In The Case Of The Semi-Literate Black College Athlete We Must Also Look At The Culpability Of His Commnity's Institutions In His Ultimate Fate

Hat tip to my dear friend NSangoma for turning me onto another great human interest story in the news.

The NY Times ran a review of a story found in The Chronicle Of Higher Education which featured a story of the academic and life challenges of a college football player named Dasmine Cathy.

The Education Of Dasmine Cathy


If we allow the ideologically bigoted extremes to define this tale we will get the following classifications after its reading:

• The Conspiracy Theorist:  How "The System", in need for the physical prowess of a "big Black buck", has used Dasmine for his potential financial benefit to the university (and schools that he matriculated through before hand) on the football field by compromising its own academic standards by pushing them through though he could not read
• The Black Inferiorist: How "The Black man" is a physical specimen rather than an intellectual being.  With college as a front for a "semi-pro" football league, he is unable to measure up to the average student when academics are made a prerequisite of his games-play.  He is a "baby maker" in the context of societal dysfunction in which temporary pleasures prove to create the conditions that ultimately define his ultimate fate.

Both of these views that I have posted as a hypothetical are merely attempts for a third party observer to impart their own views upon Dasmine Cathy's condition.

When I read the story I keyed in upon the "ADULT MANAGERS" in his life who's own incompetencies appear to have spilled into Dasmine's life.

• Some network of adults were responsible for managing Dasmine's academic career in elementary school before he ever picked up a football
• Some adult  was responsible for defining and protecting the sanctity of the household that Dasmine and any of his siblings grew up in, providing them with their basic needs for shelter, clothing, food and conscious development
• A serial collection of coaches and athletic advisers had to interact with the academic advisers charged with Dasmine's academic matriculation that should have been made superior to his athletic ability as they retained the integrity of their institutions
• The city of Memphis, as one example of a problem plagued city, represents a confluence of compromised integrity that expresses itself as violent, poverty-ridden and academically repressive environments that cause young participants like Dasmine and his friends to shift into an instinctive survival mode rather than being allowed to plug into the system as a productive contributor and ultimately a consumer of a high standard of living.

Unfortunately Dasmine Cathy will not likely be able to leverage his academic preparation in the job market once his unlikely "NFL career" does not pan out.

The tendency to cut a break for the individual so that he might escape the streets only allows the lowered standard to become the norm.  The same "union effect" that demands that "the system" raise its standards for the benefit of the individual is the case when the INDIVIDUAL is asked to raise his standards (in this case academic standards along the way) because there are heightened standards to participate in high school and college sports.