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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 21, 1981)
athlete; Your hosts, Steve and Judy I.esh cordially invite you to visit Xacho's and try the most delicious Mexican food you'll ever taste. Visit .VachiA tonight for t he heel from .Mexico. \Y. 11 th and ('ity View YHrvtiofio ^°°°\0pr(yo balloon garden • Frosty • 485-5675 • Balloon bouquets for • Parties • Get wells • • Anniversaries • Holidays • • Birthdays • Showers • Bulk rates available at prices too low to pass up1 Give a balloon garden balloon to a friend Little Sister Yourself • ALL BALLOONS HAND DELIVERED • TAILGATERS...PLEDGE GIFTS.. RUSH PARTY DECORA TIONS...HOUSEDANCES... SAHALIE Natural Foods POPCORN $.40 lb. PASQUA Soave $2.29 - (Dry White Wine) • Freed Produce • Vitamins • Bulk Foods • Fine Wines ■ Cotfee Beans_ 13th & Patterson 484-6460 Weekdays 9-9, Sat. & Sun. 10-9 Athletes at the University are under a lot of pressure to perform on the field. In recent times, they have also been under pressure to perform in the classroom, due to such problems as the bogus credits scandal and the reputation they have for taking the "Mickey n . .. .. j Photos by Bob Bakor Mouse" courses. Athletic counselor Barbara Nlcholls says those who say athletic performers have it made aren't always right. Being a college athlete is like having two full-time jobs . she says, and “How can you say that this lacks discipline?" Erasing the dumb jock image By MARK JOHNSON Of the Emerald Q — How many football players does it take to make popcorn? A — Five One to hold the pan, and four to shake the stove For as long as there's been sport, there’s been the stereo type of the dumb jock ” You know, the burly halfback who can thread his way through eleven would-be tacklers, yet stumble over three-syllable words For many, that label would seem to be appropriate at Oregon, where recent academic problems involving athletes have surfaced Two basketball players have been declared ineligible for the 1981-82 season already,and one football player had prob lems gaining eligibility after he was found to have insufficient credits And of course, Oregon was one of five Pacific 10 Confer ence schools implicated in the infamous “Bogus Credits" scandal So beyond the query asked at the beginning of this story, a more pertinent question sur faces Is the label of athlete" becoming more and more em barrassing to own9 One person who has an ex perienced ear listening to student-athlete problems is Barbara Nicholls, the Universi ty's student-athlete academic counselor Nicholls, a former English instructor at the Univer sity, has arranged an advising program which includes help with scheduling and tutors to compliment other resources such as study halls "My position at the Universi ty," said Nicholls,"is a result of a committee of faculty, students, student-athletes and the com munity in response to the com plaints of athletes, black ath letes in particular, who wanted to ensure they were getting a proper education I'm here to see that the demands of sport don't overbalance eflypation. The University feels a strong commitment to its athletes " Nicholls services are separ ated from the athletic depart ment Money provided for tutor ing is transferred from athletic funds, and then managed independent of athletic depart ment control Tutors are as signed by Nicholls to student athletes without regard to ath letic prowess," according to Ni cholls Nicholls, who says that she "was once anti-athlete and cer tainly anti-athletic department," sees a stereotype stamped on student-athletes "Some people overidealize athletes and others tend to put them down, but both views are wrong Academically there is as much variety among the students as the athletes, who are not much different from the norm ” According to Nicholls, stats on GPA and success rates of athletes are hard to culminate because a true definition of what constitutes an athlete does not exist But she maintains that in past studies, athletes showed a slightly higher GPA than the student body as a whole An academic progress study under the direction of Robert Bowlin, Dean of Students, compiled data on all male ath letes from the fall of 1975 through the fall of 1979 Bowlin cautions that the study's findings are only preliminary and incomplete because data on the rest of the student body has yet to be compiled In drawing some preliminary conclusions, it was found.that in those four years studied it took the average graduate 4 91 years to complete requirements while the athletes that graduated took an average of 4 58 years Graduates of every sport but one, on the average, took less time to graduate than did their fellow undergraduate students Bowlin also points to several articles written from studies which indicate student-athletes are slightly more successful In one article, by Jerry Uhr hammer on a 1967 study, it was shown that a greater percen tage of athletes were above a predicted GPA of between 17 and 2 99 than the non-athletes Some teams such as the men's tennis and gymnastics team have solid reputations for academic excellence Bowlin said that student-ath letes usually do better because they are "reasonably competi tive people who learn to use their time effectively and get the additional help, such as tutors " "You would expect them to do better - motivation is a key factor," Bowlin said But like Nicholls, Bowlin seems more content to say that "student-athletes do not differ that much from the general student body," and dumb jock stereotypes are labeled to ath letes because "with bad pub licity its easy to jump to conclu sions ” Nicholls suspects the only general difference between the academic success of student athletes and the student body is that, "athletes parallel a normal Continued on Page 7B
