‘Bachelor in Sports and Recreation Management’

Even as the UAAP board met on the De La Salle University player ineligibility controversy, the news broke out that three more school officials had also tendered their resignations, namely sports development director Bro. Bobby Casingal, sports development director Danny Jose and university registrar Edwin Santiago.

In addition, several distinguished alumni, led by school sports icons Kurt Bachmann and Tommy Manotoc, are reportedly calling for the resignation of senior varsity coach Franz Pumaren. Incidentally, Mr. Santiago, with whom I was in touch on another matter, confirmed that he had indeed submitted a courtesy resignation last Thursday. However, he tells me his resignation hasn’t been acted upon yet.

The matter I happened to be discussing with Mr. Santiago had to do with those ugly rumors about certain basketball players who allegedly were given "soft" academic courses to take, without any real obligation except to play full-time for the varsity team.

These "degrees" were in the "physical education" area. The players’ frequent absences were supposedly overlooked and exams were routinely hurdled, often with flying colors, by students who had great difficulty passing high school, but were miraculously transformed into hot-shot students in college.

Our initial inquiries tweaked our curiosity. We logged on to the DLSU website and accessed the degree programs. We came across something called "Bachelor in Sports and Recreation Management," but couldn’t get any more details on degree requirements, much less a description of the courses. The best we came up with were cross-references to the College of Education, then to Physical Education… and a dead end.

But under Physical Education were such courses as Dance and Rhythms, which may have explained player Ryan Arana’s fancy footwork in his provocative victory jigs after one of his basketball team’s wins. Also there were courses in Individual/Dual Sports and Team Games and Sports, for which "practical and written tests" were required. Among the team sports were, naturally, basketball.

I was expecting to see such thoughtful courses as Principles of Play or Theories of Motion, or useful ones such as Political History of Pico and Patintero: Aspects of Revolution, even the deadly serious mathematical jungle of Games Theory. No such luck. So, was there really a bachelor’s degree program in sports and recreation management? Was this a phantom course, someone’s idea of perpetuating the stereotype of the dumb but superstar jock? Was this proof of DLSU’s alleged mad obsession with victory in athletics at all costs?

Well, not really. In an effort to be absolutely fair and balanced about this, we called no less than university President, Bro. Armin Luistro, who told me that while there used to be such a course as Bachelor in Sports and Recreation Management, the program was discontinued effective the first semester of school year 2002-2003. In that year, a new offering called "Bachelor of Arts in Sports Studies" was unveiled. For the details, he kindly referred me to the aforementioned university registrar, Mr. Edwin Santiago.

Unlike the poorly updated and now obsolete website, Mr. Santiago was forthcoming with current information. He forthwith faxed me the syllabus and course descriptions of the B.A. degree in S.S., or Sports Studies. Not only that, he also favored me with a statistical breakdown of the number of students in the S.S. program (69 this term), how many of them are athletes (63), and how many are basketball players (19).

I haven’t been able to get the names of the basketball players though. My query went all the way back to Bro. Armin who promptly called to explain that they were constrained from releasing the names of individuals enrolled in courses for reasons of confidentiality. Fair enough. But to overcome that constraint, I’m thinking I’ll mention specific names to Mr. Santiago and ask him whether they are enrolled in the course, a la Bernstein and Woodward and Deep Throat. Maybe this will work.

Mr. Santiago’s stats also yielded the interesting tidbit that out of 11,240 students, there are 481 recorded "athletes," of whom only 69 are in the B.A. in S.S. program. 412 athletes are in other degree programs. Of the 26 total basketball players among the athletes, 19 are enrolled in Sports Studies. Thus, 7 players are in other, presumably more challenging, degree programs such as B.A. in Translation Studies which, of course, is another area of our pesky inquiry.

And I must say that, on the basis of the syllabus provided me, the degree in Sports Studies, is no walk in the park, although it is arguably easier than La Salle’s rigorous engineering and business management programs. To graduate, a candidate needs 108 units of "general education" courses, the staple diet in English, History, Literature, Math, Humanities and Social Sciences and other such subjects.

One also needs 42 units in one’s area of concentration. Among the required courses are: History of Sports, Sociology of Sports, Sports Ethics (Yes, Ethics!), Sports Management, Sports Psychology, Politics of Sports (Why not, since politics has invaded sports, particularly in this country.), Sports Research, and Sports Writing.

Then there are 12 units of electives which the student can choose from Sports and Personality Development, Sports Medicine and Technology and, for some reason, courses in drama, theater arts, film and literature and philosophy. I guess it’s because many sports stars become entertainment personalities or celebrities and they need the intellectual background to survive in those new worlds.

The total is 162 units, not a light load by any means, especially if you’re a young person burdened with pressures of winning championships which nosy alumni demand.

All this looks good on paper, but why do I hear muttering about substance over form, and about the need to see what’s really going on behind the scenes. OK, I’ll continue to snoop around. But I thought it was fair to first give DLSU an opportunity to respond to the rumors about academic coddling of its athletes.

And, by the way, according to Edwin Santiago, neither Yeo nor Cardona was enrolled in Sports Studies. He hasn’t gotten back to me yet on what degree they did pursue, and what happened to those who started the old Sports and Recreation Management program before 2002. Did they stay the course, in which case the issue of course content is still alive, or were they required to shift to the new B.A. in S.S.?