CHRONICLING ECU & C-USA SPORTS
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View
from the 'ville
Thursday,
June 1, 2006
By Al Myatt |
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Accountability producing
victories in the classroom
©2006 Bonesville.net
There is a dimension that goes largely
unappreciated by the throngs that thrive on the anticipation, excitement and
pageantry of college football.
It's college.
First and foremost, of course, East Carolina
is an educational institution. Values, however, can be distorted and
forgotten in the arms race to build athletic programs.
If a guy can make TD's, the tendency is to
lose sight of whether he can make A's and B's, too.
Fortunately, ECU appears to be
headed in the right direction in its
classroom emphasis. Conference USA released its academic honor roll for
2005-06 this week and 158 Pirate athletes had grade point averages of 3.0 (B
work) or better. That was up from 117 for the previous school year.
ECU ranked third in the 12-team league behind
Rice (174) and Marshall (166).
"I believe we are seeing this improvement
across the board because our coaches have taken a 'hands on' approach to
letting their athletes know how important academic performance is to them
and the team," said ECU athletic director Terry Holland. "And, our athletes
have wisely used their time and the resources available to them through our
Student Development Office."
Eight football players made the list last
year. That number climbed to 14 this year under the supervision of Coach
Skip Holtz, his staff and the academic advisors.
In addition to the 20 hours a week of time and
energy that football players spend practicing and playing, freshman
quarterback Joseph Sloan and senior tight end Shawn Levesque found time and
focus to achieve academic averages of 3.75 or better.
A total of 35 ECU athletes
will receive the C-USA commissioner's medal
for having a 3.75 GPA or higher, according to an announcement from the
league on Wednesday. Only Memphis had more reach the 3.75 plateau in C-USA
with 37.
Levesque was a finance major. A company should
snap him up for his time management skills alone. If time is money, as they
say, perhaps Levesque's time management ability will soon be equated with
money management.
The football team's academic improvement is
representative of ECU's athletic community in general, according to Holland.
"Because it is a larger group, the progress of
the football team allows a measurement of the overall trend," Holland said.
"The improvement in GPA and increased number of athletes receiving
recognition for their academic performance shows the renewed commitment to
excellence in every area by the athletes and their coaches.
"Skip Holtz and his whole staff are the most
visible of a great group of leaders in place here on our ECU coaching
staffs."
Holtz notes with a degree of fatherly pride
that the football team GPA has gone from 2.0 to 2.56 over the last year.
"To see the number of athletes that graduated
two weeks ago has really been encouraging," said Holtz. "In the big picture
of developing a football program, is developing accountability on and off
the field, developing accountability athletically, academically and socially
— to do what you're supposed to do when you're supposed to do it.
"It's a tribute to these players the way that
they've bought in. Credit goes to Coach Holland and the stance that he's
taken with the athletic department of no class, no play — to put the
emphasis where it ought to be. The student-athletes are here to get an
education first."
From Holtz's perspective, academic performance
begins with recruiting players who are capable in the classroom.
"A lot of times people put an emphasis on
recruiting rankings which only take into account athletic ability," Holtz
said. "But when you look at a lot of these young men, in four or five years,
they're not in college. What we're trying to do is find the fit for East
Carolina in all three of those areas (athletics, academically and
socially)."
So Holtz and staff are profiling prospective
players who can graduate while competing at the highest level and
representing the program properly.
Freshmen are required to attend study hall
Sunday through Thursday nights for two hours. Study halls are monitored
through student development services. Nita Boyce is assistant athletic
director for student development. Holtz said Boyce and her staff have played
a significant role in ECU's academic progress.
Players also must live on campus their first
two years at ECU. When players attain a 3.0 average, they can place out of
study hall. Players meet with assistant coaches at least once a month to
confer on their academic progress.
There are consequences for players who don't
go to class — from not playing during the season to running under the
supervision of senior leaders in the offseason.
"We're trying to make them accountable to each
other — to go to class and do what they're supposed to do off the field as
well," Holtz said. "Those are some of the things that we brainstormed as a
staff and came up with.
"The senior leadership of a football team is
critical not only in what you do on the field but the way they behave off
the field are going to be the role models for the younger players to follow.
... The senior leadership of this team right now is very strong.
"If they're willing to lead by example and go
to class and do the things they're supposed to do then it's very easy for a
freshman to look at a senior and say, 'OK, that's how we do things here.' "
One of the gratifications for Holtz and
Pirates coaches other than the scoreboard on Saturdays is to see players
begin to take pride in their schoolwork.
"The easy way to do it is to coast — to do
what you have to do to get by and make a C and (maintain eligibility),"
Holtz said. "The neat thing is when you see these athletes putting the time,
effort and energy into the study halls and the tutoring and really starting
to take it serious.
"Then all of a sudden, the players are calling
the assistant coaches and saying, 'Hey coach, I got a B on that accounting'
or 'Coach, I made an A in chemistry' — whatever that class is. ... That's
one of the things that's very rewarding in our business.
" ... It's like the little boy when he brings
home five A's — he's sprinting home from school to take it to his parents.
When he's got three D's and two F's, he's sticking it in the bottom of his
bookbag and doesn't want to tell anybody."
The poster boy for ECU academic movement would
be quarterback James Pinkney, who flunked out and missed spring semester of
2005. Holtz said that situation has turned out to be a blessing for the
offense's senior leader, who doesn't take academics for granted anymore.
Holtz said that although practically all of
the players at ECU want to play in the NFL, the reality is that few will
achieve that goal. Solid academics will help them be successful in areas
other than football.
Not all of the players are sprinting home to
show their grades, of course. Fourteen players on the honor roll represents
about 14 percent of the total number in the program.
"It's a work in progress," Holtz said.
Holland said that there is still a lot of work
to be done.
"While we have made a great deal of progress,
we are still far short of our goal to find a way for every athlete to attend
every class, graduate in four years and be able to participate in all
aspects of the college experience," said the ECU AD.
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02/23/2007 12:30:21 AM
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