Feb. 24, 2004

By: Ryan Haaz '04 and Zach Sherwood '03
Courtesy of the AUEAGLES.COM

Dumb jocks. That is the only thing you ever hear someone refer to athletes as. If they didn't play sports, they would have nothing. This idea is almost comical at American University.

American University is not the college sports capital of the nation, so students here need to focus more on their academics. For most of them, playing college sports is where the dream will likely end, but they will still have graduated from a Top 100 university.

The athletes here will tell you it's all about time management. "The restrictive schedule makes you a better student," said Senior Melissa Ferrara, a member of the women's diving team. Pat Macadie, a junior on the men's track team, agreed. "It's all about planning ahead."

The university also has an academic support program for student-athletes, who need special help via counselors or private tutors. Within this support center is a private monitoring program, a tutoring program, and study hall for first year and transfer students. Students who fail to meet the team requirements use this program to assess and fix their problems.

For many student-athletes, the balancing of work and practice becomes hard, and they are forced to enlist help. Meredith Basil, the coordinator of academic support for student-athletes, said that being at American is "small enough to be intimate, yet big enough to be competitive academically and athletically." She noted that while the first-year students are required to go through the TALONS program, many students voluntarily stay the course. Basil said that while they are motivated athletes, "they are motivated students" as well.

AU policy states that all first year and transfer student-athletes are subjected to mandatory study hours as well. Women's Volleyball Head Coach Barry Goldberg said the study hours are important in developing the student's time management skills. "I think it's a great policy. It starts you out and sets up a process," Goldberg said.

After freshman year, though, the onus falls on the student to maintain high academic standards. Sometimes the coach relies on trust with the athletes, as is the case with Goldberg and his team. "If [a player gets] lower than a 'C' on any project or exam, [she] must tell a coach, to evaluate the problem. This enhances the issue of trust," he said.

Other times, coaches are heavily involved, like Women's Field Hockey Coach Steve Jennings. "The primary focus of students is academics. I encourage [my players] to strive for excellence on and off the field," he said. Jennings noted that his team has regular meetings and study hours, and that the field hockey program has the highest academic standards, as the cumulative 3.34 grade point average indicates.

Men's Basketball Coach Jeff Jones wants more than for his players to simply graduate. "We take a little bit broader perspective," said Jones. "We don't want to just focus on graduation . . . a diploma is just a piece of paper. We want to wean them off that mandatory structure, we want to teach them to manage their time . . . and make decisions on their own . . . in the real world they have to stand on their own two feet."

For Coach Jones this means a stead diet of monitoring his players. Jones assigns his assistant coaches weekly schedules to check players' class and study hall attendance. Jones' goal is to create successful people . . . not just graduates. This means watching his players closely and paying close attention to their academic performance. "We don't want to lead them around by the hand, but at the same time we're not going to let someone slip the cracks."

One of Jones' players who did not slip through the cracks was Point Guard Andres Rodriguez. Rodriguez said he would prefer to be an athlete rather than a regular student. He has the experience to back it up. His freshman year at college, he attended University of Louisville as a walk-on to the basketball team. After his fall semester, he decided he was going to transfer. "When I wasn't playing basketball, it was so hard for me," he said. "I had so much time on my own; having all that free time wasn't good." Jones added that when Rodriguez transferred to AU he "wasn't admitted as a student-athlete, but as a student."

Rodriguez said it was hard being without basketball and having to balance practice and games with academics makes him a better student. Rodriguez currently has a 3.2 GPA and just recently took his LSAT. He wants to be a lawyer...not a former athlete.

Dumb jocks? Not quite. Try student athletes.