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NEWS / TUESDAY, MAY 4. 2010 / THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN / KANSAN.COM
BALANCING ACT
Student athletes are asked to balance two different sides to their lives, represented below by their Athletics mug shots and Facebook profile photos.
Xavier Henry Basketball freshman guard from Oklahoma City
"There's not really too much else we have to balance other than school and basketball... There's time for family and other that there's not really too much time for anything else. That's what college is about. It's where you work your hardest to see what you're gonna become. This is what makes you."
Karina Garlington Volleyball
junior outside hitter from Aurora, Colo.
"We have all these guest speakers and our teachers who drive in the fact that we need to do extracurricular activities and we need to get involved in the community and we need to get work experience, and none of the athletes really have time for that. I have pretty much zero work experience."
Rachel Morris
Soccer
junior midfielder/forward from Overland Park
"My freshman year we were in Hawaii for the first week of school and so I missed that. I did not even hear about the Blackboard situation so I missed a few assignments the first week. It was definitely stressful."
Brett Lisher
Baseball
senior infielder from Lawrence
"We knew what we were getting into before we came here and obviously you want to play the game. You gotta love the game to play it. You really need to look at it like it's a privilege because there are a lot of people out there who are dying to be in any of our guys' spots. There are tons of people out there who would love to be on the team."
MAKING THE GRADE
Team GPAs for 2009
Football 2.73
Baseball 2.75
Women's basketball 2.82
Men's cross country 2.92
Soccer 2.93
Spirit squad 2.93
Men's basketball 2.95
Men's golf 2.95
Men's track & field 2.97
Swimming & diving 3.03
Rowing 3.10
Softball 3.22
Tennis 3.26
Volleyball 3.27
Women's track & field 3.28
Women's cross country 3.42
Women's golf 3.43
All Sports Combined 2.99
Gradution Rates (GSR)
Women's basketball 44%
Football 58%
Baseball 63%
Track, cross country 67%
Men's basketball 73%
Soccer 89%
Softball 100%
Volleyball 100%
Golf 100%
Graduation Success Rate: An average of the six-year graduation rates from the freshman classes of 1999,2000,2001 and 2002. This number takes into account student athletes who transferred in from another institution or left school for any reason, so long as they were in good academic standing.
Both the 2008 and 2009 reports showed the general student population graduated at a 59 percent rate.
Source: Athletics Department news releases
ATHLETES (CONTINUED FROM 1A)
UNPAID PROFESSIONALS
Carole Browne, a professor in the biology department at Wake Forest University, said her daughter competed in college athletics, so she saw first-hand some of the repercussions of such a demanding activity. She said watching her daughter was part of the reason she became co-chair of the Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics, a group of Division I university faculty senates that promotes reform of intercollegiate sports.
"I would say there are probably two or three sports that are professional for all intents and purposes," he said. "That would be men's football, men's basketball, maybe women's basketball."
"To see what a huge toll it takes on them in terms of having a normal academic experience, a normal social experience of college, it's virtually impossible when you're playing at that level." Browne said.
Struckmeyer said many athletes spend closer to 40 or 50 hours a week on their sports.
Max Utlser, associate professor of journalism conducts an exercise to illustrate this point to his "Sports, Media and Society" class every year. He begins by writing the words "professional football and basketball" on the white board at the front of his classroom. He asks his students to make a list of words to describe these athletes. They start off predictably.
NCAA regulations limit the number of hours a team can practice to 20 each week. But Ken Struckmeyer, her coalition cochair, said student athletes must actually devote much more time to their sport for things such as team meetings, volunteer work, viewing film and strength training.
Extravagant facilities Huge paychecks TV appearances Constant practices
Soon his students start having fun with it, moving to more outrageous, but no less accurate, descriptors.
"You kind of just go the whole day," said Amanda Miller, a junior from Overland Park and track and cross country runner. "You're with all your teammates so you're talking about running, and when you're not talking about running you're at practice, and when you're not at practice you're getting ready for a meet or packing or you're gone for the weekend."
The list grows until Utsler has filled the whole white board with these words — words that never seem to change, no matter how many semesters he leads the exercise.
Next, he erases the word "professional" from the heading. He rewrites it so the title now reads, "College Division I football and basketball."
"Now what do you want me to take off this list?" he asks the class.
"What no longer applies?"
The only thing they ever ask him to remove is "huge paychecks." The rest of the list, the class concludes, still works under the new heading.
"The players don't get paid they are the most abused labor force in the country." Utsler said. "Other than that, you try to tell me that what we're doing up at dear old KU isn't professional sports."
And yet, that's exactly what the University of Kansas and 348 other Division I schools around the country say. Their athletes all maintain "amateur" status, which prevents them from earning pay beyond scholarships, hiring agentd, or practicing or training with any professional teams.
Junior wide reciever Rod Harris works on a paper with author Maria Beg, a seni
"We exploit them terribly and they don't get the reward," said David Katzman, American studies professor and longtime critic of college athletics. "The NCAA acts not in the interest of the athletes but in the interest of producing revenue, or for coaches and for the universities."
Though athletes are awarded scholarships, Katzman said, this is only a fraction of what they would be paid for the same services if they were competing for a professional team. On top of salaries, they would also receive payment for appearances and use of their names and likenesses for video games or jersey sales — things they are currently ineligible to receive payment for.
STRETCHED THIN
"We definitely don't get the normal experience of going out, or even in participating in different clubs or things we're interested in, or getting a job to save some money, or get an internship during the year. That's just not possible, really." Miller said. "But we all chose this for ourselves. It's not like it's being forced on us. You've gotta pick what you want."
Student athletes must make sacrifices in order to compete at the level expected of them. Many end up finding that their participation in athletics compromises the "typical" college experience.
Darrell Stuckey, a KU football star and May 2009 graduate, knew that, unlike other students, he would never be able to work at a job or internship while he was in school because of the time demands of football. In order to leave college with something else on his resume, he decided to become involved in as many campus clubs as possible. Stuckey joined and attended weekly meetings of the Student Athletic Advisory Committee, Fellowship of Christian Athletes and Student Senate.
"It's really kind of challenging as a student athlete and then being involved in so much also." Stuckey said. "It puts a hamper on you a little bit. You don't feel like you're doing everything to your full potential."
"Most people think 'Oh he's a star football player so she'll be lazy!" Stuckey said. "Outside of football, yeah, I work that much harder to show that I'm just as viable and just as intelligent as the next average student."
The "dumb jock" stereotype evolved on college campuses as a result of once-lax admission and academic standards for star athletes. Despite a recent focus on academics and reform efforts, college athletics have been tainted by scandals and fraud, many of them centered around student athletes in the classroom.
Stuckey said most athletes come to KU unable to prioritize school and sports and give off bad first impressions that perpetuate the "dumb jock" stereotype. Unfortunately, he said, those are the images that stick.
Several problems were brought to light at the University when Athletics Director Lew Perkins came to the university in 2003 and hired an outside group to
But this is not just a recent problem. Twenty years earlier, the University was at the forefront of national media attention for academic misconduct within the Athletics Department.
conduct an investigation into alleged NCAA violations. A total of 15 violations were uncovered between the football and men's and women's basketball teams, including charges of providing answers to online tests for football recruits.
The University spends about $3,500 on every student for academic support and student services each year. Athletics spends an additional $1.6 million annually for increased student support services for student athletes another $3,000 for each athlete. The money supplied by Athletics pays for academic and eligibility counseling, leadership opportunities, personal development programs, nutritional and psychological counseling and tutoring services available only to athletes, all free of charge.
Brown pressured Katzman to change the grade so the student, a starter on the basketball team at the time, could remain academically eligible to play that season. Katzman refused, and the story eventually exploded onto the national stage when The University Daily Kansan published copies of letters between the two men.
Since that episode, Katzman said, he rarely interacts with student athletes; they no longer enroll in his classes – presumably he says, because word of that incident spread through the Athletics Department. Instead, he said he believes many athletes migrate to professors who, he's told, are sometimes referred to as "jock sniffers" because they seem to get their thrills by associating with athletes in their classes.
Katzman remembers well the day in 1985 when then-KU men's basketball coach Larry Brown appeared in his office to discuss a student's failing grade.
TIME, MONEY AND RESOURCES
From the moment student athletes first commit to KU, they are sheltered in the exclusive bubble of the Kansas Athletics Department!
The first order of business is to meet with an academic counselor in Athletics. Because athletes miss an average of three to 10 days for travel each semester, counselors help them to enroll in classes and find professors who will work best with their schedules.
Student athletes enroll just after honors students but before the rest of the student body to give them the first choice and ensure their class schedules fall in line with predetermined practice schedules;
Counselors go through course syllabi with them and help set up a planner outlining due dates
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