Athletic Participation and Academic Performance in Female College Athletes

Athletic participation and academic performance in female college athletes

According to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) the news is not good for the female college players' future sports careers. Most of these young women have dreamt of being a pro-ball player since they were kids.

The NCAA begins their eligibility requirements by saying, "The overwhelming majority of student-athletes will never earn a dime as a professional athlete." Yet if you were to interview a Division I team in its freshman year at a college or university, nearly all the players will tell you that's their goal and there is no other.

This is part of the reason it is imperative that female college athletes meet academic requirements-not just to remain eligible to play, but to eventually wind up with a successful career in something that sustains and nurtures them. Is it any wonder that they get sidetracked, though, by the commercial university's desire to win, win, win and their own passionate love of the game?

Graduation rates for college athletes are improving of late. Division 1 student-athletes continue to perform well in the classroom and more are graduating, according to the latest NCAA Graduation Success Rate figures. The latest figures show that 77 percent of student-athletes who began college from 1997-2000 graduated within six years. The four-year rate is up from 76 percent two years ago. NCAA believes the goal of 80 percent is reachable.

As recently as 2004 the graduation rate for white basketball players was 53 percent, and 35 percent for black.

Today the student-athlete is learning that being a successful student and a successful athlete requires the same set of skills and abilities: discipline, focus, setting and meeting goals, being able to face adversity, and meeting challenges aggressively and with integrity.

There are a lot of discouraging factors in the life of the struggling female student-athlete.  Most of these women are high school recruits. To later become NCAA eligible to play for a Division 1 school they had only to maintain a high school grade point average of only 2.0 until this August 1st when this finally changes.

Most often these young girls are looking at a sports as their ticket out: out of the ghetto, gang life, drugs, dysfunctional families-you name it. Most do not schools which have advanced college prep courses. Yet these same young women have been selected for a full ride scholarship to a university or college where they must compete against students who have been training for college for years, and have had few of the social hardships of the women.

Other factors current female student-athletes have going against them are poor social integration and less motivation to succeed in college as compared to non-athlete peers. Their campus life takes place in what might be termed an athletic culture. They are highly concentrated in certain field of study and in specific campus residences. They mostly spend time with each other. When asked if it was easier or harder for them to get dates, 22 percent of female basketball players in one study said it was more difficult, compared with 2 percent for male basketball players, 15 percent for women in nonbasketball sports and 13 percent for women in other extracurricular activities. When asked about getting to know other students, 23 percent of the female basketball players found greater difficulties.

Are they set apart as "other" by their fellow students because of their differing socioeconomic status, educational background, cultural experiences, being a "scholarship" student, or is it just something about women in sports? By all rights, their social mobility should be increased by the prestige of being a winning athlete for their college.

There are at least three physical problems that female student-athletes must work to overcome . Female student-athletes have a higher incidence of eating disorders than non-athletes. Some women lose their scholarships if there is significant weight gain or loss. They learn to manipulate diet and fluid intake for regular team weigh-ins. The enormous amount of stress they are under to succeed in athletics and in academics takes its toll. Their body images may be distorted after years of training and playing.

Another very common physical problem especially with female college basketball players is the high number of knee injuries that keep them out of the game temporarily and sometimes permanently. Tears of the anterior cruciate ligament, the one which stabilizes the knee and controls its pivoting, is a common benching injury. Since the mid-1990's studies have shown that women are two to eight times more likely to tear the ligament than men in the same sport.

One big problem is that there has not been sufficient education transmitted to the athletes about this. Many do not take seriously the preventive conditioning techniques they should be doing in favor of improving their skills for the game. About 1 in 10 hs a season-ending knee injury each year, including approximately 3,000 who tear this ligament.

Some schools are adopting preventive techniques as part of a strength and conditioning program, but many are not and the coaches are just resigned to take the injuries.

The third big physical problem for female college athletes is the female athlete triad of disordered eating, amenorrhea and osteoporosis. So many reasons that should motivate the women to looking for their future in their studies and succeeding academically.

Female college athletes need more schools with programs like that at Texas A&M Career Center which is set up in conjunction with the A&M Athletic Department and the A&M Intercollegiate Athletic Compliance Office. They have initiated a unique program that recognizes and addresses some of these special challenges faced by female athletes. The women are given help to investigate the range of their skills and abilities and to understand how many opportunities are available to them outside of athletics.