Putting the STUDENT in Student Athlete
So far in the last year we have talked about all aspects of what it means to be a BYU Football player, except the role the guys play as students at BYU and the challenges that presents. Being a Student Athlete is a unique experience. This should help to give you a little insight into what the players face on a daily basis in the classroom and answer the age old question, “Do athletes get special treatment from their teachers?”
Let’s start with registration. I would say that the special treatment of student athletes begins and ends here. Athletes get priority registration because of their unique schedules. For football you have to have all your classes done by 2pm and then you can start taking night classes at around 7pm. Other sports have different practice schedules, but the university gives you the opportunity to work your schedule around your athletic commitments.
How do the teachers treat the players? I only had three teachers at BYU that really even cared about BYU football. One of them was the Mens Volleyball coach. But I never had a teacher give me something I didn’t earn because I was a football player. In fact there were multiple times where being an athlete actually worked against me.
It has been interesting to talk with friends in the NFL about players and their school work. I have come to the conclusion that BYU is the only school playing by the rules. 90% of the guys in the schools represented in the NFL have guys who don’t do a lick of school work their entire college career. And then we as football fans wonder why the players are always in trouble and why so many college football players end up working at McDonalds. I am so glad that the academic standard at BYU is by the book and demands that the players get their own education while at the school.
When we play away games we usually leave BYU around noon the day before. So on Saturday games we rarely miss class. On the occasional Thursday game you could miss classes on Wed and Thur. Usually teachers are good about helping you out and working with you to turn in assignments that may be due. Football is the best sport to play when it comes to travel because 90% of the time we will miss only 1 hour of school if any (keep in mind we always finish by 2pm and most classes are either M-W or T-Th). The sports I feel bad for are basketball, baseball, etc where you go on road trips that last a week or more and you have to take your school work on the road with you. The closest football comes to this is Bowl Week. At the bowl games we have a room set up with computers and academic advisors to help the players wrap up their school work and finals.
Coach Mendenhall’s standard for the team is a 3.0 GPA. Any player who falls below that has to meet with academic advisors to ensure that they are going to class and turning in their assignments. In order to stay eligible you have to maintain at least a 2.0 GPA and pass 15 credit hours in between seasons. For someone to not be academically eligible is beyond me. There are enough easy elective classes you can take to boost your GPA and passing a class is all but guaranteed if you just show up to class.
In conclusion, I get tired of hearing that athletes get special treatment at BYU. The reality is that we really are put at a disadvantage. We are competing in the classroom with students who had near perfect GPAs coming out of the high school who set the bar high for teachers at BYU. Then we take 4-6 hours of study time a day to play a game.
I wouldn’t say that special treatment begins and ends with registration.
I would say that having a personal tutor is special treatment:
http://www.byucougars.com/student_academic_center/academics/tutoring.jsp
Don’t get me wrong ,I was was a tutor some years ago. I couldn’t imagine handling the demands of being a student athlete and I think the tutoring programs is great.
I think the tutoring programs is a well earn special treatment for the student athletes and I appreciate the work the Student Athletic Center does.
Kudos to BYU for running such a strong academic student athlete program.
Thanks for straightening this out for many. My freshman year roomate was on the volleyball team and did have tutors available for him to utilize, but the work and testing was all on him. I’m proud that the Y doesn’t allow athletes to cut corners like other schools.
“In order to stay eligible you have to maintain at least a 2.0 GPA and pass 15 credit hours in between seasons. For someone to not be academically eligible is beyond me. There are enough easy elective classes you can take to boost your GPA and passing a class is all but guaranteed if you just show up to class.”
And yet we’ve had two major academic casualties in the past two years: Manase Tonga in 2008 and Bernard Afutiti in 2009.
I agree that participating in a sport is not an advantage from a time perspective but it may assist students like you, Markell, to better allocate your time and resources. It is a definite disadvantage for others. Any thoughts on why the two mentioned above, or any player for that matter, didn’t qualify academically?
I was in a couple classes with Trent Plaisted, and none of the teachers were willing to give the guy a break just because he was freakishly tall. In fact, one of the teachers would constantly poke fun at him (ah, tenured professors, what can’t you do?) and give him a hard time for missing class, etc. I don’t think I had any other major ’stars’ in my classes, but a few swimmers and rugby players, and none of them had it easy. I’m glad to see it wasn’t any easier for the LB/DB corps.
I love all the articles posted here. But how do I tell who is the author? I’m never sure if it is Quinn or Markell.
BTW – Thanks Markell for being the class act you are. Flew up to Provo with my son a couple years back for the Arizona game. You were at the victory bell afterward and gave my son and lot of other kids your full attention and signed everything thrown at you. My son keeps his Staffieri signed glow-in-the-dark football next to his bed. Thanks!!
Matt- you’d have to think these guys just weren’t going to class. Falling below a 3.0 would put you on Bronco’s radar and I know Jamal is the student academics advisor. Is he the one who needs to step up and “encourage” these guys to actually go to class?
I was a wrestler while an undergraduate at BYU. I enjoyed the benefit of being able to register to accommodate my responsibilities to the wrestling team.
I had one professor who cut me no slack. I was injured and on pain medication that was making me a bit foggy. I went to him to ask for additional time to turn in an assignment. He agreed to do so. Then he asked how I had been hurt.
I told him I was on the wrestling team and had been injured in practice. He lectured me, telling me I was at BYU to obtain an education, not to waste my time participating in sports. He then withdrew his permission to turn the assignment in late.
Years later, I prosecuted a U of U lineman for assault. He had provided a written statement to the police. It was unintelligible. He was functionally illiterate. He was also thought to be headed to the NFL.
Unfortunately for him, he was injured the next year and his football days were over. Based on his written statement to the police, the most I think he would be qualified to do, other than football, would be to ask, “Do you want fries with that?” He was done an enormous disservice.
Both events were many years ago. I sincerely hope things have changed at both schools.
Ive been away from this site, summer is just wacky fun busy, anyway whats up with Manase Tonga? Is he going to make it back? When does he have to be enrolled at BYU?
Beefytee –
I don’t think that you can say that tutors are special treatment any more than you can say that the clothes, cleats and scholarship money is special treatment. That’s all kind of a package deal in my mind. That is our payment for being the saturday entertainment.
Appleseed –
Yes Jamal is an academic advisor but Jim Hamblin is the main man for the football team. There are 3 advisors, Jamal , Jim and EJ Caffaro. They split up the sports but Jim is the football guy.
It’s not their fault. In fact if you fail a class I don’t think it’s anyone’s fault but your own. “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.” Jim and his staff are great and provide every help these guys need to succeed in school. I don’t think Manase would argue that it was 100% his own fault. As for Afutiti, I don’t know him, but he is probably just not mature enough yet to manage his time in college.
There are three parts to college, Sports, Education, and social life. You only have time for two.
Rick –
all things point to Manase being back
Markell,
For the most part I agree with your post. However, may wife and sister worked under Jim Hamblin as a tutor. In my opinion her job mainly consisted of babysitting those athletes on the watch list. Part of her job was to walk around campus making sure that athletes were in class. There is no question in my mind that many of the athletes she worked with are just plain LAZY when it came to academics. The stories I heard were embarrassing, I could name names but I won’t. In my opinion someone paid by the school to make sure you are in class, make sure you get your homework done, help you with your homework, and constantly nagging you to do your WORK would classify as special treatment. All this being said their are very few of the student athletes that get to this point, but they are there. And they do get special treatment, maybe not by their teachers, but by the school, yes. In my opinion, at BYU there is absoutely no excuse to become academically ineligible you practically have to do nothing to reach that point. I question whether these student athletes should even be on the team at BYU. It’s not fair to the thousands of other students who are not accepted by the school to have students there not putting in an effort academically. All that being said, GO Cougars! I love BYU football.
Markell, I think you are right about the package deal statement.
Anyone at BYU can get a tutor if they want one – they just have to pay for it. In a way, the athletes’ tutors are paid for by their scholarships. The one difference I see, however, is that in this case, the tutor takes a lot of the initiative instead of the student.
So yes, it is part of the package deal, but it also includes some special treatment (just not as much as some people are claiming).
I believe there are a lot more problems behind the scenes than you let on, possibly because you seem to have your head on straight. My wife worked at the testing center and caught athletes cheating numerous times, including a former Doak Walker award winner. I also had a class with a recently drafted Cougar and saw him maybe 3 times over the course of the semester.
Orem Cougar Fan,
You are right, if you get to the point where you can’t cut it you should not be on the team. Coach Mendenhall does not give special treatment or ask for special treatment. In fact he has the power to sign a letter of recommendation for high school players to clear admission and he no longer does it, because he found they couldn’t cut it at BYU.
Keep on thing in mind though…if we don’t recruit the 2.5-3.0 guys all the fans would say, “Why can’t we get the fast DBs or the Big OL?” In essence you let some guys in below a 3.0 because they are phenomenal athletes and you hope that you have the right structure in place to make them better students.
Another message to everyone is that BYU has the highest team GPA in the country, so although there have been 2 casualties this past year, BYU is doing a great job. The team GPA is right around 3.0! That is impressive.
As I read through the comments I feel like people get the impression that I think everything is nice and rosey. That is not the case. What my point is, is that 90% of the players take care of their business. The other 10% I don’t know how to explain. I myself do not understand how someone can be so lazy. It is embarrassing.
Do people cheat? Yeah, sure. I don’t think that is specific to just football or just athletes though. I do wish we held ourselves to a higher standard though.
Staff, sorry to post below your “bottom line.”
It all comes down to your own opinion of “special treatment.” IMO, college football players are not compensated well enough for their services, so I would say that the tutoring and “extra” academic assistance is the LEAST that the school can provide.
Others might think that the potential to make millions in the NFL or playing for the “love of the game” should be enough and the players should receive the bare minimum – books, tuition, room and board. Anything above this would then be considered “special treatment.”
Of course there would be the varying opinions in between these extremes.
Stanford’s Bootleg reported on the percentage of student athletes who graduated within 6 years of college, who graduated in the years 2003-2006.
For football, TCU 67%, Utah 57% and BYU 56%. For all FBS schools, the rate was 67%.
BYU’s overall graduation rate is 74%, indicating that the academic standards for football players are much lower than for “regular students.” I think that this is where the “special treatment” label is unfairly applied. Applicants think, “I have a 4.0 but couldn’t get in to BYU. That athlete has a 2.5 and they were accepted.” IMO it is comparing apples to oranges.
Remember, Bronco took over in 2005 and I have a feeling that these numbers will improve when the 2005-2008 data are reviewed. Also, let’s not rip on just the athletes when there are 26% of other “regular students” who are not graduating.
Oh, and remember the NCAA and Stanford’s site only count the athletes who graduate within 6 years of enrollment. Many of BYU’s players go on missions, and thus the data are somewhat skewed. If you discounted the mission years, BYU’s graduation rates would be much higher, for both football players and regular students.
I don’t know how things are at BYU, but at BYU-I tutors were available to anyone for free. Maybe that’s their reward for not having a sports program.
Hey guys,
I was a tutor for the athletes at the Y and I’ll just add my two cents on the issue. First, as Markell has mentioned, guys have to take the responsibility for their academics…this is not really the advisors’ responsibility. They are there to provide support and help, which they do AMAZINGLY. I have watched it over and over again. I do think that a lot of athletes who come to BYU on full-ride scholarship have developed skills others of us don’t have, while the rest of us are more prepared for the rigors of college. BYU is not an easy school…I spent some time at UNLV at that was like going back to high school, sometimes middle school, even in upper division classes. Anyways, the student athletes need support, but they also need to take the responsibility to heart, which I agree is not easy whatsoever for an athlete fully invested in their dream to play on a D-I level.
Jake,
That’s just it. Every student has similar resources available. Think about the writing labs and math labs, etc that you could always go to for free help. I used those resources more than I ever used tutors.
This is such a great debate and I love the responses to this post. I think it is pretty much 50/50 whether you think athletes get too much or not enough. I know a lot of people who were and are so adamant that college athletes should get paid like its a job.
I never thought that, but it is funny to hear other people really want to lobby for it. I was grateful for everything I received as an athlete, but most of all for my BYU education which has helped me in life after football.
Completely off topic, but what do you think of our secondary this year? I think the safeties will be vastly better with Scott Johnson and Rich playing back there. Hopefully one of these JC corners can step up to opposite Bradley. If so I think our secondary should hold it’s own this year. Sorry for not following the topic, perhaps the subject of a future post?
Yes we will address this in a future post Petey
Markell,
Do scholarshipped athletes get any additional benefits over non-schollied (walk-on) people? I’m thinking about the academic benefits (use of tutors, and such). I suppose that scholarshipped athletes have their books bought for them while others don’t. Anything else?
Is there any other difference in the way these guys are treated–a class system or anything–within the FB or other sports programs?
I work at a D3 engineering school. It’s a place where every student is taking one of the most difficult majors at any college and doing it without the benefit of an athletic scholarship. No such thing here as an easy gen ed class to take. They get every academic support possible, and rightfully so. IMO, the same goes for BYU. The message there is not like Utah’s “Come here where the minimum is easier to attain”. The players are expected to be the best in the classroom as well as on the field. Things happen and there will be academic casualties, but for 90% of the team, they are busting their tails on the field and in hitting the books. If they get every opportunity to be successful on their own merits given to them, then why is anyone complaining?
Jeff,
Yes non-schollie players get all the same resources as scholly players aside from the fact that scholarships pay for books.
Non scholly players still get access to all the tutors and academic resources and they also get priority registration.
I’m late in responding to this, but…
I see both sides of the argument, and I have to say that athletes do get special treatment, but BYU athletes do not get the same special treatment that they would get at other schools. Furthermore, and Markell is not going to like this, BYU football players get a little more treatment than other athletes at BYU. Sometimes the “special treatment” is not in the athletes favor, but this is all based on individual professors, deans, etc. Part of this is because the football program is the most visible. I totally believe that there are professors who loathe jocks, and want to make their classes difficult especially for them. At the same time, there are others who want to give them breaks. Back in the Edwards days, there were some shady things going on with the honor code office blinking at violations committed by football players, but I hope and believe that that was due to individuals in the office and that problem has been delt with by now.
As far as tutors go, you have to say that having a free 1-on-1 tutor is an advantage. Unlike BYU-I, we do not get free tutors at the Y. The rest of us either have to shell out money for tutors, or make our own network of friends that include geniuses who have spare time on their hands. The labs for science classes are essential, but they are not the same thing. Being tutored 1-on-1 by someone who is an expert on a subject can be way more effective. I think it is great that athletes have that resource available to them, and it can be considered part of the “package deal.”
That aside, I worked on campus and interacted with several professors, and athletes (especially football players) usually got breaks on due dates for assignments. I think we have to call that “special treatment,” but I could see why Markell would not call it that. Should athletes get breaks on due dates? Yes they should. This is only special in the fact that the rest of us do not get it. Is it part of the package deal for athletes? Sure.
I take my hat off to any student athlete. BYU is a really hard school! I barely pulled off my 3.0 graduating with my bachelors in CS without being a student athlete. The “…passing a class is all but guaranteed if you just show up to class” statement is an indicator of special treatment, because that was not true for the majority of my classes. A failing grade at BYU is C-, even though officially is a D. You get on academic probation for less than a 2.0, and that is a C-. With a few exceptions, you were never guranteed a C or better just for showing up, though it was half the battle because that is where you learned what you needed in order to pass the class. I just finished a cohort with George Washington for a masters in systems engineering, and I ended up with a 3.95. It was totally easy compared to what I went through for my undergrad at BYU. Kudos to all student athletes who get a 3.0 or higher at BYU!
Trey,
Great write up. I like how you argued both sides and I agree with pretty much everything you wrote. The tutors are kind of hit and miss. I don’t want to offend anyone because a lot of people who have commented have mentioned either they or their spouse was a tutor. However the requirement to be a tutor is that you got a B or better in the class. I had a couple outstanding tutors and I also had some tutors that probably did more harm than good.
As for the due dates, I can see that being special treatment depending on the teacher. My experience was that 95% of the time if I had to change a due date it ended up being moved to an earlier date, rather than an extension. For example, if we had a thursday game and a paper due on thursday I had to turn it in Wednesday before we left, not Friday when I got back.
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