Athletic director and coaches say schoolwork is the first priority for student athletes.
By Kyle Jorrey–Sports Editor &
Joann Groff–Assistant Sports Editor
NOTE: This is part two of a two-part series examining the life of a student athlete at Pepperdine University.
If you talk to the athletic department or to the coaches themselves about the plight of the student athlete at Pepperdine, one thing you’ll get little of is sympathy.
Coaches expect their players to succeed in the classroom no differently than the rest of the student body. They don’t expect favors for their athletes, and they are as intolerant of poor effort in class as the professors themselves. Many know first hand the difficulty of trying to find a balance, but expect their players to put in the time and effort to get the job done.
It starts with Athletic Director John Watson.
“In any collegiate program, the academic focus needs to be the primary focus,” Watson said. “Those who want to continue on to a professional career in their sport, that’s an honorable pursuit, but they should still want to purse their academic career.”
Watson suggests that a negative connotation exists within universities when it comes to student-athletes aspiring to become professional athletes.
“It doesn’t devalue academics if they want to go pro,” Watson said. “If people look at athletes that want to play professionally as demeaning they need to take another look at our athletes. It’s absolutely a wrong interpretation.”
Watson says he thinks there is an alarming amount of stereotyping going on in regard to athletes and the importance they choose to put on their academic life at Pepperdine.
“It’s a major dilemma, stereotyping,” Watson said. “Thinking that athletes are not interested in academics, it’s simply not true. That typical ‘dumb jock’ stereotype is as bad as any racial profiling.”
Many students would argue that if our student athletes did not meet the admission standards that Pepperdine held at the time of their recruitment, they would not have been accepted. Others believe that if they have the skills to do what needs to be done on the court or in the pool, academic competitiveness is easily overlooked.
“If someone is a good basketball player, or the best golfer in the world, and they want to come to Pepperdine University, there would not be anyone that would want to stand in their way,” sophomore Lauren Welch said. “There is no way they would give up a good piece of talent because their SAT scores were under par, or they got a 2.8 grade point average in high school.”
Watson said he understands this is a common misconception, but said those students are under the wrong impression. That would simply be “the wrong thing to do.”
“The athletic department doesn’t admit a single student,” Watson said. “They all go through the same process, pay the same fees. There is a stereotype around that athletes can get by these things. Letting a student into a university without the academic qualifications — that would just be setting them up for failure.”
And failure is not what Pepperdine University wants for its students. Watson is aware of Pepperdine’s low graduation rate ranking in the WCC, but thinks there is more to be considered than just the number.
“That’s the thing with these numbers, if you don’t see the whole picture they look dismal, but the reality is there are a lot of reasons per individual student’s decisions as to why they didn’t graduate from Seaver College.”
The official graduation rate does not take into account those drafted to play professional baseball, or those students that transferred and graduated from other institutions. Watson says in sports like baseball, water polo and volleyball, where limited scholarships are available, many athletes will transfer if not getting the playing time they would like in exchange for the steep tuition at Pepperdine.
In defense to the fact that many WCC schools are also in the high price range, Watson claims Pepperdine surpasses them in athletic excellence.
“You have to look at the success of our programs,” Watson said. “You have to look at their athletic success across all the sports compared to ours. They have one or two sports they are really good at, while we are pretty good all around. You have a higher-caliber athlete, therefore a higher caliber expectation of participation and the ability and desire to go professional. “
Watson said only two students last year did not graduate because of academics — the rest of the 56 percent were either transfers or went professional.
Assistant Baseball Coach Steve Rodriguez knows a lot about what it takes to be a student athlete at Pepperdine — he used to be one.
Playing baseball for the Waves from 1989-1992, Rodriguez attended at a time where academic expectations for a Pepperdine athlete were much lower than they are now, and like many athletes, he had his target on the major leagues, not the classroom.
In fact, Rodriquez only recently received his degree, 10 years after leaving Pepperdine to play Major League Baseball. He said he still regrets the lack of effort he put into finishing his degree during his first term at the university.
“I was a 12-unit a semester student and a baseball player,” Rodriguez said. “When I was here I took one summer class and decided I’d never do that again. I put myself in a bad position.”
Rodriguez said he’s happy with the improvements that have been made to get athletes focused on the classroom, and encourages his players not to take the same road he did.
“I tell these kids that if they are fortunate enough to get drafted they want to make sure they are a year or semester away from graduating,” he said. “If not, it’s going to be a big challenge to come back and get that degree.”
Like members of the basketball team, baseballers face the option of possibly turning pro when they graduate. For this reason, Rodriguez knows of the difficulty of convincing star athletes that their focus needs to be on academics.
“There are some guys out there who are very talented and very smart, and then you’ll have some guys that are just flat out athletically talented and that is all they focus on,” Rodriguez said. “It’s very difficult to make sure they go about their business in the classroom, but we make it clear that if they don’t they won’t be having a future on our baseball field.”
According to Rodriguez, missing a class without reason is considered misrepresenting the entire team, and when it happens, everyone is punished with extra running in practice. Head Men’s Volleyball Coach Marv Dunphy is another former Wave athlete turned coach who expects his athletes to perform right along with the rest of the student body. And he said he doesn’t want his players receiving any favors.
“I think that there are some teachers that don’t cut them much slack, and that’s their right,” Dunphy said. “That teacher has set a standard for that class and what they believe in and our kids better know that going in.”
Dunphy said he expects his athletes to take responsibility for their own education, and said he would never go to a professor on the behalf of one of his players to ask for a break.
“I’m from the old school, that would never enter my mind,” Dunphy said. “We are in this together to help them. If anything I’d say to teachers, ‘hammer them.’ I’d much rather have a professor be on the hard side than go easy.”
Both Dunphy and Rodriguez agree that the battle to get athletes succeeding in the classroom starts with recruitment. They know that in their search for athletic talent they must take into consideration the prospect’s chances of handling a load of classes at a top-tier university.
“When we recruit them, we make it very clear to them their baseball life we’ll get taken care of on the baseball field,” Rodriguez said. “We let them know that just because baseball is going great now, it doesn’t mean it will be that way all the time.”
Baseball players are required by the team to take at least 16 units a semester, and like all NCAA athletes, maintain a 2.0 GPA.
Faculty adviser Dr. Don Shores says it’s now a top priority to bring in athletes that “can succeed at a school of this caliber.”
“We need to bring in athletes that can compete right along with the average student,” Shores said.
Dunphy said he checks with a recruit’s parents and coaches to see their academic track record, and asks for an explanation anytime he sees a C or below on a transcript.
“If they say they just didn’t try, I’ll say to them ‘how do I know you are going to try for me at Pepperdine?’ ” Dunphy said.
It’s is apparent when talking to coaches and the athletic director that they believe there is a reason the student comes first in “student athlete.”
“Pepperdine wants them to be treated no differently than other students, and I should hope that’s what’s happening,” Watson said. “Athletes are just like any other students with a talent in a specialized field. They have a gift, but first and foremost, they are getting an education.”
ALUMNI
Pepperdine alumni John Garochea and Dick Miller are two athletes who understand the importance of a college degree. Garochea played volleyball for the Waves from 1979-1983; Miller played on the tennis team from 1972-1974.
After leaving Pepperdine, each learned quickly that athletic prowess wasn’t going to bring in the paychecks.
“Your next step in volleyball was to play at the beach or internationally … there was no big money out there,” Garochea said. “We wanted to be considered elite players, but there wasn’t much after that.”
After graduating from Pepperdine, Garochea spent three years working for the family business, a wholesale bakery based in Los Angeles. After that, he decided to return to Pepperdine to pursue a degree in law, which he received in 1988.
The degree allowed him to work for a short while in places like Hong Kong and London before returning home on his own terms to take over the family business before it was going to be sold.
He said the skills he learned as a student at Pepperdine are what have allowed him to run a successful business the last 14 years.
“I was not a great student,” Garcochea said. “I really enjoyed academia, but I had a difficult time focusing on specific courses … I focused on business and communications, knowing I had a family business to go into. Having been successful, I wouldn’t change that.”
Miller remembers a time when the majority of athletes on the tennis team were there to compete, not get an education.
“When I look at my team … we were good, top 10 in the country, and the majority were foreigners, and they were just there for something to do,” Miller said. “They never had a thought of graduating. The graduation rate back in early 70s was a dismal 20 percent. These are full scholarship people. They would come over from some other country, hang out for a couple years, and go back home.”
Miller said the problem was, and still is, athletes falling into the false dream of turning pro. He said when looking at the statistics, the chances of most athletes making it as a pro are very unlikely.
“Since 1972, let’s say 180 players came through Pepperdine (tennis),” Miller said. “Out of 180 players, maybe three have made any kind of career in tennis. That’s a 1.6 percent chance of making pro.”
After graduating and playing three months on the pro tour, Miller, a business major, went into commercial real estate. 14 years ago he started his own property management firm, and has enjoyed a successful career ever since.
Miller said it’s up to the coaches to instill in their athletes that getting their degree will be the most important thing they accomplish while at Pepperdine.
“Our coach didn’t give a thought to academics … you might find the tennis team now has the highest GPA of all the sports,” Miller said. “It all has to do with the chemistry of who that coach recruits. We had a group from all over the world that were on a holiday.
“I had a full ride before they even built the courts on the new campus. No one knew what kind of academics standards Pepperdine was going to have,” he added.
November 14, 2002