Bare trees and Gothic spires frame the deserted quadrangle outside Lorna Straus` window. It`s Christmas break at the University of Chicago. All is calm, reflective, academic-except in a cheerfully cluttered office of the fourth floor. There, amid a pile of file folders, surgical gloves and tomes on cat anatomy, Straus is giving a lecture to an audience of one.
The subject: reform for college sports. The question: Why should the Oklahomas, the Auburns and the Florida States of the world have to listen to Lorna Straus? Or, to put it more plainly, what is an anatomy professor doing hip-deep in the untidy world of big-time college sports, a world departed by her very own institution decades ago?
Straus bores in through half-rim glasses. She was hoping you would ask that.
”You`ll have to bear with me while I get back up on my soapbox,” she said, brandishing her spectacles like a conductor`s baton. ”On Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I feel this way: There are an awful lot of people out there who care an awful lot. They just need to come together and coalesce and be legitimized in their feelings.”
She pauses for emphasis and to light another cigarette.
”Having said that, on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, I can be as cynical as anyone else and say the money`s too big, that there`s no way to do this,” she said. ”(But) I`m basically optimistic enough to say that there`s a chance for a mid-course adjustment.”
This is not an intellectual hand-wringing about the role of college sports by a member of the Hyde Park ivory tower-and-tweed set. This is the view of someone who can do something about it. Straus, 58, is chairwoman of the NCAA`s powerful academic-requirements committee, a body that will present a series of measures to tighten academic standards for athletes to the NCAA`s convention this week in Anaheim, Calif.
Her view matters very much these days in places such as Norman, Okla., Auburn, Ala., Tallahassee, Fla., and anywhere else they pack `em in for major college football and basketball.
How can that be? Sure, the fabled U. of C. Maroons may have been the first Monsters of the Midway, they may have produced the first Heisman Trophy winner and they may have worn the Swiss ”C” before the Bears appropriated it. But the school and big-time sports went their separate ways years ago.
Straus` background does not seem to be an issue to those who know her. They see her as an example of a reformer who paid her dues and rose to a place where she can make a difference. Or look at it another way: The NCAA finally has found a way to combine athletics and academics.
”She impresses everyone with her brilliance and her broad, comprehensive knowledge on academic issues, with her objectivity and her fairness,” said former NCAA President Albert Witte, who happens to be a U. of C. alumnus.
”She`s one of the more respected members in the (NCAA`s) committee structure.”
Straus will need that considerable clout this week when the NCAA debates her committee`s recommendations. Among them is a requirement that incoming student-athletes complete 13 college-preparatory courses instead of 11, that they have a minimum 2.5 grade-point average in those courses instead of a 2.0 and that the NCAA adopt a sliding scale that would link GPAs and Scholastic Aptitude Test scores as eligibility requirements.
The last recommendation would rework controversial Proposition 48, which has sidelined hundreds of incoming freshmen since 1986. Under Proposition 48, incoming student-athletes must carry a 2.0 GPA in 11 core courses and score at least 700 on the SAT or 18 on the American College Testing exam to be eligible as freshmen. The new rules, which would take effect in 1995, would use an indexing system to tie grade-point averages to achievement test scores. For example, a student with a 700 SAT would need a 2.5 cumulative high school GPA, while a student scoring 900 would need only a 2.0.
To some, the indexing is an effort to answer criticism that the SAT is biased against minorities and that a high school student`s collegiate athletic career can be jeopardized by one poor test.
”The (Proposition 48) detractors say the problem with a test score is that it reflects what happens on a single Saturday morning,” Straus said.
”Why have the GPA? It`s very important because it reflects what has happened over four years of high school.”
Other committee proposals would raise the standards for athletes once they have gained admission. Straus said the committee believes more athletes will graduate under tougher rules.
”There`s concern that kids who come in under Proposition 48 or are partial qualifiers were going through college and running out of eligibility and not graduating,” she said. ”I really believe that the goal is to have these kids graduate.”
The measures are expected to pass. The NCAA`s two most powerful panels-the NCAA council and the Presidents Commission-support them, but a floor fight could develop at the convention. The Big East has proposed
countermeasures that would lower the standards or postpone any changes until further study. And it`s not known how much backlash last year`s reform-minded convention has created.
In the end, the proposed rule changes may need a strong voice to survive. Straus plans to bring her soapbox.
”I can think of instances in the past where a committee`s reports and recommendations have not been accepted because the chair was not able to articulate or defend their position,” Witte said.
If a battle breaks out, it only will convince Straus of the importance of her NCAA work. It is here that her perspective at one of the nation`s top academic institutions lends authority to her position.
Many at U. of C. may not care a whit about sports, but Straus has taken them seriously all her life. She played intramural field hockey during her undergraduate years at Radcliffe College. Two of her children have
participated in intercollegiate sports-Helen was a multisport star at U. of C. and Michael is a trainer for Michigan State`s football team.
After graduating, Straus decided to go into the family business of teaching. Her father was Wilfred Puttkammer, a law professor at Chicago. She soon became involved with the athletic program at U. of C., one of the first universities to offer scholarships for women athletes. (The school since has joined the NCAA`s Division III, which forbids athletic-based grants).
She became close to Mary Jean Mulvaney, then Chicago`s athletic director and an NCAA activist. When an opening appeared on the academic-requirements committee, Mulvaney suggested Straus for the post. Five years later, Straus ascended to the chair.
It has proved to be a perfect spot for Straus and her soapbox, a perfect mixture of the academic and the actual. Straus speaks as if she believes legitimacy can be restored to the phrase ”student-athlete.” She`s convinced she`s right, that the committee`s right, and she speaks with the reformer`s certainty of self and purpose.
”This is the way to do it,” she said. ”No one institution can do it by itself. No one conference can. It has to be the whole nation.”
