The NCAA News - News & Features

Panelists say athletes need assistance in adapting to changes

BY SALLY HUGGINS
STAFF WRITER

MARCO ISLAND, Florida -- Athletics departments need to change the way they interact with student-athletes to keep pace with the changing environment in which athletes find themselves, according to a panel of administrators speaking here.

As student-athletes increasingly are "mainstreamed" into the general community at universities and colleges, they need more assistance in preparing for the extra scrutiny that being a student-athlete brings, the athletics administrators said.

During a panel discussion on the student-athlete experience at the annual convention of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) June 10-12, athletics administrators and student-athletes said distractions and influences affecting student-athletes have increased.

At the same time, coaches have less time to spend with athletes.

With integration of student-athletes into the general university community, athletics dormitories have been eliminated and workout time with coaches has been reduced -- resulting in less opportunity for a coaching staff to develop a strong relationship with the athletes.

Filling the void are elements of campus life over which coaches have no control.

"As we help these individuals develop, we need to be aware -- as we push for their involvement in the full college community -- there will be more influence from that community," said Tom Hill, dean of student services at the University of Florida and a former track and field student-athlete at Arkansas State University.

"With total integration of the student-athlete into the university community, we are going to end up with some things we didn't anticipate."

The coaching staff no longer has the same influence as when athletes were under the watchful eyes of the coach much of their day.

"We are finding coaches used to have influence at a certain level and now the youngsters are being influenced more by people who don't care about them, and they don't understand that those people don't care about them," said Grant Teaff, executive director of the American Football Coaches Association.

Teaff said communication between coaches and the student-athletes is the key to counteracting negative influences.

"Communication builds trust, recognizes honesty, shows concern. You may be the most concerned person in the world but you must communicate that," he said.

And athletics administrators need to make sure that the opportunity exists for coaches to communicate with and get to know athletes, Teaff said. Because of fund-raising duties, alumni obligations and other demands, coaches must make a special effort to meet with students.

"If you don't let coaches have opportunities to communicate with their student-athletes," he said, "they're not going to have the relationship with them that you want them to have and need them to have."

Lee Reed, an athletics administrator at Eastern Michigan University, said coaches and administrators need to go the extra distance when a student-athlete approaches them.

It is important to ask questions and find out what is going on in the athlete's life. Often, an athlete will not reveal problems or pressures without some questioning by the coach, Reed said.

"If we aren't careful, we will see only what that individual student-athlete wants us to see," Hill said. "You can miss the boat totally if you see only what you want to see."

Mixed message

Panelists also noted that pushing student-athletes into the mainstream sends a mixed message. They are told that they are just like all other students, but student-athletes' high visibility causes their activities to be much more closely scrutinized, Hill said. And circumstances affect student-athletes differently than the general student body.

For instance, a disciplinary measure that prohibits a student from representing the university for a semester means little to a general student. However, it can kill an entire season for a student-athlete, Hill said.

"We confuse them--not intentionally--these young people who come to our campuses," said David R. Hart Jr., athletics director at Florida State University. "We tell them they have to be treated just like everyone else, that they are not special. But without question, student-athletes are held accountable to a much higher level."

Students in general have the opportunity to live in special organized groups -- such as Greek housing and honors dormitories -- but athletics dormitories have been eliminated, Hill said. And academic scholarships today can exceed the value of athletics scholarships; as a result, panelists said, student-athletes see other students living at a different level without the restrictions that they have.

"It makes the students question our sincerity and our integrity," Hart said. "They understand what the other students are getting. We've got to be very careful to look at the things we're exposing the students-athletes to and what we are expecting of them.

"We owe it to the student-athlete to tell them this is how it is and this is why it is. Let us help you get through it."

Explain the realities

One way to make the student-athlete experience more rewarding is to give athletes better direction and become more involved in dealing with problems that athletes face.

Vincent J. Dooley, athletics director at the University of Georgia, recommended that athletics staff members explain the realities of being a student-athlete.

"Our goal is to run a program where the student-athletes are better off than before they come to our school," Dooley said. "We have to expand the services of our coaching staff to make sure we are personally involved in preparing the student-athletes, not only in the sport, but beyond the sport.

"As AD, I meet with each team to remind them of their visibility, that they are not like the other students because of that. That is the price they pay for being an athlete."

Georgia's means of open communication with athletes include meetings with each team at the beginning of the season, meetings with individual student-athletes who are recognized for any reason, an honors day when all student-athletes with a 3.000 grade-point average or higher are invited to a party at Dooley's home, a graduation breakfast and use of a student-athlete council.

Athletics administrators also need to understand the peer pressures that student-athletes face. It is important to know what students are like on campus and about current trends, Hill said.

"It would be a good idea for you to walk on campus, go where the students hang out. You'd be surprised what you don't know," Hill said. "Those weird kids are your students and your student-athletes hang out with them -- maybe not in front of you."

NCAA provides assistance

The NCAA Life Skills Program is a valuable tool in helping the student-athlete, said Calvin Bowers, a former football player at Bowling Green State University and a Division I representative on the NCAA Student-Athlete Advisory Committee.

His student-athlete experience taught Bowers responsibility and dependability, how to dream and to reach goals, and how to work with others to reach goals.

The Student-Athlete Advisory Committee is one of the tools the NCAA has to help monitor the student-athlete experience and determine ways to improve it, Bowers said. The committee looks at all proposed NCAA legislation and tries to reach a consensus about whether that legislation is good for the student-athlete. Then, committee members speak about the legislation during the NCAA Convention.

Current issues of importance to student-athletes include prohibitions against scholarship athletes working during the sport season and agent problems.

The student-athlete committee also has worked hard for a student-athlete voice in the NCAA governance structure and is monitoring restructuring legislation to be certain that voice is not lost, Bowers said.

'Stay abreast'

Hill urged the athletics community to continue to make changes that improve the student-athlete experience.

"If we try to stay abreast, we can plan," he said. "If we wait until we are forced to change, change will be extremely difficult."

Billy Payne, chief executive officer for the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games, also spoke and urged those present to maintain their purpose -- to mold the total student-athlete.

Payne said it had taken him more than 30 years to put to good use the qualities and attributes that he learned as a student-athlete at Georgia. He said he used those tools in bringing the 1996 Summer Olympics to Atlanta and in organizing the Games.

"All of you are torchbearers. Your charge in life is no less important, no less critical and no less challenging than mine," Payne said.

"It is to share your experiences, to create and to mold -- increasingly so -- the total student-athlete."