Cal Football is Even More of a Travesty Than We Thought

The problems besetting Cal athletics keep multiplying.  In addition to the evidence that central campus resources have been used to subsidize Intercollegiate Athletics it has now become clear that the Athletics department has not been fulfilling its responsibilities to its student Athletes in major sports.  A recent NCAA report shows that the graduation rate for Cal Football and Basketball are among the lowest of any University participating in the major sports.  In football, Cal has the lowest graduation rate among the 72 schools listed, while in Basketball Cal has the 4th lowest amongst teams in the major conferences.  These results are occurring at a moment when graduation rates across the country's athletic programs appear to be rising.

Although the Cal Athletics department argued that the figures did not represent present coaching staffs it is hard not to see this as a deep-rooted institutional problem.  Nor can Berkeley insist that its numbers are lower because of the difficulty of its academics.  Stanford on the other hand ranked 5th in graduation rates.

Berkeley has been diverting resources away from the general campus population in favor of their elite athletes. Now it seems, they are failing to meet their obligations to those athletes as well.