Student-athletes Rise to Challenge of Balancing Classroom, Playing Field
Duke provides assistance, but officials say the most important factor in academic success is the students themselves
Thursday, May 6, 2004
"I'm struck in the exit interviews by the pride that most of our student-athletes take in meeting the expectations of both athletics and academics, and achieving both at a high standard," Smith said. "This takes tremendous willpower on part of the student. The most important factor in classroom success is extraordinary discipline and desire on part of the student."
Balancing the needs of Division I athletics with the demands of a Duke undergraduate education has never been easy, and Smith said it's not getting easier.
"This is largely because of the increasing time demands of the sport," she said. "For many of our sports, there is no off-season, even when there is no official competition. Because of the demands of TV scheduling, I think our basketball scheduling and travel is almost out of hand. Many of our Olympic sports travel more and practice more, which places increased pressure on our students."
Balancing these demands requires several skills, most importantly time management, Smith said. These are skills that many teen-agers don't come to college with, but Duke athletic and academic officials closely monitor their development to ensure satisfactory progress toward the degree.
Chris Kennedy, associate director of athletics, said a range of assistance is available to every student-athlete, from tutoring to advising to assistance with time management. Working with Dean Robert Thompson, the athletic department has devised a program to identify struggling students early in their careers and see what assistance can help them adjust to college.
The key aspect of the effort is its individualized approach, which provides the appropriate resources that each student-athlete needs, Kennedy said.
"The range of backgrounds of the some 600 student-athletes is enormous," he said. "You're not going to use the same plan for each of them. We sit down with them and see what their needs are."
Students say they come to Duke because of the opportunity to mix athletics with the education at a major research university. Below, two graduating seniors talk about how they balanced those expectations.
Vicki Krapohl - women's basketballVicki Krapohl came to Duke excited about playing basketball and determined to follow her sister's lead by pursuing engineering, though not everyone shared her optimism.
"A lot of people said I wouldn't be able to do both basketball
and engineering, and
I'm glad to prove them wrong," Krapohl said. "Given the chance, I
wouldn't do anything differently. I've been blessed with the best
in coaches and the best in professors to help me."
With daily practices and frequent travel for away games, Krapohl said the key to her success was learning to manage her time. Early on, she learned to get her work in early and to identify scheduling conflicts early in the semester so she could make alternate arrangements with her professors.
"My grades may have suffered marginally as a result, but that's not my measure of success for myself," said Krapohl, who was also deeply involved with the campus Eucharistic Ministry and basketball-related charity organizations.
"I came to Duke scared of the challenges I would face, but since then I've gained so much confidence and learned to believe in myself," said Krapohl, of Mount Pleasant, Mich. Because engineering is such a challenging curriculum, Krapohl said she probably spent more time doing schoolwork than some, but she "enjoyed the problem-solving nature of the engineering work so much more than writing papers."
Of her engineering accomplishments, Krapohl said she's proudest of her basketball-playing robot "Alana Beard," named after her Blue Devil teammate. Krapohl and classmate Ben Yaffe built the robot earlier this year to compete in the annual March Mayhem mechanical engineering competition.
"It was very fun to building the robot, having problems and rebuilding it," said Krapohl. Though Krapohl had a road game on competition day, Yaffe brought the team to a very respectable third-place win with the robot.
The "fame" of being a basketball player didn't change her life much, Krapohl said, though friends sometimes teasingly called her "Poster Child" and "Cover Girl."
"We have a saying in my family: 'Beginnings are scary, endings are sad, and the middle is the good part,'" said Krapohl. "It's sad to leave Duke, but I'm confident now that I have to skills to be successful."
At the time of graduation, Krapohl was still deciding whether to launch her professional career in aeronautical engineering at GE or NASA.
Leigh Anne Hardin - women's golfLeigh Anne Hardin has a national championship to her credit as a member of Duke's women's golf team, but she said one of the best feelings she's had at Duke is helping in the local schools and Special Olympics.
"I think Duke offered me a chance to really get involved in the community and become a leader," said Hardin, a senior from Martinsville, Ind. "Duke allowed me to discover and cultivate my leadership qualities. I got involved with Read with a Blue Devil [a program where student-athletes visit area elementary schools] and Project Respect, as well as with the Special Olympics. These activities really made my college experience complete."
Making time for extra-curricular activities wasn't easy, she said. The jump from high school, where she always practiced after school, to college required her to find new ways to find time for both the books and the golf course.
"It was hard to meet my school responsibilities because no one was there to tell me what to do and when to do it, like in high school," Hardin said. "I learned that I had to be effective with my time, manage my time, learn to prioritize and do the little things that were not necessarily required, but would help me complete my work."
It paid off, she said, in that some of the most memorable moments of her time at Duke were in the classroom.
"I had some wonderful classes at Duke," she said. "My favorite class was a leadership class I took with [public policy professor] Tony Brown. The leadership and community service/volunteer aspect that was required in that class had one of the biggest impacts on me as a person here at Duke."
Hardin said she sometimes missed not having the time to hang out with friends. But the bottom line was she was challenged both academically and athletically at Duke, and she loved that opportunity.
"I came to Duke because I thought it would be a place for me to grow athletically and academically. I do not know one athlete that after four years does not feel like they are in some way a better student or athlete because of Duke University. My experience here exceeded my expectations."
Chris Douglas - football
On the football field, running back Chris Douglas was hard to bring down. But as a student at Duke, Douglas always tried to stop and make time for community service, particularly when it came to young kids.
Last year, Douglas was one of six Duke student-athletes selected by the university to be honored in the Atlantic Coast Conference's Six for Service program, which recognizes student-athletes' contributions to community service.
Douglas was cited for his work in Winter Fun Day involving students from Rogers-Herr Elementary School, one of the schools in the Duke-Durham Neighborhood Partnership. The program brought sixth-graders to the Duke campus to learn about Duke sports, about university life and to have fun.
"I think this brings a little more reality to the kids," Douglas told Blue Devil Weekly. "It's a little far-fetched for a kid to think he can play [in the pros] one day. That's a great dream but the odds are the kid won't end up doing that. But a lot of people have an opportunity to go to college, and even if you don't make it (as a scholarship athlete), you could still have an opportunity to walk on, like Matt Brooks, who's an integral part of our team. It just brings everything a little closer to where the kids are headed.
"Plus, I think it helps students realize that college is a good thing, because a lot of kids feel like they might not need to go to school. … Some of our athletes serve as role models to kids in the Durham community, so maybe we were able to get some of these points across to them where others might not have been able to."
Now Douglas has another challenge - the National Football League. The tailback from Sherrills Ford, N.C., signed a free-agent contract with the New York Giants two weeks ago.
