JENKINS: What does the NCAA mean by ‘fairness’?

Watching college basketball this past weekend, I noticed the NCAA has a new slogan (new to me, at least), proclaiming as its priorities “academics, wellness and fairness.”

As a lifelong teacher and former coach, I am certainly on board with those. Fairness, especially, ought to be well within the association’s purview. One of the main goals of athletics should be to teach what we used to call “sportsmanship” (now “sportspersonship”?).

However, having watched the NCAA move decidedly left over the years, embracing an increasingly progressive agenda, I have to wonder if what they mean by “fairness” is the same thing you or I might mean. I suspect not.

Instead, I fear the NCAA’s definition of fairness relies on progressive notions of equality — meaning equality of outcome, not equality of opportunity. And that idea, of course, is actually antithetical to the primary aim of sport, which is competition.

The disconnect between these two views of equality was identified several years ago by the great 20th-century philosopher Mortimer Adler, who interestingly used a sports metaphor to make his point.

Life, Adler said, is like a footrace “in which individuals all start out with no one affected by circumstances more or less favorable to winning the race. Their equality of opportunity consists of the equality of the initial conditions under which they enter the race. When the race is run, these same individuals end up unequal.”

In other words, equality of opportunity will not — indeed, cannot — guarantee everyone the same degree of success. The best we can do is make sure all have the same chance to succeed and are treated the same, given similar circumstances.

That last phrase is key. As I often point out in my leadership seminars, treating people fairly does not necessarily mean treating them exactly the same, for the simple reason that people and circumstances differ.

When I coached little league baseball, I often had parents ask me why their son didn’t get to play in the infield. In most cases, an honest answer would have been, “Because if I put him in the infield, he’d lose some teeth.”

Of course, I didn’t phrase it exactly that way, but it’s the truth. Not all 9-year-olds are capable of fielding a sharply hit ground ball. Some are likely to get hurt, and putting them in that position is not fair to them. What I tried to do was work with all the boys to improve their fielding skills. And if I had, say, seven who could field and only four infield positions, I would rotate them. That’s fair.

I hope that’s what the NCAA means when they reference fairness: making sure “the initial conditions” under which people “enter the race” are as equal as possible, given different levels of skill and preparation. But based on what I’ve seen lately, I wonder if that’s really what they mean. Stay tuned.

Rob Jenkins is a local freelance writer and the author of four books, including “Family Man: The Art of Surviving Domestic Tranquility” and “The 9 Virtues of Exceptional Leaders: Unlocking Your Leadership Potential” (with Karl Haden), both available at Books for Less in Buford and on Amazon. Email Rob at [email protected].