Double play: Athletes strike a balance between school and sport

In the middle of last winter, Ashley Marlenga '05 would often wake up two-and-a-half hours early to walk down to the boathouse. A future English major, she found herself staying up to study most nights. But several hours before class started, she regularly found herself alone rowing on the ergometers.

"It can be tough sometimes," Marlenga said of the day-today routine of the Princeton athlete.

With the time commitment and academic schedule, there is a "consistent tendency" for athletes to perform worse academically than their classmates, former University President Bowen concluded in his book "The Game of Life."

The study, which based part of its analysis on data from Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania, Yale University and Princeton, also shows that athletes perform less well than they might have expected to perform.

Strain on athletes

About 29 percent of Princeton undergraduates were on a varsity team in 1998, according to a self-study for the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

President Tilghman said yesterday she thinks "athletics is very much a part of the fabric of modern universities," but she also cautioned about the extent to which athletics affects classwork.

"It is an extracurricular activity — like many others — which provides an outlet for students to develop outside the classroom," she wrote in an email. "My concern about athletics is that it not be dramatically different from other extracurricular activities with respect to the time commitment impact on academics."

In light of the unique challenges that student-athletes face, the athletics department and coaches provide both formal and informal academic support. The football team sponsors mandatory study halls for freshmen and other players whose GPAs fall below a designated level.

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"At Princeton you put academics first — though close to athletics, for athletes, of course," said Caitlin Tormey '05 of the women's track team. "There's never a time when I couldn't go to my coach and say I have too much work, I need to skip practice."

Chris Browne '05 had a similar experience on the football team. Though players are required to miss Friday classes when the team travels, Browne is late to practice once a week because of a class.

"That's fine with [the coaches]," he said. "They always prioritize class over football."

In addition to the University-wide orientations, the athletics department organizes a special orientation for student athletes where the vice president for campus life speaks and a senior faculty member or administrator gives a keynote address.

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In 2000, Director of Athletics Gary Walters '67 started the academic-athletic fellows program in which about 40 professors strive to build relationships with teams.

These "faculty team representatives" are expected to "provide easily accessible guidance on academic issues, and to strengthen links between athletics and the academic programs of the institution," according to the NCAA self-study.

The University as a whole, though, does not have any programs in name targeted toward athletes. However, there is a perception around campus that the Freshman Scholars Institute is geared to athletes and minorities.

FSI is a residential program for a select group of about 60 students, who take two courses for credit the summer before their freshman year to familiarize themselves with the academic rigor and resources of the University. Despite students' perceptions, it does not officially aim at any one group.

"There is a good number of athletes," said Tormey, who participated in FSI because of the encouragement of her coach.

In the past, when recruited athletes were offered admission to a similar program called the Summer Scholars Institute in Science and Engineering, their coaches were notified and requested to "encourage participation," according to the self-study.

"Some athletes are encouraged to participate by their coaches." Tormey said. "I know I wouldn't have done it had I not been encouraged by my coach."

Dean of Admission Fred Hargadon said there is no systematic placement of athletes in summer programs.

"The great majority of varsity athletic prospects don't need any special programs," he wrote in an email. "[FSI] offers a number of entering freshmen who are coming from some of the less affluent secondary school systems an opportunity to get a running start at Princeton. Some such students may be varsity athletic prospects, but most are not."

Case for equality

Ask athletes, and they will tell you that with a rigorous schedule, rigorous classes and rigorous expectations, they have to work just as hard, if not harder, than every other student on campus.

"I think some of the non-athletes feel that they deserve to be at Princeton more than the athletes do," Marlenga said.

Robert Tignor, history department chair and a football faculty fellow, suggested that some faculty members may have the same perception.

"I think altogether too often there is a tendency on the part of some faculty members in this department to come to a conclusion that the people who are not doing good work are in the gymnasium," he said.

However, the University's athletes must meet minimum academic standards to be admitted, according to Ivy League regulations. Once enrolled, they must continue to meet the same requirements — such as distribution requirements and independent work — as every other student.

"Although people do generalize constantly — dumb jock, nerd — I don't think you can do that in the Ivy League," Tormey said.

Bowen has suggested that there is an athletic culture on college campuses where athletes "band together" in certain fields of study. This tendency is specifically prevalent in the social sciences.

"It is a concern that I have," Tignor said. "Last year I think we did discover that there were a group of athletes in our department . . . tending to hang together. It did create a not very welcoming atmosphere in the classroom."

Volleyball player Blake Robinson '05 said, "Athletes are not at fault for choosing courses which seem easy, but which still fulfill the requirements of the university.

"If the courses here need to be tougher, that is a different story," he said. "I'm taking two courses which are guts, but they are not easy nor are they filled with athletes."

In an effort to give athletes more time to focus on academics and extracurriculars, the Council of Ivy Group Presidents passed a rule this summer which requires all varsity teams to schedule a 7-week period with "no required athletic activities" and "no coaching supervision of voluntary conditioning or other athletic activities." In October, the rule was modified for crew teams, who must now schedule a 33-day rest period because of their year-round competition schedule.

Despite the rule's intentions, many athletes and coaches feel that it unfairly suggests that they are incapable of balancing their commitments on their own.