The Wake

Student-athletes across campus are being punished for their great academic work. Sound confusing? It is. And it’s giving coaches headaches.

The NCAA, which has set the aid standards, split all athletics at the Division-I level into two categories. Sports are either labeled as “headcount” or “equivalency” sports.

Headcount sports on campus include football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, gymnastics, tennis, and volleyball. In headcount sports, athletes are either offered a full scholarship or they must try to make the team as a walk-on, receiving no aid.

The football team has the ability to give out 85 full scholarships. So, 85 players on the team are on campus receiving full rides. Anyone else on the roster must pay their own way through school as a walk-on.

The dilemma of accepting either athletic or academic aid comes into play when dealing with equivalency sports on campus. In equivalency sports, coaches are given a certain amount of scholarships. They have the option to divide the amount of financial aid provided by these scholarships in any way they wish, to any or all athletes on the team. Beside the headcount sports, every other team operates on this basis.

The women’s track team receives 18 scholarships. So, the coach may decide to pay for an athlete’s books, costing $400. This athlete would be receiving 2 percent of a full scholarship, while another athlete may receive a $16,000 full scholarship. This gives coaches a great deal of flexibility.

But problems arise in equivalency sports when academic aid enters the picture. Stipulations in the NCAA Division I Manual state that any aid a student has earned through academic scholarships will limit how much athletic aid can be given or received to teams and individuals.

Gary Wilson, head coach of the women’s track team, said that if he were to give a track athlete a half-scholarship of $8,000, and the University of Minnesota decided to give $8,000 more because of the athlete’s academic achievements, it would count as a full $16,000 scholarship for his track team. The $16,000 would then count against the team’s limit of $128,000 in athletic financial aid.

Many times coaches can not afford to award the equivalent of a full scholarship, so students must decide on whether to accept academic or athletic aid.

“So here’s a smart kid who gets $8,000 that they’ve earned academically through no interference by me and no interference by our athletic department before they even got here,” Wilson said. “And just because the kid’s smart and happens to be an athlete. That money will count as a full scholarship and they must make a decision.”

Lauren Williams, who is currently on a $10,000 nutrition scholarship, has not received any athletic aid throughout the four years she has been with the Gophers, despite her cross country achievements. Because of her academic scholarship, Coach Wilson has not been able to offer her aid because of the financial limits of his 18 scholarships.

“I couldn’t put her on any athletic money,” Wilson said. “The minute that I had given her $1, it’s just like giving $10,001, because you can’t have it both ways.”

Williams, who has been placed in this frustrating situation, said, “Other student athletes have full athletics scholarships and are barely getting by the minimum GPA to stay eligible. Why should we punish the students succeeding in both athletics and academics? Shouldn’t we award the students who perform on the field and in the classroom? The NCAA regulations do just that; punish the hard working over-achievers and award the students who prefer the term ‘athlete student’ over ‘student athlete.’”

Many athletes in equivalency sports confront the same dilemma: either drop all athletic aid and take as much academic aid as possible, or drop the academic aid to collect athletic money.

The NCAA regulations that have brought these dilemmas are interpreted completely different at many schools across the nation and as such, they affect recruiting for equivalency sports at the University of Minnesota.

Many schools package the athletic and academic money together for student-athletes. So the same exact academic scholarship offered at the University of Minnesota does not count against the athletes at hundreds of other schools around the country, said Wilson, who has written many letters to the administration and the NCAA regarding this issue.

This places schools that have interpreted these regulations in the same way as the University of Minnesota on an unleveled playing field from the rest of the nation and shortchanges their athletes.

“So why does the U of M interpret NCAA rules this way; that a kid who’s smart is going to get the short end of the stick?” said Wilson. “It’s something I’ve been asking for 15 years.”

There is new legislation in the NCAA that would allow an athlete who earns a 3.2 GPA during his/her first year to not have the academic aid count against them or their team’s aid limit. As of now, nothing has been passed.