Athletes v. Academics at UA part 2

C.A.T.S. offers athletes a study table, in which athletes are taught time management and prioritizing, and even obliges athletes to maintain study calendars to keep up with what school work that needs to be completed on a given day. Men’s Tennis player and Family Studies junior Geoff Embry said, “Not every athlete has study hall but the ones who do are in it for six to eight hours per day with a mentor. It’s awesome to be able to get your work done and not have that much to do when you get home.”
“When student athletes arrive to school in their first semester, and I think this is generally true of most students coming into college, their study habits are insufficient for the college workload,” said Meade.
C.A.T.S. also offers content tutoring with tutors that specialize in certain challenging subjects, such as Math, Economics, Foreign Language and others. They even have a satellite writing team trained by the writing program but working out of C.A.T.S. for athletes, who can’t find time in their schedules to make it down to the Writing center, said Meade.
The C.A.T.S. Life Skills program is designed to help athletes become more active outside their academic and athletic work. Associate Athletics Director and director of Life Skills Becky Bell said, “We want our athletes to be “life champions”. We want them to get more involved and take more initiative for a broadening university experience.”
Life Skills encourages athletes to get involved with internships, volunteer in the community and do things that go beyond the normal athletics and academics requirements to ensure a better resume come graduation.
“Do a little overtime and you’ll be prepared when you graduate,” said Bell.
Athletes involved in the Life Skills program have received numerous awards over the years, including three this year. Lacey Nymeyer of the women’s swimming team was awarded NCAA Woman of the Year, Craig Sheedy of the men’s swimming team has been awarded with the NCAA Walter Byers Award and freestyle swimmer Justine Schluntz has been given the University of Arizona Senior’s Award.
The Woman of the Year award is the third of its kind awarded to a University of Arizona student since 1994; no other Pac-10 school has any, according to Bell.
Many students on campus seem to believe that student athletes have it easier than non-athletes. Classes like History of Rock and American Popular Music have many athletes in them, but this is most likely due to the fact that athletes get priority registration and are able to sign up for classes first. This class in particular is not seen as an “easy A” but instead a class that generally all students on campus are interested in. Embry said other popular classes include Astronomy, Oceanography and Nutrition, none of which are traditionally “easy” courses.
Meade said, “There’s a perception that athletes get more perks than other students. But, they have demands placed on their time. The glamour of being a college athlete is not what it is perceived to be. They have three hours of practice, weights and by the time they shower and have dinner by 7 p.m. they still have not even gotten to their school work.”
“I don’t like the fact that students think athletes have it easier academically then other students,” said Embry, “It’s not like there’s any professor who’ll grade us easier because we play sports.”
Athletes are given priority registration because they need to plan their school schedules around an already rigid sports schedule.
When asked about the stigma of athletes having an easier time than other students, Davis said, “Yeah, we get it. But it doesn’t bother me because I know we work hard, when our grades are poor we can’t play.”