Student-athletes of East Tennessee State University have proven that they can be champions on the court and in the classroom.
During fall 2008, ETSU student-athletes obtained the highest GPA ever recorded by the program, surpassing the previous record of 3.12 set in fall 2007, said ETSU Director of Intercollegiate Athletics Dave Mullins.
While non-athletes at ETSU had an overall cumulative GPA of 3.038, student-athletes average GPA reached 3.15. In fact, ETSU student-athletes beat out athletes from other schools in the region in GPA for fall, he said. Appalachian State University athletes had a GPA of 2.95 while the athletes from Middle Tennessee State University totaled an overall 2.98 GPA.
After the fall semester, the 4.0 Club has 14 members, and the number of student-athletes on the Dean’s List increased 94 percent, with 66 of them earning a GPA of 3.7 or higher, said Bob Baker, director of academic services for athletics.
“I am very proud of the outstanding GPA of our student athletes in fall semester,” said Barbara Breedlove, senior associate athletic director. “I attribute the success to several factors. First I credit our student athletes that are very serious about their academics and take great pride individually and collectively in performing well. Second, I commend our coaches for recruiting outstanding student athletes and emphasizing the importance of academics.”
Recruiting might indeed be the key, said Baker. “The coaches are doing an exceptional job at recruiting student-athletes, not athlete-students,” he said. “The students that are recruited know that they need to get a degree, they know that their chances to turn professional in their sports are low, and therefore they have to have a degree to fall back on.”
Other departments on campus play an important role in the GPA increase of student-athletes, said Baker. Graduate students of the College of Business and Technology and some other colleges and departments become tutors for the student-athletes. “When an athlete needs a tutor, we can assign them somebody who has proven successful to help them,” Baker said.
Simon Doherty, member of the golf team, started working with a tutor in the fall to get help with accounting. “My tutor always makes sure I understand everything and meeting with him several times a week makes me stay on track,” he said. Another student-athlete for whom tutoring has proven to be useful is soccer player Jordan Monty. “The constant review and practice helps me be more organized and I am able to assimilate a lot better,” she said.
Beefing up the academic staff has also contributed to the GPA improvement. “This is the second year when we have two full-time academic advisers, Bob Baker and Jared Fries,” said Mullins. “Also, we applied for special funds from the NCAA that are directed toward the academic part.”
Learning to balance academic and athletic careers is also critical. A team that is in season practices about 20 hours a week and sometimes student- athletes can miss up to three days of school in the same week, said Baker. Yet, they are required to respect deadlines and be as prepared as any other student. “They have to adapt their studying habits to meet the demands of their schedule,” he said.
Teaching these areas of discipline has paid off. “When we see grades like this is rewarding,” said Baker. “I think the community, the campus, everybody in Johnson City should be very proud of what our student-athletes do, not only to win championships but also how well they do academically.

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