4A
Thursday, March 14, 1996
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
Football team GPA shows need for revised mentality
The football team's poor academic performance last fall raises questions about sports and the University of Kansas' academic policies. Overall, student athletes did about the same as always. The grade point average for all student athletes last semester was a 2.6. But the football team's average was a 1.95. For comparison, The University's all men's average GPA was a 2.73, and the University average was a 2.81.
Paul Buskirk, assistant athletic director for student support services, said that the team's average GPA was not as important as addressing individual players who had problems. On a team of more than 100 members with an average of a 1.95, that will be a lot of individual attention.
But it is not necessarily the Athletic Department's policy that needs changing. It is the way the policy is used. Coaches set guidelines for academics. They have the power to say who plays and who doesn't, and academic performance should be a main factor in that decision, even if it is the star player who has to sit out.
NCAA standards for student athletes actually are stringent when it comes to passing classes. Buskirk said student athletes must pass 24 credit hours each year. Student athletes also need to complete 25 percent of their major course work by their third year, and 50 percent by their senior year. Student athletes do not have the option of dropping to nine hours when life gets rough or of switching majors many times as most students do.
Follow some leaders
But some teams that have low averages could use a chalk-talk from the volleyball team. Yes, grades are individual things, but the volleyball team has incorporated academic success into its team mentality. Kansas volleyball coach Karen Schonewise said her team always shot for the department's team GPA award.
"They take a lot of pride in it," she said. "They're known as a team that strives for good grades."
The volleyball team's academic policies could be used by other teams as well. Schonewise set up a system of study hours for players within certain GPA ranges. For example, student athletes with GPAs between a 2.5 and a 3.0 have to complete three hours of monitored study hall each week. Players below a 2.0 must complete eight hours. The team also sets aside time on road trips for studying. Schonewise said the system seemed to work, and no players on her team have been close to academic dismissal.
"We have not had to face that yet," she said.
Erin Hoag, academic coordinator for student athletes at
THE ISSUE:
Athletes' grades
the University of Colorado, said Colorado had eight mentor-tutors on staff. They help individual student athletes with writing and study skills, which many students lack. It is expensive, but it seems to work, she said. Colorado also requires freshmen student athletes to study 10 hours a week, unless the student has exceptional high school grades or test scores. The University's Athletic Department could adopt a similar policy.
The low GPAs that some of the student athletes made last semester undermine the onfield success of Kansas athletics. Beating Colorado doesn't mean as much when KU students think the athletes' grades suffered so the team could bring home the victory. It is naive to think the football coaches or the Athletic Department should set a standard academic policy that every team has to follow, but it is not ridiculous for coaches and the department to limit playing time for those players who are not making the grade.
An acceptable average GPA for an athletic team should be around 2.5. That would insure that most of the players on the team were out of academic danger by the University's standards. It also would help insure that a core of students on the team were making above-average grades, helping the team mindset that grades are the priority.
Most full-time nonathlete students would need to drop extracurricular activities if their grades fell to probationary levels. But athletes, under outside pressure to stay on the team and make good grades, need to know that the University could drop extracurricular activities for them if their grades are not within certain guidelines.
Last spring the football team's average was 2.4, but there is too much of a difference between on-season and off-season grades. Buskirk said that decreasing this fall-to-spring discrepancy was a goal of the department.
— Whose responsibility? —
Being on academic probation should mean being on academic probation from the team. It is time that athletic participation was seen as a privilege, not a right, in cooperation with academic performance. It is the coaches' and athletic administrators' responsibilities to help players make the highest grades of which they are capable. But it is the student athlete who bears the ultimate responsibility.
"In the long run they're the student's grades — not mine, and not yours," Buskirk said. "They have to get the job done."
PAUL TODD FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
KANSAN STAFF
ASHLEY MILLER
Editor
VIRGINIA MARGHEIM
Managing editor
ROBERT ALLEN
News editor
TOM EBLEN
General manager, news adviser
Editors
HEATHER NIEHAUS
Business manager
KONAN HAUSER
Retail sales manager
JAY STEINER
Sales and marketing adviser
JUSTIN KNUPP
Technology coordinator
Campus ... Joann Birk
Phillip Brownlee
Editorial ... Paul Todd
Associate editorial ... Craig Lang
Sports ... Tom Brickson
Associate sports ... Bill Potula
Photo ... Matt Fluker
Graphics ... Noah Mussor
Personal sessions Novellus
Wire ... Tare Trenary
Illustration ... Mihael Leaker
Campus mgr ... Karen Gerach
Regional mgr ... Kelly Connelyse
National mgr ... Mark Ozdemik
Special Sections mgr ... Norm Blow
Production mgr ... Raziel Califf
Marketing director ... Gary Brewer
Public Relations dir ... Angie Adelson
Creative director ... Ed Kowalda
Classified mgr ... Stacey Wewgarten
Internship/oo-op mgr ... T.J. Clark
Banging on a drum. A simple action, yet it can do wonders for the psyche.
Like many Americans, I suffer from stress and constantly am searching for ways to remedy this ailment. I discovered an interesting cure in the form of a drum last Tuesday in a Kansas City-area recycling center.
Chan Lowe / PORT LAUDERDALE SUN-SENTINEL
Bang the drum slowly to relieve pounding stress
I was invited by a friend to a community drum circle that is held at Infinite Sun every full moon. The purpose of the circle is to rid the body of the negative energy that builds up during each moon cycle. By now, many people probably are thinking this is just one of those New Age things.
Go to the playground, turn some cartwheels, toss a frisbee — anything that doesn't require too much thought. It'll be good for you.
People need to release their frustrations somehow. In this age of technology, Americans need to let go and give in to their most primitive urges. If banging on a drum isn't your thing, try some other simple activity.
In fact, that was the first thought that crossed my mind as I walked into a room filled with people who appeared to have been transported from the 1960s. I found myself wishing I had worn one of my long, gauzy skirts and Birkenstocks instead of a preppy sweater and Hush Puppies.
This worry soon flew out of my mind, along with everything else that had been cluttering it up, when I began to hit the drum in front of me.
The rhythm of my music blended with that of the other participants and created a pulsating beat that made it impossible to focus on anything else.
While I had been concentrating on all the homework I had to do and the intricacies of my social life, I
STAFF COLUMNIST
Along with my high-strung nature, I also have a mind that processes 50 different things at one time. I'm always either thinking ahead or thinking back, never just thinking for the moment.
was soon so immersed in this beat that it became my sole conscious thought. Later, a man waved a stick of incense over individual people, and we were cleansed of our negative energy. It may sound hokey, but I truly felt clean and pure after
I'm sure I'm not the only American who has these problems. In fact, judging from the plethora of newspaper and magazine articles, TV programs and products related to stress and how to relieve it, I would say it's an epidemic of sorts in our nation.
Perhaps drum circles aren't for everyone. But people really should open their minds to such events. They may not be geared to mainstream citizens, but that does not mean such citizens cannot benefit from them.
Having a clear mind was a new experience for me, and I must say I quite enjoyed it.
this experience.
it was time for a more radical treatment.
It works for getting things done, but it gets to the point where my shoulders are hunched from the knots on my back and the little vein above my eye beats out a rhythm similar to that of the drums. I have tried hot tea, warm baths, naps, curling up with a good book, all the traditional, American remedies.
I especially was impressed by the circle's calming abilities, because I am usually very high-strung. Even after seven months in the Midwest, I have yet to adapt to the laid-back lifestyle.
So far the tea has just quenched my thirst, the baths dried out my skin, the naps wasted valuable time and the curling up aggravated my backache. Last week, when I felt the stress eating away at me, I knew
Instead I continue to thrive on stress.
Steph Brewer is a Cary, N.C., freshman in pre-Journalism.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Academics have priority over recreation center
I am writing in response to Mike Walden's column Students erred in voting against recreation center.
I would enjoy a reasonable explanation as to why this campus desperately needs such a center to compete with other respected universities, as Walden wrote.
I fail to understand how the lack of a second multi-million dollar recreation facility taunts the University of Kansas reputation as an academic institution. With the already increasing tuition rates that come with linear tuition beginning next semester, I along
with more than two-thirds of the people who cared enough to vote, do not feel the need to spend $90 a semester for a multi-million dollar playground that we might never use.
So who really cares if we are the only university in the Big 12 lacking a legitimate recreation center? The purpose of the University is to provide the best education possible, not to charge its students for an unnecessary, unwanted recreation center.
If the lack of such a center hurts our recruitment in the future, then those students aren't going to college for academics anyway.
Justin Jay
Leawood freshman
How to submit letters
Letters: Should be doublespaced, typed and fewer than 200 words. Letters must include the author's signature, name, address and telephone number plus class and hometown if a University student. Faculty or staff must identify their positions.
All letters should be submitted to the Kansan newsroom, 111 Stauffer-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit, out to length or reject all submissions. For any questions, call Paul Todd, editorial page editor, or Craig Lang, associate editorial editor, at 864-4810.
Book provokes scoring points without being a gentleman
I am not a literary critic, nor have I ever claimed to be one. That said, I have been subjected to possibly the most dangerous piece of literature ever written — John Gray's Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus. I normally would not touch this sort of self-horse nonsense, but the book came highly recommended by several credible female sources.
To begin, its cover bills the book as, "A practical guide for improving communication and getting what you want in your relationships."
After reading this book, a more realistic statement would read, "A practical guide for women to destroy a relationship and ruin a man's life."
Unfortunately for us testosterone-bearing men, Gray chose to sell out his gender by creating 286 pages of manipulation schemes for women. Laugh now, but we are all destined to be judged unfairly by John Gray's guidelines for relationships.
Although each chapter in this book is disturbing in its own right, Chapter 10 potentially is the most harmful.
For starters, the title of the chapter reads, "Scoring Points with the Opposite Sex."
With these words, Gray effectively turns relationships into simple schoolyard games.
Throughout the chapter, Gray implies that men and women are in constant competition to accumulate points.
Apparently, Gray would disagree with the notion that a relationship is a give-and-take scenario in which people give openly and are motivated by love.
Regardless, gray continues by offering his "101 Ways to Score Points With a Woman."
Included in this list are activities such as complimenting her looks, paying more attention to her than to others in public and opening doors for her.
This may be a bit presumptuous, but, as far as I know, these are acts of respect and go along with being a gentleman.
Unfortunately, Gray believes that a man should do these things not out of common courtesy but to "keep his partner's love tank full."
Also included in Gray's advice are things such as displaying affection in public, letting her see that you carry her picture in your wallet and taking her dancing.
As a consequence of these ideas, women readers will think less of men who choose not to, for whatever reason, participate in these activities.
Ironically, this book, which claims to improve relationships, provokes women who were previously content with their partners to question the very reason for their happiness.
HUBIE
It is sad to think that people may be motivated to do kind things for reasons other than love, such as scoring points.
If people devote themselves to the philosophy presented in this book, they are most likely yearning to score points. This sort of thinking is potentially destructive to relationships.
Mike Waldon is a Leawood sophomore in political science.
By Greg Hardin