As Florida A&M Takes On Jackson State, There Are Important Takeaways From Last Week’s Administrative Debacle

When the news broke last week about the absolutely frustrating situation the Florida A&M University institution and football team found itself in just days before heading to Chapel Hill to play the University of North Carolina in a guarantee game, many were angry and sympathetic to the plight of the players. Despite FAMU losing the game 56-24, the fact they even took the field was a miracle.

Rewind back to one week earlier-FAMU found itself with 26 ineligible players just days before the team was scheduled to head out of town. After the story broke, the team was furious, with 90 players penning a letter to University leadership, “It was very damaging to the morale of our football team to read on various media outlets, ’26 FAMU Football Players Ruled Ineligible,’” the players wrote. “This narrative implies that we are not performing in the classroom. In fact, that couldn’t be further from the truth. The issue at hand is not academic performance, but procedural issues within the registrar’s office, compliance department and academic advisement.”

Indeed, the administration admitted as much in their reply, writing “procedural issues within the registrar’s office, compliance department and academic advisement. FAMU has one compliance and one academic adviser for athletics, according to the university.”

This was a speeding train coming down the track. There are well over 100 athletes on the team, and the staffing vacancies at the University dated back prior to the pandemic. As is often the case, schools tend to leave vacant positions unfilled in the hopes of saving money; in this new era of competition for employees, clearly FAMU (like so many in college athletics) was unable to fill the open positions in time.

FAMU’s President Larry Robinson told the media after a meeting with the team, “the university has committed to adding five or more additional compliance employees and two academic advisers to assist athletes. He also said all 18 campus academic advisors at FAMU will be trained in “some of the nuances” associated with athletics.” He promised the new compliance staff would be onboard by the end of the fall semester.

Clearly, this whole scenario opened a window into a little-known, but very common administrative problem in college sports-the intricate dance that exists between the academic, financial aid, and athletic eligibility departments. These areas are often understaffed and without resources to do their jobs at the most critical times of the year—certifying athletes before they compete in their first contest.

In a recent podcast conversation with Dr. Debbi Clarke, the former Associate Provost at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, we discussed the complicated “student-athlete lifecycle” that exists for all athletes, from the time they are initially contacted as a recruit, through the time they graduate. For the last nine years, her campus has been deeply involved in creating campus -wide ownership for that lifecycle. UNC have created 21 touch points in which anyone responsible for academic integrity (from faculty to academic advisors, from financial aid officers to tutors) must be informed. Some will remember that UNC learned this lesson the hard way via an academic scandal. Still, today, it is one of the few schools in the nation that has put their ownership of this process in writing, on their website.

Where does this kind of focus on academic accountability leave schools like FAMU without the financial resources of an ACC school? Often scrambling just to get a team on the bus or the field.

The athletes, asked to compete in a game that would generate a $450,000 payday for the Rattlers, were left in the worst possible predicament-either sit out or play out of position. Two players came out of the UNC game hurt. They players were angry, believing they had been hung out to dry.

There are many good, well-intentioned administrators on each Division I campus. However, it might be time for a hard look at whether your school can truly deliver on a “quality Division I experience”. There are plenty of schools who use their football and basketball teams to supply a half million dollars or more to the school’s athletics budget via a guarantee game. But when you already are shorthanded in many of the areas that matter off the field, how can it be a good experience for the athletes and coaches? As an injured player told USA Today, “I put my body on the line to make money for the school.”