Tony Rice noticed the looks and smirks during his first week of freshman classes in the fall of 1986 at Notre Dame.
He had accepted his fate a few months earlier when standardized test results led to the decision that he would not be eligible to participate in collegiate sports his freshman year. But nothing prepared him for this.
“People were looking at me,” Rice says. “They knew I was a football player and they knew why I wasn’t playing. I’m sure they were thinking, ‘Why is he here when he can’t cut it at Notre Dame academically.’”
Tuesday marks the 40th anniversary of Proposition 48, approved by member schools of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, which tied freshman athletic eligibility to minimum grade-point averages and standardized test scores. Four decades later, Proposition 48 remains one of the NCAA’s most controversial decisions – a policy its architects said would protect academic standards but which critics viewed as a blunt instrument that disproportionately punished Black athletes and students from underfunded schools. The rule barred hundreds of freshmen from competition based on test scores that many educators questioned as measures of college readiness, forcing athletes like Rice to sit out while facing stigma on campus. Though the policy has since evolved, its legacy still shapes debates over standardized testing, racial equity, and who gets to define merit in college athletics.
Rice wasn’t alone in that stigma. In the fall of 1986, 401 recruits were ineligible to compete that season under the new rule. In football, 81% of players ruled ineligible were Black, according to the NCAA. These student-athletes arrived on campuses as recruited prospects but were immediately marked as academic failures, unable to practice with teams or suit up for games, their scholarships intact but their status uncertain.
“It was kind of hard to sit out that year after playing sports my whole life,” Rice says. “There were three other guys at Notre Dame who had to sit out. We encouraged each other to do our best.”
The NCAA said it was trying to improve the academic perception of its student-athletes. The road to Proposition 48 began in the early 1980s when a series of academic scandals – including revelations that some athletes were graduating functionally illiterate – pressured the NCAA to act. Led by the American Council on Education and college presidents concerned about the integrity of their institutions, the reform movement culminated in January 1983, when delegates at the NCAA convention in San Diego voted 427–93 to approve new academic standards.
The NCAA adopted the proposal, setting minimum requirements: a 2.0 grade-point average (on a 4.0 scale) in 11 core courses and a minimum score of 700 on the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) or a minimum score of 15 on the ACT.
NCAA member schools implemented Proposition 48 on 13 January 1986, and it went into effect with the fall freshman class that year.
But the new policy quickly drew criticism because it disproportionately affected Black student-athletes. While Black students made up roughly 25 percent of Division I athletes in major sports, they accounted for more than 80 percent of those barred under Proposition 48 in its early years. The SAT score requirement of 700 – later raised to 820 – hovered near the national average at the time, yet still eliminated disproportionate numbers of Black recruits, particularly those from under-resourced schools in the South and inner cities.
The criticism was swift and fierce. Civil rights leaders, educators, and coaches argued that standardized tests were culturally biased measures that had long been used to exclude Black students from educational opportunities.
The NAACP and the National Alliance of Black School Educators condemned Proposition 48, arguing it would reduce opportunities for Black students without addressing the root problem: unequal K-12 education. They pointed to research showing that standardized tests often under-predicted the college success of Black students, who frequently performed better academically than their test scores suggested.
“Proposition 48 appears to be racially discriminating legislation, but it’s actually an economic discriminatory practice,” says Gary “Doc” Sailes, an author and sport psychologist. “Plenty of studies have proven that. It affects poor Blacks, poor females, poor whites and poor Asians. My research also disclosed that the higher the income in a county, the higher the tax base, the more resources that are available for education.”
Supporters of Proposition 48 pushed back, arguing that without minimum standards, colleges were exploiting athletes and setting them up for failure. They pointed to athletes who left school without degrees, unprepared for life after sports. The debate, they insisted, wasn’t about access but about accountability – for both athletes and the institutions recruiting them.
The NCAA made changes. In 1992, the organization replaced Proposition 48 with Proposition 16, introducing a sliding scale that allowed students with higher GPAs to qualify with lower test scores – and vice versa. A student with a 3.5 GPA, for example, could be eligible with an SAT score as low as 620, while a student with a 2.0 GPA would need at least 1,010.
The NCAA continued tweaking the requirements over the next two decades. In 2003, it raised the number of required core courses from 13 to 16. In 2016, it increased the minimum GPA to 2.3 for Division I athletes. Each adjustment was presented as a step toward higher academic standards.
But the landscape around Proposition 48 was shifting in ways its architects never anticipated. By the 2020s, more than 1,800 colleges and universities had made SAT and ACT scores optional for admission, citing the same concerns about bias and inequity that critics had raised decades earlier. The Covid-19 pandemic accelerated that trend, with even elite institutions such as Harvard and Yale modifying their test-score requirements.
The NCAA, however, still requires standardized test scores for initial eligibility.
Four decades later, the question remains: did Proposition 48 achieve what it set out to do?
The NCAA points to improved graduation rates as evidence of success. In 1984, just 52% of Division I football players graduated within six years. By 2023, that number had climbed to 81% for players who entered college in 2016. Men’s basketball showed similar gains, rising from 41% to 90% over the same period.
Since 2002, Black student-athlete graduation rates have increased from 56% to 82% in 2023. When analyzed by sport, Black Football Bowl Subdivision student-athlete graduation rates rose from 54% to 82%, and from 46% to 84% for Black men’s basketball players. For Hispanic/Latino student-athletes the graduation rate rose from 64% to 89% and the rate for all student-athletes went from 74% to 91%.
But researchers caution against drawing a direct line from Proposition 48 to those improvements. The rise in graduation rates across higher education during that period may relate to expanded support services, tutoring programs, and greater attention to student retention. Many academic support systems for athletes today, such as study halls, academic advisors, and progress tracking, emerged not because of Proposition 48, but as schools worked to help admitted athletes succeed.
Among those who proved doubters wrong was Rice, who said the situation Proposition 48 put him in helped him in the long run. Sitting out his first year became an unexpected gift. Without the demands of practice and games, he immersed himself in his studies, determined to prove that the test score that sidelined him did not define his capabilities.
“Academically, I had something to prove to my critics and to myself,” Rice says. “Sitting out that first year gave me opportunities other football players didn’t have. I was able to develop relationships with other members of the student body that wouldn’t have happened if I was playing football my first year. It was a blessing.”
Rice became eligible as a sophomore. After a solid junior year, he guided the Fighting Irish to an undefeated 12–0 season, which included victories over Michigan, USC, and Miami. He ended the season with a national title – the school’s most recent one. He received the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award and finished fourth in Heisman Trophy voting.
He achieved a higher goal after the football season. He earned his degree in Psychology.
“Graduating was important because I didn’t want to let my mother, grandmother, or anyone affiliated with me down,” says Rice, who now works in insurance for the Howden Group. “I didn’t want to be considered a failure. If I’m out in public and someone’s hating on my school, I just show them my ring and tell them, ‘I got two things you don’t have – a national championship and a Notre Dame degree.’”
