https://magic.piktochart.com/output/1797904-uga-football-team-graduation-rat
Kayla Peeples
The University of Georgia football team's graduation rate increased 13 percent from the previous year reflecting the steady support academic services administers to its players. Kayla Peeples
The University of Georgia football team, off by one percent, nearly matched the overall 83 percent graduation rate for the University in academic year 2012-2013. The team’s 82 percent graduation success rate, ranked the program number one among its division one competitors, making it the highest rate the football program achieved since 2005. The National Collegiate Athletic Association designed its graduation success rate to measure the movement made by athletes through the six years given to obtain a baccalaureate at four-year institutions. The current graduation rate of the football team show combined efforts made by student-athletes and the athletic department to keep up with nonstudent-athlete peers in the classroom. First-year-bio-technology major, Shannon Bryant, said although the athletes in her classes are “less strenuous”, but as college students going to class is seen as an “accomplishment” for anyone. “I think it’s good that it [rate] has gone up. It also shows it goes along with the admission requirement statistics, if it’s the same,” said Bryant. Compared to nonstudent-athletes, the hard work just does not stop on the football field. Players are required by coaches to put equal focus on their academics. Fourth-year-journalism major and wide-receiver, Chris Conley, 21, said although it is part of coaches’ job to emphasize the importance of school work and sports, in professors’ classrooms you are a student first and foremost. “They [coaches] wouldn’t be hired if you weren’t making the grades, they wouldn’t be hired if you’re not eligible. Some people in the academic building could care less about your sport honestly because they believe you’re here to get your degree from the university,” said Conley. The 13 percent football graduation rate growth from the previous year demonstrated the improvement the team makes with each entering freshmen class, but the success comes with setbacks in players who fail to see the importance of graduation. Ted White, associate athletic director for academic services, said at times it is frustrating to get players to see the outcome of graduating with a degree that will allow them to have a fulfilling career after college when they overlook support from academic services. “That’s the hardest part about this job is doing what you think is best to support students and fighting them for that,” said White. “But then when you’re forcing someone to come to a tutoring session, forcing someone to go to class and you’re forcing them to pick a major, it’s like come on. And it’s a small group it’s not like it’s a big group and were staffed enough to do it, but that’s why we’re here. To keep fighting that good fight every day and hopefully the light goes on.” Yasmeen Freightman
Academic standards are changing and molding for student-athletes in the National Collegiate Athletic Association and at the University of Georgia. In order to be eligible to enter a Division 1 university and stay eligible under a football scholarship, college-bound student-athletes don't really have to bring their 'A' games. In 2011, the NCAA made some new and very dramatic changes to D1 initial-eligibility academic standards, which are in place for high school students in the class of 2016. According to the NCAA, the current core GPA for high school students to become initially eligible must be a 2.3. It was a 2.0 with the previous requirements. Additionally, depending on a student's high school GPA, they might be required to score higher on the SAT. In the previous requirements, students with a core GPA of 2.5 needed to score at least an 820 on the SAT. With the new standards, students with a core GPA of 2.5 need to score at least 1000. College-bound student-athletes must also complete 16 core courses. 10 of the 16 courses must be completed before the seventh semester (senior year) of high school. Seven of those 10 courses must be in English, Math, or Science. The NCAA has also implemented a status called "Academic Redshirt" which allows incoming university student-athletes to receive a scholarship and to have a spot on the team, but not be allowed to compete in their first year of enrollment. However, to be an "Academic Redshirt," a student's core GPA and SAT/ACT scores are standardized lower than "Full Qualifiers." "Academic Redshirts" can have a 2.0 core GPA in high school to be allowed to play in a D1 school. However, just because a college-bound student seeking to participate in university athletics meets the NCAA academic requirements, it doesn't mean they will be admitted to the college they apply to. Every college has their own academic standards of admission and UGA is no exception to this rule. According to the university's admission web page, "'demonstrated academic achievement' is the primary factor in first-year admission decisions at the University of Georgia...The academic review of first-year applications centers on three criteria: the student’s grade point average (GPA) in core academic courses, the rigor of a student’s course selection, and his or her best combination of scores on the SAT or ACT." According to admissions data provided by Cappex.com, the majority of students in 2012 who were admitted to UGA had a high school GPA of 3.5 or higher and SAT scores of 1700 or higher. In order for a student-athlete to stay academically afloat, he/she must maintain a GPA of a 2.0 while at the university. According to UGA academic policies, any student who makes LESS than a 2.0 cumulative GPA will be placed on scholastic probation. Ted White, the associate athletic director for academic support, says that every college-bound student-athlete must not only meet NCAA minimum requirements to play sports, but must meet UGA academic standards in order to be admitted to the university. However, he also says that most major D1 programs have accepted the NCAA minimum standards as their minimum standards. "A lot of schools use the NCAA standards as their standards because there is a quote-on-quote 'even playing field' with their competitors for recruiting," White says. White explains that there are procedures in place, so that if a student-athlete applies to UGA through its general admission department and is not admitted after he or she sends in the application, there are additional rounds in place where committees can evaluate the student. "Nobody wants to establish a higher admissions rate because you might not be able to recruit the student-athlete you want to recruit because you're holding yourself to a higher standard than all your competitors," White states. So if an aspiring college-bound student-athlete only needs core GPA of a 2.3 and an SAT score of at least 1000 to be admitted into a Division 1 school, is that too low a standard? Is academics the cost for a student-athlete getting to play the sport of his/her dreams? http://www.ncaa.org/initial-eligibility http://www.clearinghousecalculator.org/downloads/NCAA_Class_of_2016_Standards_CoreCourseGPA.pdf http://student-svcs.sports.uga.edu/current-student-athletes/ncaa-uga-academic-policies/ http://collegeapps.about.com/od/GPA-SAT-ACT-Graphs/ss/university-of-georgia-admission-gpa-sat-act.htm https://www.admissions.uga.edu/article/admission-information-for-first-year-students.html The stigma associated with student-athletes is that they care only about one thing: sports. Players of intercollegiate activities embrace their athletic responsibility all while being a student; many nonstudent-athletes do not get to see that from the outside looking in. However long their days may be, student-athletes face a full plate of schoolwork, practice, games, and meetings, while still attempting to have a social life.
I sat down with three star wide receiver and honor student, Chris Conley, 21, who is over coming the “jock” image as the only football player in Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM4PlQS8NRg Yasmeen Freightman Athletics is undoubtedly one of the most compelling traits of the University of Georgia, and all of the colleges and universities within the Southeastern Conference. Graduation success rates within each sport, however, vary within each school including UGA. According to the National Collegiate Athletic Association reports, the graduation rate in women's sports varies from 83 percent to 100 percent. For the men, the rates vary between 59 percent and 89 percent. Football players at UGA have a graduation success rate of 82 percent. Conversely, men's basketball has one of the lowest success rates of all the sports: 63 percent. For almost a decade, the graduation rates within each group have steadily risen. For men's basketball, rates have risen from 33 percent to 63 percent, while football players have had success rates from 45 percent to 82 percent.
The question is, why aren't all athletes within each sport subjected to complementary academic success? Of course, all students, athletes or not, are not the same, but our student athletes are under a particular culture where they are given mentors, tutors and equal amount of attention no matter what sport he or she plays. 22-year old Kizmik McPherson, a 4th-year Food Science student at UGA, believes since UGA is a football school, more attention is paid to football players. She uses the term "sorry" to describe the university's basketball team. "The pressure isn't on the leadership in basketball, as much as it's on the leadership in football," McPherson states. "[Basketball players] aren't in the spotlight as much as football players." McPherson goes on to say that even though every athlete has the resources, such as tutoring and mentoring to succeed, football is the money-making sport. Making sure football athletes are succeeding both athletically and academically since they receive more attention from the public, is intrinsically more important than working on the academic and athletic success for basketball student-athletes. Kayla Peeples
The APR and GSR do not parallel perfectly, but the UGA academic department of athletes are not worried the scores’ shortcomings should be seen quite as a bad thing. “I think it’s less important to know what a 930 represents, that’s really the penalty structure. What it is designed to do is put everybody in competition; so for example we never talk about our APR number in terms in where it’s related to the penalty,” said Associate Athletic Director for Academic Services, Ted White. Athletic departments need to maintain a minimum of 930 to stay afloat of penalties from the NCAA. According to White, APR and GSR scores fluctuate and the real treasure of APR lies in competition with other institutions in the same division. The question that matters the most to White: How does UGA rank amongst Division 1 member institutions in the Southerneastern Conference? “What’s Alabama’s APR? What’s Georgia Tech’s APR? What’s Florida’s APR and where do we stack up with our competitors? Which to me becomes a more valuable thing because then you’re talking about who wants to be first,” said White behind his desk in Rankin, the student athlete academic center. “Who wants to be the best and who wants to be the top? And you’re driving it that way rather worrying about whether you meet the minimum standards.” In the past two years, the UGA football program kept up with Alabama, Georgia Tech and Florida. Although in 2012, UGA and Florida both scored a 968, placing them not too far behind. The APR was introduced to prevent colleges and universities from not successfully graduating their athletes but still able to compete in competition. There is the concentration to win but there needed to be a better system implemented nationwide to insure athletic departments were doing their best to graduate its students. “I think there’s a lot of debate and argument on whether a 930 actually equates to a 50 percent graduation rate but in my mind why would you want to be either? Why would want to be a 50 percent graduation rate? Why would you want to be at a 930, that’s ridiculous,” said White. “So we should be talking about how we get to 100 percent graduation rate. How do we get to number one in the conference, number one nationwide, how do we get impact as high as a graduation rate and APR score as we possibly can.” In a year’s difference the football team saw a 13 percent increase in its graduation rates from 2011 to 2012—the same for men’s basketball and cross-country. On the surface the 13 percent increase across the board may seen as a coincidence, but just how numbers can be transparent so was the reason why athlete programs' graduation rates are rising. “I would like to think that the uptick is a part of those groups being included in the cohort impacting it positively,” said White. The reference to the freshmen and sophomore classes of 2005 to 2007 who entered along with the new policies that required student-athletes to have daily mentor sessions, participate in tutoring, and class check-ins from academic services. There are no shortcuts, there are no handouts and there is no special treatment for players; like their nonstudent-athlete peers, academic hard work starts in the classroom. “If a student-athlete wants to graduate they have to get 121 credits like everybody else,” said White. Classrooms where student-athletes leave their cleats at the door and just as their classmates are students at the University of Georgia. Although the unease threat of not being able to actively participate in class for fear of feeling embarrassed lingers. “You’re going to feel uncomfortable and nervous and some students will not go to class unless we force them to go to class but our idea is that if you go there long enough it becomes familiar and you get confident enough and to where it’s not a big deal,” said White. The road to high a graduation rate of the football team seen declines and inclines since the NCAA instituted the GSR in 2005. The 82 percent rate for 2012 is the highest the football has achieved and reflects the change not only of the administration, but mindset of players. The FGR fails to acknowledge that change. “We have a lot of student athletes, particularly in football that come back to graduate but those are invisible to the Federal rate because the Federal rate is a six year window if you don’t graduate in those six years you don’t count ever,” said White. When I asked Ted White what he attributes rising graduation rates within UGA's football student athletes to, he pointed at a whiteboard hung from a wall in his office with one quote written on it and attributed to Peter Drucker and said, "That quote right there. Culture eats strategy for breakfast."
Within the UGA athletics department, there are many techniques and strategies used in helping all student athletes stay focused and engaged, academically. Ted White, the associate athletic director for academic support, identifies what those specific techniques are. For football players specifically, the strategy for academic focus begins from when they are first enrolled. "What we like to do is invite the incoming football players to take two summer school courses to help get on campus and get oriented. They get put through an orientation process that summer...get used to courses," said White. When they are freshman, football student players complete a learning style assessment and then a full learning evaluation to assess their strengths and areas that will challenge them academically. Then they work with a college adviser on their coursework for the fall, complete the ISTARTSTRONG program, which is an interest survey that is designed for freshman in college to help them find an academic area of interest based on their interests and strengths. This program also provides its users with five career fields based on the users' interests according to the answers they give in the survey. The athletic department also provides a major fair where representatives from the different colleges of UGA come to the main administration building for athletics and explain what their individual school has to offer for students. "The idea for us is that you're not going to be successful unless you're interested in the courses," White said. White also clarifies that there are certain groups whose desires are taking the easier route because their focus goes into being drafted, but there are others who actually want to be lawyers or doctors and their care is shifted more towards academics. "I was recruited to come here expressly for the purpose of helping to create or foster an environment that valued academics and valued outcomes for the individual beyond the football field," White stated. Other supportive approaches such as counseling, mentoring and tutoring help football players stay on a steady academic track. However, behind these methods that help create a support system for student football players, there were also strict policies instilled. White and other supervisors created a policy where a football student player can miss class and a tutoring session twice without penalty. However, if a student player is absent from class or a tutoring/mentoring session a third time, he will miss 10% of his season. Each absence after the third counts for another 10% and it continues in that manner. From this policy, students attendance rates quickly increased. Administration also feeds to the athletic directors and coaches how important graduation and education is for all students, including athletes. White stated, "To get [coaches] initially invested was all about our athletic director...The athletic director tells the coaches that we are going to instill these academic policies, the students will be suspended if they don't go to class..." It reinforces a culture in which there are increased expectations for athletes. White says that this system of techniques isn't perfect and some student athletes don't like it, but the success rate of football players at UGA keeps steadily rising each year, especially within graduation rates, with every year the system is reinforced. He states, "My thought was challenge, push, encourage and support, and it will work out. But the key is that internal drive. If the student has the internal drive and likes the success, then they'll be successful." Kayla Peeples The two most effective methods the NCAA use to track the progression of athletes academically, the Academic Performance Rate (APR) and Graduation Success Rate (GSR), numbers do not necessarily align to show a balanced comparison . The APR measures the academic achievements of teams each semester of every student receiving athletic based scholarships; the APR credits institutions for having students in good academic standing at the end of the semester. A perfect APR score is 1000. However, for division 1 teams to compete in championships, the minimum is 930 in the most recent two years, which predicts a 50 percent graduation rate. The GSR is developed to more accurately reflect students who transfer between colleges or universities and student who transfer out of their original college or university that are still in good academic standing. Overall it takes into account the transitions student-athletes go through that the Federal Graduation Rate (FGR) does not accommodate. The University of Georgia’s football team most recent APR score for 2011-2012 is 968 and its GSR for that same year was 69 percent. In 2006 and 2007 the APR stood at 965 with a GSR of 41 percent. The correlation between high APR scores and GRS flucuate. Through 2007 and 2009 the team’s APR was higher than 968 but had a GRS under 60 percent. Last year, NCAA released its annual graduation rate report and altogether athletic programs had a GSR of 83 percent.
The most improved were football, 82 percent; men’s basketball, 63 percent; and men’s cross country/track, 79 percent. Each team increased by 13 percent. The football team went from 69 percent to 82 percent in a year. Within the past eight years the closest to come to that high of a jump was the 11 percent increase in 2010. Institutions face penalties for not adhering to APR requirements that can result in coach suspensions, loss of financial aid and reduction of practice time are a few to name. There is a level of pressure of students and coaches to win at all costs, but most importantly stay in the game. Although the NCAA is tightening academic requirements of student-athletes, they are subjected to either scoring well on standardized tests or have a high GPA. Whereas a student admitted into the University of Georgia, has their grade transcripts, SAT or ACT heavily influence their admission acceptance. Between fall terms 2009 and 2013, the mean SAT score of UGA incoming freshmen steadily sat just under 1250, compared to the state level of around 980. Football players whose test scores were accounted for averaged 1010 between 2007 and 2012. Veteran sports reporter and professor at Grady College, Welch Suggs, associated the academic variance among student and nonstudent athletes to their background. What social class a student’s family belonged to or whether their high school performed poorly in standardized testing, are just few factors that contribute to athletes succeeding in institutions like UGA. “Issue is schools recruit athletes football and basketball players from different parts of students than overall student body…they don’t have experience to be successful in same kind of courses,” said Welch. Once a student is recruited to their team, the role as player outweighs that of student. College athletes undoubtedly combat the restraints of time and equally focusing on their academics and demanding sport lifestyle. The pressure is immense on student athletes who enroll into institutions only meeting the requirements of the NCAA and fall short of admission requirements. “Imagine being a high profile athlete at a place like UGA or Alabama,” said Welch. It is that type of status that steers players into a pattern of major selection with little prerequisites. The issue is whether athletes major in “eligibility” of NCAA versus a career path prepared for life after college. Q: Who are you and what do you do? How long? A: My name is DeJuana Ford. I am a senior (4th year) and I am a tutor at Rankin Smith Center. I’ve been a tutor for almost 3 years. Q: What subjects do you tutor the most? A: I tutor a pretty wide diversity of majors. I guess the two subjects I tutor the most are Genetics 3200 and Intro to Anthropology. I also do a good bit of Religion and Biology classes. I’ve tutored Spanish one semester, but primarily its Genetics classes. Q: What are the range of majors you tutor within student football players? A: It really, really varies. By tutoring a class like Genetics and a class like Religion, I have an opportunity to tutor a wide variety of majors. I’ve seen some Business majors. In many freshman, I see a lot of Undecided majors. I’ve seen Psychology and I’ve even seen Real Estate. A lot of freshman I tutor say they have a major in mind, but don’t know about it. I tend to get a lot of upperclassmen for the Genetics classes. Many of them are Pre-Pharmacy, Pre-Med, Pre-Dentistry, etc. Q: What are the techniques you use to tutor? What kind of help do you give as far as homework, papers, exams, etc.? A: I try to structure tutoring sessions around the students. Some sessions have multiple students and some are one-on-one. As far as exams and papers, I am not allowed to help them with anything that is graded. As far as freshman, I help them get adjusted to the college lifestyle. I try to take the material and break it down so its easier to digest for the students. Sometimes I’ll do review. I’ve done things to help them prepare for tests, like give them notecards or give them suggestions on how to interpret a concept on a test. I try to break it down and compartmentalize. As far as Genetics, it’s heavily problem-based. Sometimes I’ll make up problems or find problems online. I like to really emphasize them doing the work instead of me guiding them through the problem. I like to have them write down their work, so they have something to take with them when they go home. Q: If you could sum up the chief major among football players whom you tutor (or in general), what would it be? A: Just because I see a lot of Freshman, I would have to say “Undecided” or “Not Sure.” I also see a lot of Liberal Arts majors. I see a lot more football players in my Religion and Anthropology classes, which are more freshman and sophomore oriented. A really popular major among science majors within football players are Biology and Biological Sciences. Q: How do you think the football players fair when they are in tutoring sessions? Do you see them improve or decline in their studies? A: One thing I can say about football players is that they are great in sessions. They are hard-working and are concerned about doing well. A lot of them realize they have great opportunities and take advantage of the resources they have. I also think they have a tightly wound schedule. I’ve really gained a respect for how hard they work. Rankin also has a mentoring program. A lot of the first-year players get mentors, so I think that really, really helps them, mainly academically and within their schedules, as well. I believe that the football program does a really good job at giving the players a lot of exposure to guidance and many opportunities, academically and athletically, which I believe shapes them into well-rounded men when they graduate. |