May 12, 2008
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The NCAA’s annual Academic Progress Report (APR) was released last week, making headlines and causing embarrassment and digestion disorders on some university campuses around the country.
These report days are a cause for concern at some schools. As an information officer, I received several email advisories leading up to the release day that contained basic information on the complicated APR statistical process. I could even have listened or participated in a telephonic briefing in order to be prepared for media and alumni questions.
I had my own plan; I ignored all incoming messages, not because I didn’t care but for the very reason that Vanderbilt University cares. We care about academic integrity on the FRONT end of the cycle, not after the championship banner is hung and public relations spin is required to explain the poor academic and retention rates of its participants.
Do you care to guess how many calls this office received from the media regarding our stellar APR marks? If you said zero, you win a kewpie doll. Why? The media has little interest in the cat that does not climb the tree and in our case, they expect excellence.
As a matter of fact, we are wrapping up the most successful academic semester and the finest academic year in our history. This spring, about 325 Commodores combined to register a 3.12 cumulative grade point average. Think about that!
We have so many academic success stories we would not know where to begin in telling them. How about our football team averaging a 2.91! Perhaps it should be mentioned that our men’s basketball team had all five of its seniors receive their sheepskin at last Friday’s Graduation Day. Our NCAA semi-finalist bowling team came in with no member under a 3.15 for the semester and several on the Dean’s List. Our Sweet 16-bound women’s tennis squad hit 3.55. Baseball checked in at 3.10, its all-time best. Name a sport, we will tell you a great story.
There are several reasons for our continued good news. Certainly when you begin with coaches identifying legitimate students to recruit you are off to the right start. We’ve never recruited better. Many `Dores want to win in the classroom as much as they do on Saturday.
We have assembled an incredibly dedicated group of academic counselors, professionals that understand the demands on our student-athletes and can advise and encourage. While some academic support programs appear to exist to keep hapless students eligible, much of our focus is in helping young people be all they can be – guiding a B student to that A-.
There are fans that care less about academics. A look at on-line reader comments reacting to a local APR story show some posts are astonishingly wayward, as though the NCAA is a villain for promoting progress toward diplomas and punishing programs that run off non-productive athletes.
We have enjoyed an incredibly good run of academic accomplishment, a trend dating back 125 years. For many years, those of us that value athletics had to endure sarcastic barbs about our marginally successful teams. Those days have already come to a screeching halt from all except those who also believe the Southeastern Conference should be a professional football league.
Vanderbilt athletics has prospered by accentuating its differences with its state school competition. No, this isn’t for everyone. But for those high achievers in and out of the classroom, those with some flair for adventure, this is a very attractive destination.
In recent years, we have been turning out more professional athletes than before. Former Commodores dot NFL rosters, Major League baseball lineups, professional basketball leagues and golf and tennis tours.
In a time when sports pages are clogged with “police blotter” notes about college athletics, Commodore fans should stand tall. No, we aren’t perfect and won’t ever claim to be. With several hundred student-athletes it would be ludicrous to think none of them will ever step out-of-bounds.
But it is a lead-pipe cinch that when our focal point is nurturing young people who plan to “go pro in something other than sports” we will enjoy many days of sunshine and roses.
