UW Football
First year sets tone for studies

By Bob Condotta
Seattle Times staff reporter

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For quarterbacks, setters, pitchers or just plain old sociology majors who can't throw or run a lick, the mantra remains the same — the freshman year can make or break you.

"That's what everyone always says," said Washington junior quarterback Casey Paus. "But if you work hard and get that GPA up right away, you can go from there. Once you get the hang of it, to me it seems like it's all downhill."

And at both Washington and Washington State, the overwhelming emphasis of academic assistance for athletes is on that critical first year.

"It's highly structured for freshmen," said Pam Robenolt, the interim director of Student-Athlete Academic Services at UW. "But our goal is to get them on their own, to create independent learners."

UW has a full-time SAAS staff of 12 that includes former football players Ink Aleaga and Rod Jones. WSU has nine full-time members on its Student-Athlete Development staff.

Both programs make available for athletes academic advising, one-on-one tutoring, study tables, note takers and laptops to check out for road trips, among other items.

In fact, other than writing papers for athletes or taking their tests, schools are encouraged by the NCAA to devote as many resources to academic assistance as they can.

"They are pretty lenient in that area," said Pam Bradetich, director of student-athlete and staff development at Washington State.

Both UW and WSU have mandatory study halls for freshmen in all sports.

At both schools, however, athletes are not required to attend study halls once they have proved they can handle their work and remain in solid academic standing.
 
Washington requires all incoming athletes to attend a freshmen Bridge program, a three-week course designed to prepare them for handling college classes, learning tasks such as time management and how to prepare a book report. Washington State conducts a new student-athlete seminar with the same goals in mind.

Both schools also have tutor pools, made up primarily of other students who can give athletes one-on-one help in their classes. Washington has 65 to 85 tutors on staff every quarter, including some retired teachers and current students who want to be teachers.

At UW, all freshmen football players are also required to attend study table six hours a week, supervised by Robenolt, as well as meet with an academic coordinator once a week all season to monitor progress. Freshmen who earn a 3.2 grade-point average after one quarter don't have to go study table as often.

At WSU, where athletes are also required to attend regular study tables, athletes who earn a 2.5 GPA after their first semester are granted more independence.

Both schools proudly tout their recent academic success with athletes.

Washington's official NCAA graduation rate for football players last year was 67 percent — second in the Pac-10 behind Stanford (82 percent) — and 70 percent for all student-athletes. Those numbers are comparable to the graduation rate of 71 percent for all UW students. UW officials say new graduation rates, due to come out soon, will be similar.

Washington State's official graduation rates last year were 60 percent for football — fourth in the Pac-10 — 67 percent for all-student athletes and 62 percent for all students.

Those official NCAA rates, however, are listed by percentage of all students entering college six years prior (in this case, 1996).

Those rates include players who transfer or leave early to play professionally, which officials say can skew the numbers downward.

Both schools say their rates for athletes who complete eligibility on campus are much greater and a truer indication of their success — 91 percent at WSU, 90 percent at UW.

Skeptics claim that the rates should be high, that all the help athletes get makes it easy for them to get degrees.

But officials at both schools say they are simply doing what the NCAA has mandated. Programs such as SAAS at Washington barely existed 15 years ago. But an effort by the NCAA in the late 1980s and early '90s to increase academic requirements for incoming freshmen and graduation rates led schools to improve their academic services for athletes and develop formal assistance programs.

In an effort to further increase its commitment to academics, UW is in the process of building a new $18 million student-athlete life center that will open sometime in 2005. The center will house the SAAS.

Bradetich says that the programs in place at WSU and all other Division I schools are creating a different culture in college athletics.

"A lot of the old stereotypes of college athletes aren't true anymore," says Bradetich, who has a long history in college athletics as a coach and department official. "They are all taking the classroom seriously and working hard."