Editor’s Note: This is the first installment in a series of articles addressing the resolution proposing to phase out the appropriated funding Eastern’s intercollegiate athletics department receives.

Tension will always exist and debates will always occur when sports and academics are coexisting in the same intellectual institution, said Craig Eckert, the chairman of the sociology/anthropology department.

Eckert said the tension is primarily because of sports not being a part of the academic mission of a university.

“You are going to have people who think too much emphasis is being put on athletics, and you are going to have coaches who think not enough is being done for their student-athlete,” Eckert said.

Eckert said he holds Grant Sterling in high regard, but he does not agree with either tiers of his proposal.

Sterling’s proposal was to slowly phase out of athletic appropriated funding on the university’s part. Sterling also discussed moving Eastern from a Division-I team to a Division-II.

However, Eckert did say the topic of extracurricular funding is something that should be continually evaluated.

The University of Chicago had a similar debate, which led to the university removing itself from the Big Ten Conference in 1946 after President Robert Maynard Hutchins dropped the school from D-I to D-III in 1939. This also resulted in Hutchins eliminating football.

“They believed that the athletic teams were corrupting the intellectual reason for the university,” Eckert said. “And (the university) is generally recognized as one of the most prestigious university in not only the United States, but in the world.”

Eckert said he does believe sports have a role to play in a collegiate atmosphere and can coexist without overstepping and taking precedence over academics.

“Schools can put sports in a proper frame that it doesn’t take away from the academic mission of the university,” Eckert said. “It’s hard. It’s difficult—no one is ever going to be totally satisfied.”

Eastern, Eckert said, is an example of this mutually beneficial relationship.

“I’m not someone who believes that by wiping out athletics is going to make as big of an impact that he thinks it does,” he said.

Eckert said he thinks sports increase school spirit, engages students and gives them a chance to learn outside of an academic setting.

“Sports is part of the complement of things that we can come to appreciate during our time on a university campus,” Eckert said. “Music, art, sports—I think those are all beneficial things for students to take part in.”

Eckert said it is a misconception that athletes excel in physical situations while remaining vastly unintelligent. A misconception that Eckert said has been put to rest in his classrooms time and time again.

“The athletic population is just like the student population—there are a range of abilities and skills,” Eckert said. “I’ve had some student athletes that were absolute curve-setters in my class—I’ve got a student right now that is on the track team that is a phenomenal student-athlete, one of the smartest student I’ve ever had at Eastern.”

Eckert has been a faculty member at Eastern for 26 years.

“With one or two exceptions, I’ve never had a problem with athletes showing up for classes that I’ve taught, taking part in them, doing what their supposed to and moving on to their degrees,” Eckert said. “I’ve always felt like I had the support of the athletic department on getting student-athletes their diplomas.”

This is something that Eckert said is not true of every university.

Eckert, who received his bachelor’s at the University of Oklahoma, said he was able to see how badly an athletic department could be when it came to caring about the future well-being of an athlete when he attended University of Oklahoma.

“That’s where you see the worst face of college athletics; where kids are just used for fodder,” Eckert said. “Beyond your illegibility there was no care—they had their tutors and their computer lab, but I don’t think there was really a commitment on the part of the football program on whether or not these kids graduated.”

At such institutions, the main concern of an athletic department and the university is keeping a player’s eligible instead of their academic accomplishment, Eckert said.

But, Eastern is not among those universities, Eckert said.

“I’m not saying that there aren’t athletes that just get by here,” Eckert said. “I’m not saying that there aren’t athletes at Eastern that don’t get special favors, but the real egregious corruption in college sports is at the Division I levels when eligibility takes precedence over everything.”

Nike Ogunbodede can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].