Write or Die Editor's Column- Brawn or intelligence?

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Even Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain: These are just a few classic novels that most students read before entering college. How surprised would you be to find out a portion of the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill's student athletes could not read these works?

The prestigious NC institution is struggling to keep its head above murky waters after a CNN investigation reported that some of their football and basketball players could only read at an elementary school level. Mary Willingham, who researched the reading levels of nearly 200 UNC-Chapel Hill football and basketball players from 2004-2012, reported that 60 percent of the athletes read between fourth and eighth-grade levels while almost 10 percent read below a third-grade reading level.

But it doesn't stop there.

Since the investigation, reports have surfaced that student athletes have been scraping by academically for years.

Chancellor Carol Folt confessed that student athletes were given grades for courses they did not attend, a pattern that "has undermined our integrity and our reputation."

With UNC-Chapel Hill, perhaps one of the most renowned universities in the Tarheel State, facing scandals with their student athletes' academic integrity, what can be said about the standards here at Winston-Salem State?

Season after season, money is poured into athletic departments at colleges and universities across the country. At WSSU, revenue from concession stands and ticket revenue, game day parking fees fuel funding for athletics. Meanwhile, our academic departments struggle to keep faculty members and pay for resources like paper and updated equipment for student labs.

It seems every semester, students who groan and complain at the mere mentioning of words like "500-word essay," "read pages 56-99" or "research paper." I've been in classes where student athletes rarely turn in assignments but expect to pass the course. Is it shocking that these students are confident on game day, but cannot perform up to par in the classroom? Not really.

No university should devalue academics in place of athletics. No matter if you have a wicked jump shot, produce incredible stats and have groupies; your academic career should shine just as, if not more bright, than your talent on game day. Your title says it all; you are students before athletes.

Ultimately, intelligence is resilient but one torn ACL can end a career.