Drew Long entered Northwestern in the fall carrying a full course load in the McCormick School of Engineering – a daunting task made even more difficult because the freshman was on the men’s basketball team.
But the time commitment of varsity athletics apparently didn’t mesh with academics, and Long lost his basketball eligibility at the end of the quarter.
Long ran afoul of the Big Ten’s minimum GPA requirements, enforced for all athletes at the end of each term.
A freshman struggling in the classroom midway through, say, the fall soccer season won’t be disciplined until the first report card – after the season has concluded.
But winter- and spring-sport athletes – such as Long and men’s swimmer Eugene Kim – run the risk of losing eligibility at their seasons’ onset. It’s a discrepancy NU has been fighting for years, to deaf ears, at conference headquarters.
“I feel that discriminates against winter and spring athletes,” said Margaret Akerstrom, Northwestern’s assistant athletic director in charge of Academic Services. “Winter and spring students, especially on the quarter system, have 10 to 11 short weeks to do well. It’s always been my opinion that that’s not fair. I feel strongly that the Big Ten should have a GPA requirement at the end of the freshman year, but not midyear.”
Although the NCAA has a loose academic guideline that allows each school to outline its own requirements, the Big Ten enforces a strictly defined minimum GPA. Schools are permitted to establish tougher rules, although they must enforce at least a 1.65 GPA during the athlete’s freshman year, followed by a 1.8, a 1.9 and 2.0 each of the following years.
The Big Ten checks these GPAs at the end of each term.
“The counterargument with fall students, if you look at a sport like football, is that right now a lot of bowl games are played after the start of (winter) classes,” said Jennifer Heppel, the Big Ten’s assistant commissioner in charge of compliance and enforcement. “Potentially, they’re being held to the same standards as the rest of the student-athletes. Their season’s not over.”
But that explanation accounts for only bowl-bound football teams and doesn’t even consider fall sports like soccer, field hockey, lacrosse and cross country, all of which conclude their postseason tournaments well before the new year.
“The catch is that if you become ineligible (after the season), the institution has the ability to stop giving you athletics aid,” Heppel said. “Most institutions won’t do that, but if I were a student-athlete, I’d want to do everything I can to retain my scholarship, even if I don’t have competition. It’s not like other sports can get off scot-free.”
Akerstrom, however, doesn’t buy that argument.
Athletes can’t lose their scholarships midyear, she said, adding that the Big Ten has yet to convince her of the rule’s validity.
But Akerstrom’s pleas to the conference have had little effect.
“We’ve brought it up in past years and we’ve always been shot down,” Akerstrom said. “They think it looks like we are lowering academic standards.”
A power struggle over academic eligibility between the NCAA, the conference, the school and the athletes themselves is not unique to NU.
The fight recently received national attention when four players on the Drake men’s basketball team were ruled ineligible after failing to meet the school’s minimum GPA requirement of 2.0.
Two of the players appealed to a district court for an injunction to continue playing, arguing that the Drake requirement was stricter than the NCAA rule mandates, and was therefore discriminatory.
The court upheld the university’s right to enforce its requirement.
A 2.0, equivalent to a “C” average, is considered more than reasonable by many standards – especially at NU, an institution that prides itself on competing in the classroom with the likes of Stanford and the University of Chicago.
“I don’t mean to be hypocritical, but even if I wasn’t an athlete, that’s much lower than what I’d expect to maintain,” said Kim, a Weinberg sophomore.
Kim lost his eligibility this quarter after failing to meet the Big Ten’s minimum GPA. But he faults no one but himself.
“I can’t really be bitter,” he said. “I’m upset I’m not swimming, sure. But bitterness would imply that I’m angry with the organization or some higher authority.”
It’s not the GPA itself that Akerstrom has a problem with. At a school that boasts a four-year graduation track for athletes and the highest graduation rate among Division I schools, the main concern at NU is what Akerstrom said is the Big Ten rule’s lack of fairness.
“The fact that it impacts student-athletes in different sports differently doesn’t appear to be a concern for them,” Akerstrom said. “But they don’t work in the trenches with the student-athletes like we do.”
