Athletics and Academics: Athletic Staff Shows How to Win the Right Way

Contributing Writer

 
   In college athletics, recruiting the right type of players makes the difference in whether a team wins a championship or not. Athleticism plays a huge role in the recruiting process, but so does academics.

   For a student-athlete to stay eligible, they must take at least 12 semester hours and maintain either a 1.8 grade point average in their first year, 1.9 GPA in the second or 2.0 GPA after three years.

   Gwaine Mathews stressed academics to his players since he came to the University of Arkansas at Monticello as the head football coach in 2005.

   “Without academics you have serious turnovers if you don’t stress it as a head coach,” Mathews said. “If you have turnover, you are wasting man minutes, and who wants to go to their job and purposely waste time?”

   When he took over as coach, Mathews implemented a mandatory study session four nights a week for all his players. He also takes money out of his budget to pay for tutors and said he is the only coach in the conference that does such.

   In the fall of 2006, 22 members of the football team made a 3.0 or better, which Mathews said is a vast improvement from the previous year when only five members made a 2.5.

   Mathews said when he recruits an athlete, he puts special emphasis on academic ability. 

   “Academics is a talent,” Mathews said. “If you want a kid that can hop, jump and run, you recruit a kid that can hop, jump and run. If you want a smart kid you recruit a smart kid. So sometimes you have to take those kids that may not be able to hop, jump and run that fast but you know that’s going to be here for four years.”

   Athletic director Alvy Early agrees with Mathews on recruiting the right type of player. The Early-led softball team boasts the highest GPA on campus, ranking No. 6 nationally in Division II softball with a 3.49.

   “It’s a personal philosophy,” Early said. “I look for a student-athlete that has both athletic and academic promise.” 

   UAM’s head basketball coach Mike Newell also stresses academics to his players and also looks for high academic player when he recruits. He said the first thing he does is recruit players he thinks is capable of doing the work, and then builds a support system around the players.

   Like Mathews, Newell requires his players to attend study hall four nights a week and also takes money out of his budget to pay for tutors. He also interacts with the professors and has them send out grade reports every five weeks.

    He said he started the academic program when he coached at University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

   Newell said when he took over the basketball program two years ago, the athletic department told him in the previous 15 years only two or three basketball players graduated. After coaching at UAM for six years, he said within the year his 20th player will graduate.

   He said with most players that come on campus the first year, their mind set is basketball first and academics second. He mentors his players to switch their train of thought and put more emphasis on academics while still working hard on the court.

   Because of personal experience, he makes a point to not give up on his players, but gives them multiple opportunities to succeed.

   “When I came out of high school and signed with LSU my first year, academics wasn’t first, basketball was first,” he said. “Finally the light went off after my grades came out, and from that point on I was a B student. Until that light went off, I did just enough to get by. That’s why I give kids more than one or two or three chances. They are kids. If someone would of booted me out, who knows.”

   Although UAM only had one athletic program with a winning record in the 2006-07 school year, the athletic department is making strides in changing the image of the dumb jock.

   “They don’t call it athlete-student,” Mathews said. 

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