Summit: Values and Choices: Issues for Athletes
2) Values and Choices: Issues for Athletes, including substance abuse, performance-enhancing substances, and violent behavior. Opening Remarks by Knight Commission Vice Chair Dr. Clifton R. Wharton
Transcript: PDF.
Video: Windows Media File. Quick Time.
CLIFTON WHARTON: Thank you very much, President Trachtenberg.
My name is Clifton Wharton. I am the President Emeritus of Michigan State University and also vice-chairman of this Commission. I guess Chuck Young, who’s sitting behind me, and I are probably the longest serving members of the Commission.
A word of procedure before I begin. This morning we will have two panels. The presentations will be made by the panelists, followed by questions and answers or comments from selected members of the Commission. This afternoon there will be a third panel which will provide an opportunity for questions and answers and comments from the audience.
This morning the first panel as you have seen in your materials is titled, Values and Choices, the issues for athletes including substances abuses, performance-enhancing substances and violent behavior.
I’d like to make a few brief preliminary comments about this and particularly talk about values in academe because that is where the crux of the issues arise.
A bit of definition. Values determine personal and societal behavior and they influence and control what we do and how we do it. They’re very abstract concepts and often unconscious, but they do determine what is required of people, what is forbidden, what is praised, what is rewarded and what is censured and punished. Is it wrong to cheat? Is it wrong to kill another human being? Is it wrong to lie to your parents or relatives? Is it good to honor one’s parents and ancestors? Is it good to be religious? What importance is placed upon justice and the rule of law? So values give a meaning to the total culture of a society and they influence individual behavior and group interaction on a daily basis.
Colleges and universities also have special values that give answers to such question as, is published research truthfully performed and accurately reported? How is plagiarism dealt with? Does research follow the accepted canons of verification, testing, replication and transparency? Does a professor give honest grades to students or are some given preferential treatment? Do students cheat on their exams or papers? And what are the consequences? What standards should a college adopt to determine when commercialism in funding research or athletics is too much? Is it only dollars that matters in the search for knowledge? Intercollegiate athletics as a subset of academe also has values. I give that as background because today’s panelists will be discussing specific areas of behavior that reflect issues of values.
This morning we’re quite pleased to have a series of individuals, five, who will discuss this topic. We will divide the section into two. The first two speakers, we will then be followed by a Q&A from the members of the Commission, and then the remaining three will make their presentations followed by questions and comments from the Commission members behind me.
One change in your materials on the members of the Commission who will be participating in the first panel, in addition to Bill Asbury, Anita DeFrantz and Elson Floyd and Judy Woodruff, we have now added to replace others who are not here, Hodding Carter and Chuck Young.
So with that let me begin this morning with a presentation by Frank Uryasz, President, the National Center for Drug Free Sport. Frank?
