black males attending Big East schools and their participation on football/basketball teams

Breakdown of black males attending ACC schools and their participation on football/basketball teams

Like most studies of this nature, The Center for the Study of Race and Equity in Education blasts the poor ability of these programs to graduate black male athletes (or non-student athlete black males), without looking at the graduation rates of black males at Historically Black Colleges and University's (HBCUs):

The Center for the Study of Race and Equity in Education provided data from a four-year study of athletes from the schools that comprise the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac 12 and SEC. The findings show that on average, 50.2 percent of African-American male student-athletes graduated within six years and that 96.1 percent of the schools graduated African-American male student-athletes at rates lower than student-athletes overall.

 Just how bad are the graduation rates of black students attending HBCUs? The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education (JBHE) provides the details:

We aren't supposed to notice poor graduation record at HBCUs

At nearly half the HBCUs in our survey, the Black student graduation rate is 33 percent or lower. At these institutions, less than one third of all entering African American students earned a bachelor’s degree within six years. There are six HBCUs in our survey where less than one in five entering Black students earn a bachelor’s degree within six years.

But who cares about HBCUs, right? All that matters is that black male athlete-students at schools like Georgia, Auburn, Alabama, Clemson, Florida State, Ole Miss, Southern California, Ohio State, Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, and Arizona continue to provide positive examples and role models of black males, a much needed counter (and reprieve) from the countless other examples of black males behaving badly.

All SEC, ACC, and Big Ten college basketball and football can be distilled into one sentence: "Our blacks are better than your blacks."

An honest undergraduate student or alumni would be able to add: "Even if they aren't really student-athletes to begin with."