that’s a fair point. The article elides the difference between the two, citing specific examples of illiterates, but then giving the broader statistical context of just basically being not very smart, which you’re right, is no crime.
Although does beg the question of what they are doing occupying a seat at a university, but ok.
I would bet lots of public university students read at a fifth to eighth grade level. And I'm not just talking about the athletes. I'm talking about the elementary education majors, the communications majors, the Womyn's Studies majors, etc. And there are probably quite a few brilliant engineering and Math majors who only read at an eighth grade level.
If they want to write a real article about the illiterate athletes, then I'll pay attention. But if they're going to lump together illiterates with functional readers, they're going for the shock value and not a real story.