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Studying the stereotype

The players might score on the field, but do their academics measure up?

Photo Illustration by Elisa Day

MU football players face consequences if they skip class but take their chances when no one’s watching. With random attendance checks, tutors and required first-year study hours, the players have no reason to do poorly in school, Pinkel says.

By Amanda Miller

October 22, 2009 | 12:00 a.m. CST

We’ve all heard the stereotypes: College football players are dumb jocks who never go to class, take the easiest majors and course loads and receive preferential treatment from professors — and these are just the rumors that are fit to print. Vox sets out to debunk the myths and discover which tales are true.

When MU’s backup quarterback, Blaine Dalton, was arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated in August, the freshman’s dismissal from the team made Big 12 headlines. Even worse, it was Dalton’s second arrest in only four months: Columbia police found a prescription painkiller and an unopened beer can in his car in April during a routine traffic stop.

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Although the first charges were eventually dropped, he was suspended from the team indefinitely after the first arrest but had begun to participate in summer workouts again, which prompted criticism of the athletics staff for letting him off easy.

So does this leniency translate to the classroom? With required study hours and other academic policies, athletics administrators fight to break the sport’s stereotypes.

Pinkel’s policies

To keep football players on track with schoolwork, the athletics department requires all athletes to participate in an academic transition program. The Total Persons Program requires eight hours of mandatory study hall each week, in addition to tutoring and mentoring. Although this study regimen is only mandatory for the first year, Joe Scogin, assistant athletics director for academic services, says a majority of the athletes continue to use the services throughout their college careers.

In a Sept. 14 interview with 102.3 BXR’s Tiger Talk radio show, Mizzou football head coach Gary Pinkel talked about academic services for players. To ensure success, he mandates class and attendance checks and has tutors readily available. Whenever he sees a player struggling, Pinkel often takes matters into his own hands.

“We have a player very close to graduation that I called and helped get him enrolled in classes,” he says. “I’m not going to say what his name is, but he texted me the other day and said, ‘Thanks coach for getting me going again.’”

For struggling athletes, subject-specific tutors are a crucial part of MU’s academic program. Senior accounting major Molly Brown and history graduate student Emily Backes have both tutored football players.

“I don’t know if I just have two players that aren’t as motivated, but they definitely don’t try as hard as my other students,” Brown says of the two football players among the seven student athletes she tutors for accounting and statistics. “I don’t believe it’s because of football, but they just don’t put in as much of an effort to learn the material.”

She also points out that when it comes to respecting other students during mandatory study halls, football players don’t always set the best examples. “If you’ve been over to the athletic complex on any evenings really, a lot of the football players are over there and are really loud and obnoxious,” Brown says. “It’s hard to study. Some of the other students that I tutor even complain about it.” If concentration is a problem in the common area, tutors and athletes can also study in quiet rooms.

Occasionally, apathetic athletes skip Brown’s tutoring sessions, but the delinquent players do get reprimanded. The football coordinator will also ask unruly athletes to stop messing around if they are bothering other students, Brown says.

Although Brown found some truth to the stereotypes, Backes, who has tutored four football players in history and political science, says she hasn’t seen it in her students. “I don’t really see a difference between (football players) and the other (athletes),” she says. “There are definitely people at different levels academically, but they are all trying their best.”

Sports scores

The Tigers’ athletics teams led the Big 12 North Division in the Academic Progress Rate last year. Out of the nine MU men’s sports, the football team ­— which scored 951 out of 1000 — had the lowest overall APR by a margin of six points. However, the APR, which factors in athletes’ academic progress and their retention and graduation rates, ranked higher than last year’s NCAA national football average of 939, and in the Big 12, only the University of Oklahoma had a higher score than MU.

Although the APR does not factor in individual GPAs, the Academic All-Big 12 conference teams does. Of the 108 members listed on the 2008 Tiger football roster, eight were elected to the All-Conference teams, which include 142 Big 12 student athletes. Of Mizzou’s eight, six were chosen to the first team, which requires a 3.2 GPA or higher and is the highest academic recognition for the conference. Two players were elected to the second team, which requires a 3.0 to 3.19. Although eight players boasted good grades, the number is meager when compared to The University of Texas at Austin’s 22, the most of any school in the conference.

Cutting consequences

Class attendance is taken seriously in Pinkel’s academic success plan, and athletes who play for him have more to lose by skipping class than most students.

For missing class once, a player reports at 6 a.m. for extra conditioning. The second time a player misses class, he and others who play the same position hit the field bright and early. After three or more missed classes, all of the senior football players, who are less than thrilled with their teammate’s actions, join the offender in the morning workouts.

Random weekly spot checks help catch class cutters. “We will get there before class starts to see if they are (there) or get there at the end and check attendance as they exit class,” Scogin said in an e-mail. However, these checks are only done in 10 to 15 classes per week, so given the size of the football team and the variety of classes its players take, many manage to slip under the radar.

“I have one of my math classes with two football players, and while one comes to class regularly, the other one only comes once out of the two times the class meets per week,” says Shanon Bote, a middle school education major. Libby Killgore, a senior art history major, notices certain patterns in absences. “They will usually show up for the first few days, sit in the front row and then just stop coming,” she says.

Junior communications major Christine Shirley, however, disagrees. “I feel like I’ve always had at least one football player in each one of my classes, and they all pretty much come to class and participate,” she says. “It actually kind of surprised me.”

Professor point-of-view

Despite issues with attendance, there is little difference between the grades of football players and those of other students, says Billie Cunningham, an associate teaching professor of accounting in MU’s College of Business. Barry Langford, an adjunct instructor for the hotel and restaurant management program, finds the dedication of student athletes sometimes depends on the season. Football players, he says, attend class more often in the spring off-season.

Julie Hosmer, an assistant professor in the hotel and restaurant management program, like Cunningham, has noticed few differences in academic capability between athletes and average students. The dumb jock stereotype, she says, might stem from preferential treatment they received in high school. “It’s not that they’re not competent,” she says. “I think somewhere in their education, those sports have just been allowed to let their academics slide a bit.” As a result, Hosmer has seen a couple of her student athletes struggle in college.

Although none of her students has asked Hosmer for special privileges, some occasionally use lack of time as an excuse. “There are students here who work 40 hours a week to pay for college, and they are busy too,” she tells them. “Student athletes don’t whine to me because it doesn’t get you anywhere.”

Effortless education

Another stereotype is that football players choose the least demanding majors and class loads. Despite their busy schedules, this year’s Tigers are making room for academics, and, judging by their list of majors, the easy majors stereotype doesn’t always prove true.

This year, the most popular majors are in business-related fields, such as accountancy and hotel and restaurant management. An additional 12 players are still undeclared. The 117-person roster also includes mechanical engineering, chemistry, biological sciences and animal science majors, which contradict the easy course load stereotype.

But do football players take longer to graduate than their fellow students? According to last year’s 100 percent graduation rate, this stereotype isn’t true either. Twenty-one seniors sported the cap and gown last May, and current NFL players Ziggy Hood and Chase Coffman graduated last December in only three and a half years.

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