Academics matter to student-athletes

With the spring 2010 schedule of classes up on the UCLA Registrar’s Web site Monday (who else went on at midnight to see what classes are offered for spring?), I thought it would be a good time to reflect on the question of how big a role academics play in the life of a student-athlete.

So, armed with my learnings from Statistics 112 this quarter (What up, Professor Esfandiari?), I set out to do some sampling of UCLA students and how big a role class plays for them and compare that to some athletes I could round up.

Granted my methods were not great, nor my sample sizes large enough, but I thought I would try and clear up how much of students student-athletes are.

For the handful of people I spoke to having lunch at Ackerman Union, attending class was a big priority. I’d say I stand on that side of the fence, and it, of course, varies by the individual and his or her level of interest in the class. Call the sample proportion (or p-hat) something around 0.91 and the standard deviation of about 0.14. Okay, those are awfully gathered stats, but work with me here.

With athletes, given an often demanding in-season travel schedule, they do miss a number of classes, but for members of the men’s volleyball team, it’s not a major part of their culture. Call the p-hat around 0.70 and the standard deviation around 0.46.

Okay, so that tells me basically nothing, but I did learn a few things.

For Kent Kraushaar, a rarely-used senior on the men’s volleyball team, academics is no small factor in his life as a student-athlete.

A consistent member of the Director’s Honor Roll, which requires at least a 3.00 GPA, Kraushaar said academics were a big part of his decision to commit to UCLA. The four-year bench player has not seen much playing time during his tenure at UCLA, but will certainly pick up a nice-looking degree with those four beautiful letters on it, and in a non-revenue sport such as volleyball, maybe that’s the best route.

In bigger sports such as football or basketball, with the opportunity to quit school early to make millions over the course of a decade or so, the benefits of studying hard may not seem too great in the face of an NBA contract, a Nike shoe deal and the prospect of being on the Wheaties box.

But, as Kraushaar said, being in a non-revenue sport where the highest paid players get something around a million Euros (about $1.5 million), the professional volleyball life is not as appealing. And the coaches know that too.

After every volleyball practice, the coaches remind the players to keep their studies up, sometimes keeping tabs on players who have a harder time “applying themselves,” as Kraushaar put it.

And that’s about right across the board. Student-athletes are exactly that, students who are also athletes. Maybe some don’t focus on their studies, but that’s the same among regular students. There are plenty of students who don’t care about their studies in the face of other aspects of college life. Most NCAA athletes at UCLA don’t end up going pro (I know, I sound like those Kareem Abdul-Jabbar-UCLA commercials). A lot find careers in which their grades and their studies matter, just like any other student.

So, maybe my stats are wrong but it doesn’t seem that athletes take their classes less seriously than the rest of the student population. They do get that priority enrollment, though …

If you think his sample size is too small, then e-mail Mashhood at [email protected].