foster_documentary_20_t607.jpg
The movie gained attention when NFL star Arian Foster admitted he took money while playing at Tennessee. But the film is about much more than NCAA violations.
The public has already seen the juiciest moments in the new documentary film Schooled: The Price of College Sports. Last month, filmmakers released clips of NFL star Arian Foster admitting he took money at Tennessee.
"I'm a firm believer that an employee should get paid for his work," Foster says in the film. "And, 100 percent, I see student-athletes as employees. Hiding from it is just cowardly."
Given the way today's media culture operates, Foster's admittance of violating NCAA rules was the most newsworthy part of the film, which airs Wednesday on EPIX, a premium movie channel, at 7 p.m. Central. But it's not the most profound moment. (More on that later.)
Dig underneath the artificial "pay-for-play" debate in college sports, and there are relevant questions about NCAA inequities that many fans shrug off while enjoying their games.
Are college athletes actually getting a quality education in return for playing within a multi-billion-dollar industry?
Why do college players not have certain rights that other students have in college, such as profiting off their own name?
Should a university even be in the business of trying to educate and field semi-professional sports teams?
That's the conversation Schooled is trying to have. The movie is an adaption of "The Cartel" by Pulitzer Prize-winning civil rights scholar Taylor Branch, and his comprehensive 2011 article in The Atlantic, "The Shame of College Sports."
There's a scene in Schooled where Branch attends a national conference of university athletics directors. The film shows one speaker saying college athletes are "getting a great, grand experience" and that they ought to take on loans like everyone else. Then another speaker says ADs care deeply about players.
"I don't doubt that people care about athletes," Branch tells the room. "But if you care about somebody, deal first with their rights. Imagine this: suppose the university were to say we're going to have amateurism for all the students on our campus, so we can be consistent. And that means that you can't get a job at the campus bookstore if you're an undergraduate, that you can't be paid as a teaching assistant if you're a graduate student. You're an amateur."
After Branch's speech, former longtime Navy Athletics Director Jack Lengyel approaches Branch and tells him agitatedly, "The student does not have consent. You can't have the animals running the zoo in a college education."
Branch repeats Lengyel's zoo words as he walks away. Schooled wants that mindset of administrators to be viewed as the status quo in college sports.
To longterm observers of NCAA amateurism issues, Schooled won't provide much new information. Many of the topics have been discussed for decades. It's only now, as the money in college sports increases, that there is more widespread public attention.
Schooled attempts to use individual stories to tell a bigger story. In doing so, the film adeptly uses some archived video and audio.
Viewers can see the hit that paralyzed TCU running back Kent Waldrep in 1974 against Alabama at Legion Field. Waldrep, who later grew close to Bear Bryant and became an honorary member of the A-Club, challenged the NCAA's rules and lost.
The Texas Worker's Compensation Commission ruled in 1993 that Waldrep was a TCU employee and ordered the university's insurance company to pay Waldrep $70 a month for the rest of his life. The company balked, went to court, and a jury ruled Waldrep was not entitled to benefits.
Schooled plays the audio of former NCAA executive director Walter Byers explaining how the NCAA avoided paying worker's compensation benefits to athletes. The NCAA's legal success stems from Byers inventing the term "student-athlete" in 1964 for all NCAA rules as a defense from adverse legal rulings.
The movie spends very little time discussing actual remedies to the amateurism debate. That's not the fault of Schooled. The NCAA declined to be interviewed. The film provides balance by interviewing retired NCAA Vice President Wally Renfro, University of Nebraska Chancellor Harvey Perlman and Maryland Athletics Director Kevin Anderson, and by showing past clips of NCAA President Mark Emmert defending amateurism.
Schooled essentially argues that it can't specifically discuss what college sports should look like without college sports leaders acknowledging there's even a problem. Branch's point: No reform can happen as long as the system is built on dishonesty and denial of rights.
Subtly, the heart of Schooled belongs to Mary Willingham, a former learning specialist at the University of North Carolina. Viewers are left to wonder what some players will do with their lives once they're done with their full-time jobs as college athletes.
The film tackles North Carolina's academic scandal involving football and basketball players -- reportedly exceedingly well by The Raleigh News & Observer's Dan Kane -- and the NCAA's reluctance to issue penalties. Some North Carolina athletes stayed eligible by enrolling in "paper" classes in which they did almost no work yet received high grades.
Willingham says she felt she was "drowning" when helping athletes in school. She says she worked with three athletes on letters and sounds.
North Carolina has avoided NCAA sanctions in part because non-athletes also took the easy classes. But Willingham says that her colleagues "all knew" about the secret.
"And I am really sad about that," she says. "Because it's the adults that are failing the students."
If for no other reason than that, Schooled is worth the history lesson.