The Wooden Award Gets a Little Tougher for a Player to Win

I’m in favor of college athletes attending class.

I firmly believe they should be rewarded if they do show up. Rewarded not with hazy promises of a distant degree and knowledge, but with more immediate and substantial rewards, like valet parking and continental breakfasts.

John Wooden is also in favor of college athletes going to class, but he has a different reward system in mind.

John Wooden has an award in his name, a trophy that is given to the best college basketball player. Starting next season, Wooden will give his trophy only to student-athletes who go to class.

It’s a weird concept. Now, to qualify for the John R. Wooden Award, a player must have a 2.0 grade-point average throughout his college career, and be making regular progress toward a degree.

Like most of us, Wooden has read with alarm stories of college athletes who not only flunk their classes, but do so with the apparent blessing of the coach and administration.

Unlike most of us, Wooden decided to do something. What he did was throw his big old trophy down on a craps table and gamble it against the forces of evil. The first season that the top two or three college players are ineligible for his award, the public might laugh in Wooden’s face. His trophy, now highly respected and coveted, might quickly become forgotten.

“It should work the opposite way,” Wooden said Monday at a lightly attended press conference at the L.A. Athletic Club.

Should is the key word here.

“I’ll be surprised if (the new requirement) doesn’t give the award more status and recognition, and therefore give it wider acceptance,” Wooden said.

I think Wooden is giving the average basketball fan, coach, player and reporter too much credit. I think a lot of them don’t much care whether their favorite player is showing up for his morning chemistry lab. I think a lot of basketball people will refuse to recognize the validity of an award with Wooden’s new restrictions. I think the new rule will devalue Wooden’s fine award.

I hope I’m very wrong.

“Any time you try to please everyone, you’re in trouble,” Wooden said. “But I think most clear-thinking people understand the purpose of athletics in school. . . . I believe that (academics) is the main purpose of youngsters’ being in school, and we’ve gotten away from that to some extent.”

This was the understatement of the day, if not the week.

The question is, who cares?

And, is John Wooden’s academic idealism an outdated concept?

Wooden points out that when he went to school, all the athletes, including the stars, graduated. Of course, Wooden went to school a long time ago. His backcourt mate at Purdue was Fred Flintstone.

Times have changed. There are many more black college players now, for instance. And for socio-economic reasons, a lot of these black kids tend to be from disadvantaged educational backgrounds.

Many coaches and others believe we’re doing these kids a big favor by letting them hang around a college campus for four or five years. Better that than a street corner, right? Why make them study, too?

Wooden doesn’t buy this. When he coached, he had black kids and white kids, smart kids and dumb kids, ambitious kids and lazy kids. And, as much as he could possibly control it, they all went to class.

There are still coaches like that. There are also coaches unlike that. At Maryland, for instance, Len Bias and some of his teammates dropped out or flunked out once the basketball season was over.

Asked if the new qualification clause for his award was in part a reaction to the Bias tragedy, Wooden said, “Yes, I think it was. After his tragic death, it was sad to learn of some of those other things about him (the flunking out).

“It was apparent the administration didn’t know about it, and I know very well that can happen. I had a player who, after the season, didn’t go to class for the rest of the term. We didn’t know about it for quite a spell. I’m happy to say he eventually graduated, and now has a doctorate in education.”

But that was the old days, too, the ‘60s, in the storybook world of UCLA basketball.

Still, Wooden believes his new rule is fair. He’s not exactly demanding that Wooden Award candidates also be Rhodes scholarship applicants. A 2.0 average means the kid will have to show up for class occasionally and maybe even take a test or two. Some student-athletes might even have to study hard to maintain a 2.0.

The 10 previous winners of the Wooden Award, including Walter Berry, last year’s winner, would have qualified under the new guidelines. Three of last year’s 11 Wooden Award candidates, however, would have been left off the ballot.

What will happen some year soon is that the top college basketball player will not win the Wooden Award, because of lousy grades. So be it, says Wooden.

“You’re making a statement, aren’t you?” a reporter said to John Wooden.

“Yes,” he said.