Editorial: Athletes deserve recognition for good grades
Balancing classwork, personal finances, extra curricular activities and a social life can make four years of higher education a wonderful struggle.
We feel one group of CMU students deserves special acknowledgement for their effort in the classroom, given their reason for attending here.Sixty-eight percent of our 642 student-athletes earned a 3.0 GPA or higher in the fall semester — the best cumulative score in Athletics Department history.
That’s impressive. We congratulate them on their demonstrated academic focus and resulting success.
It bodes well for the careers our fellow Chippewas, most of whom will not play their sport professionally after graduation.
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These students need their degrees just as much as we do. As fun as it might be, playing football or softball does not bring in a high income if not done at the professional level.
Our athletes’ high academic marks indicate a culture of accountability and competitiveness not present in many other departments on campus.
Many student athletes have study-intensive majors. A prime example of this is quarterback Cooper Rush – an actuarial science major with 3.91 GPA.
Grades like Rush’s are the result of the individual students’ will to learn and the structure for academic success the department has put in place.
More than 40 tutors and designated study areas are available to student-athletes during the semester.
Freshmen are required to spend more time than upperclassmen at the study table and each team is responsible for checking up on team member’s grades.
To these students, time is precious and discipline is instinctual.
Athletes are inherently competitive and goal-oriented. Something as tangible as a grade point average is essentially another way of scoring points.
These student-athletes must perform well academically during a hectic schedule and with all eyes on them. When they aren’t practicing, many of these athletes are traveling to other schools for competition.
If you think you have no social life, just ask a basketball player how often he sees his roommates during March.
We commend our fellow Chippewas for showing such educational discipline and encourage future student athletes to keep this trend on the incline.
Our classmates gain our attention and praise each time we reach a bowl game or beat Western in the Mid-American Conference basketball tournament.
But on the field is just one place they’ve now proven they can make us proud.
