Student-athletes typically attract attention for outstanding athletics, but with the release of the NCAA’s 2009-2010 Academic Progress Rate report, all of the attention is on academics.
According the report, UNM scored the highest it has scored in eight years: 973 out of 1,000. Nine UNM teams, including the Men’s Cross Country team, received a perfect score of 1000.
Joe Franklin, head coach for track and field and cross country, said he sees his job as a way to prepare students for life after college.
“Our philosophy is make sure the students are prepared for life when they are 40,” he said. “In our sport it is rare that they make any money, we have an expectation that they go to class, do their work and that they are respectful to their professors. We have seen that trend over the last five or so years that the kids are very driven academically.”
The scores are based on two factors: eligibility (if the student goes to class and completes assignments on time) and retention, said Henry Villegas, UNM Manager of Academic Advisement.
“For each student-athlete, we get two points each term and we get another point for their retention,” he said. “All those points are added up for each team, so a perfect score of 1000 would mean that every student-athlete on that team was eligible and retained.”
UNM track and field athelete, sophomore Janna Mitsos, said an athlete’s drive to succeed academically can come from the same place that fuels a desire to win an event.
“I think (academic success and athletic success) go hand in hand, and they both are a lot of hard work, and if you can succeed at one you can succeed at the other,” she said.
Villegas said the NCAA can also impose penalties on teams that do not meet the minimum acceptable score of 925. He said this is the first year that UNM has received no penalties despite the baseball team’s 912 score.
Five years ago UNM had five teams that scored below a 925, and the NCAA required UNM to develop a plan to help those teams do better academically, Villegas said.
“We put together a team and looked at all aspects of the program,” he said. “We looked at every single student-athlete that we had lost a point for. We looked at the reason that they weren’t eligible or they left, and based on those issues, we developed a plan.”
Some of those changes included hiring a learning specialist for student-athletes and adding a clinical psychologist to talk with student-athletes and help them throughout their college careers.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
Franklin said this year’s improved score builds UNM’s academic reputation by encouraging current students to do well, and making UNM a strong competitor against other schools.
“If you look at the trend academically, it is trending very positively, and it starts from (Athletics Director) Paul Krebs and trickles down to Henry (Villegas) and his staff, and then to the students,” Franklin said. “It shows that the University is a viable academic institution for those elite academic students.”
