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Student Athletes V.S. General Student Population
Differences in Social Culture
Anna Greetis, Alex Booker & Jesus Covarrubias
Rhet-105 C3
University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana
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Student Athletes V.S. General Student Population
Abstract
Our project is focused on the differences between student athletes and “regular”
students (those who do not participate in varsity sports) at the University of Illinois Our
observations inform our assumptions that student athletes appear to form a culture unique to
themselves, complete with sub-cultures, and separate from that of other students. We chose to
interview an academic advisor for student athletes as well as collect surveys from both athletes
and non-athlete students. We used the information from the surveys to compare the lifestyles
of the general student population with the student athletes in areas like academics, other
school activities, and their social lives. We also compared the amount of time the students
spend studying and the amount of time athletes spend in practice. We would have liked to
compare the differences between the varsity athletes and the club athletes; however we were
not able to collect adequate information to do so.
By way of secondary sources, The Article “Racial Segregation within the Track and Field
Team” by Rhet104C-01 provided us with a look into the dynamics of the track and field team.
Team members do not experience any sort of segregation while they are together which
supports our observations that student athletes have a culture different from that of general
population. Rather that when athletes are together they find themselves free of the general
racism in our culture as a whole. Through this, the athletes have a uniquely safe place to be
accepted.
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Student Athletes V.S. General Student Population
Methods
In order to collect data, we asked students and athletes to respond to the following
questions which were formatted in a survey form. The survey was primarily multiple choice, the
questions which were not multiple choice are marked with an asterisk (*) at the end of the
question. The survey also contained a consent statement at the beginning for legal purposes.
1) What is your age?
2) What gender are you?
3) What is your Race/Ethnicity?
4) Are you a Varsity Athlete, Club Athlete, or Neither (if neither, skip to question 7)?
5) What sport do you play? (*)
6) How many hours a week do you practice?
7) What is your major? (*)
8) Approximately how many hours a week do you spend studying?
9) How often do you go out to bars?
10) When you go to the bars, where do you go? (circle all that apply)
11) Do you go to other places when you go out? (circle all that apply)
12) In what other Activities or groups are you most involved on campus? (*)
13) For what reasons are you involved in these activities? (*)
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Introduction
There are many assumptions and rumors concerning the difference in treatment of
varsity athletes and the treatment of the general student population at the University of Illinois
(UIUC) by the University and teachers. From looser requirements in class to first picks at classes,
many people assume the varsity athletes have it easier. But for us the real question is whether
school is easier for them or not.
Varsity athletes spend much of their day at practices and miss so many classes because
they are traveling for competition. After all, their lives at UIUC are so very different from all
those not playing sports for the university. Is it even possible for them to have to keep up with
the requirements and expectations that regular students must uphold? These are the questions
we wanted to answer; we wanted to know for ourselves if these stereotypes were true.
For the research our group conducted, we collected different surveys from both general
students and student athletes in order to compare what life is really like. We want to know the
truth about athletes. We collected a total of 45 surveys, both from general students and from
the athletes we knew. We also interviewed an academic advisor, Jeff Guin, to help us
understand our results. Jeff Guin works with the wrestling team, the softball team, and recently
began working with the men’s tennis team. Jeff Guin was able to give us valuable information
concerning these teams and their grades, as well as some advantages of athletes that he was
personally aware of.
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Body/Discussion
There are many different Social differences we observed between the Athletes and the
general students. For the most part, we found that athletes did go out to bars and other parties
almost as often as regular students did. Out of all the general students we interviewed, we
found that 48% would go out once or twice a week and 28% would go out once or twice a
month. For athletes we found that 33% would go out once or twice a week and 47% would go
out once or twice a month (see appendix). These numbers were almost the opposite of one
another however these two options were similar choices. These particular results suggest
students go out slightly more often than athletes do. In an interview with Jenna Mychko a
softball player, she explained that “Between practice, lifting, conditioning, study hours and
everyday tasks it’s almost physically impossible to have a social life” (Personal Communication,
April 2011).
We also found both athletes and students are about equal when it comes to never going
out, 13% and 14% respectively, and exactly the same number of people (7%)who chose to go
out 3 or 4 times a week (see appendix). This suggests that as far as time to “go out and fun” is
concerned, there is not much of a difference between students and athletes. In the paper
“Racial Segregation within the Track and Field Team”, the author notes from observation of the
track and field team that “in general, racial segregation occurs only outside of track” (Rhet
104C-01, 2008, pg.1) yet later the author observed something very different, “I discovered that
the track team often chooses sides based on race and how we socialize with the teammates
that we feel comfortable around” (Rhet 104C-01, 2008, pg.23). This observation suggests
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something different from what we were expecting to discover from our research. Both our data
from surveys and the results of another author’s research seem to suggest there is little
difference between the social side of athletes and students’ lives. Both groups go out about the
same amount, and athletes don’t necessarily associate outside of practices.
To go along with the frequency of going out, we asked students and athletes to list the
places they would normally go when they went out. What we discovered was in a few areas,
the two group’s responses were almost identical. For athletes, 67% go to Kam’s and for
students its 62%. This trend between athletes and students is also similar for Cly’s (33% and
35% respectively) as well as Firehaus (27% and 28% respectively) (see appendix). These results
however do not necessarily signify athletes and students go to the same bars, but rather that
these bars are quite popular within the two groups. This assumption can be made by looking at
the data we collected, in particular the areas which were not the same between the students
and athletes. In the survey, more athletes than students said they visited Brother’s, but more
students said they went to Joe’s, Red Lion and Murphy’s. One possible reason for athletes not
visiting Joe’s as much could be due to simple fact that athletes were banned to go there.
Mychko explains “[all athletes] got banned from Joe’s by the owners around the end of football
season this year because wrestlers and football players were getting into fights there”. This is a
possible explanation as to why, in particular, visiting Joe’s would be less for athletes than for
students.
The data also showed students having a wider variety in general in the bars they choose
to go to. This could be due partly to the students who are involved in sororities and fraternities.
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Student Athletes V.S. General Student Population
These students would both go to a wider variety of bars as well as visit bars more often due to
exchanges with other greek houses. Another However while looking at this data, one must
consider other reasons. Students simply have more time than athletes, giving them even more
of a reason specifically that they have time to go out. Athletes have many restrictions that
prevent them from having the same amount of time to go out. For starters, many athletes have
to travel on the weekends, and most of their weekdays are spent either studying or at practice.
For the softball team in particular, Mychko explained in a personal communication (April 2011)
that “our [softball team] captains decided that we had to sign a contract saying we weren’t
going to drink within 48 hours before a game”. While this particular circumstance may not be
exactly the same for all athletes, it can be assumed that most, if not all, sports teams will have a
similar rule to keep players healthy and in their best form for competition.
Bars are not the only place to go out. Our data shows that many athletes (80%) reported
going to apartments to party. This is very different from the response of students, where 69%
had chosen apartment parties as somewhere they go to. This difference may be due to the
connections that many athletes make through their sport. In our opinion, many students may
not know enough people who hold apartment parties, making it harder for them to attend.
After all, being on a sport team forces an athlete to have regular interaction with their
teammates, some of which who live in apartments. In contrast, athletes make strong
connections with their teammates because of how much time they spend with each other as
well as having such similar life styles as one another. Because of the similarities and
interactions, many athletes are perhaps presented with more opportunities to attend
apartment parties. Megan Fitzgerald (2009), a researcher of the effects athletics have on one’s
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identity, supports this idea “Sports play a large part in a person’s identity. They help influence
who someone hangs out with, what they do with their free time, and even can help
characterize their identity” (pg. 3). Athletes are most likely influenced to “party” at apartments
by their teammates, with which they are most comfortable to be around.
While we could clearly see that a student athlete’s social life is hindered due to the
participation in varsity athletics compared to a regular student’s social life, academics are
shown to be effected in almost the same way for different societies of students. Many people
would easily jump to conclusions right away about an athlete’s academic life compared to a
regular student’s academic life and say that it is much easier. But this is not always the case.
Competition is the main cause for athletes missing classes or school work, in result; athletes are
given many more accommodations in order to even things out. Although athletes are missing
many more class periods compared to regular students, they are still able to find a way to get
their work done. Jeff Guin, an athletic academic advisor for the University of Illinois, stated, “I
would say the biggest advantage that student athletes have is just having a resource like this
(Irwin Academic Center) for them…A place where they can go and get all the information they
need and they can get it pretty quick.” The Irwin Academic Center is available for student
athletes only and is equipped with a resource center, computer lab, free tutoring, team
academic advisors, and much more. It gives student athletes the ability to get work done all in
one place.
Although athletes are proven to get much more help academically, regular students on
the other hand need to be very independent. This independence was actually shown to have a
very positive impact on non-varsity athlete’s academic life. Our data shows that over half (55%)
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of the non-student athletes study on average ten or more hours per week, while almost half
(47%) of student athletes only study on average six to nine hours per week.
There may be a simple conclusion to the previous results that were shared. Regular
students simply have academics and a social life to focus on while in college but being a student
athlete adds an entire new category. Competition is one of the most time consuming factors
that needs to be taken into consideration when thinking about how often a student athlete
studies. According to the results of our data, over 73% of student athletes reported that they
practice more than 16 hours in one week. This result is the most likely conclusion as to why our
results show that non-student athletes study on average more hours per week than student
athletes.
Besides focusing on the effort that is put into academics by each different culture of
student, another topic regarding academics is signing up for classes. Priority for signing up for
classes gets better and better each year a student graduates to the next level in college.
Another way a student can have academic priority over many other students is if they are on
Dean’s List. This means that students have academically earned the right to choose classes
earlier because they hold a cumulative GPA above a certain standard. While all non-student
athletes can only choose classes earlier under special circumstances or simply based on their
level in school, student athletes have the option of first pick of classes over the rest of the
student body. Even a freshman student athlete with terrible academic standing would have the
ability to pick classes before a senior with good academic standing. Priority registration is given
to athletes in order to fit a class schedule with a practice and game schedule. “We still try to
tailor their (athletes) schedules so they don’t miss any (Friday classes),” academic advisor, Jeff
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Guin said, “there’s just some classes you gotta take and they’re at certain times and there’s just
nothing you can do about it.” Athletes need to plan classes around their practice schedule as
well as plan to take the necessary classes that they need in order to fulfill their major. This
tends to start to become difficult especially towards an athlete’s junior and senior year of
school when he needs to take upper level courses that are only available at specific times.
Although non-student athletes may not have the priority for signing up for classes, they
may need that priority just as much. Athletics is like having a full time job but many regular
students might actually have a full time job. Another piece of information that our data pointed
out was the extracurricular activity involvement of athletes compared to non-athletes at the
University of Illinois. Statistics shown that almost every regular student was involved in some
sort of extracurricular activity; whether that be a sorority, fraternity, an honors club,
volunteering, intramurals or many other things. On the other hand not as many student
athletes were involved with other activities besides their sport or things that come with the
participation in athletics.
One advantage that regular students have with the participation in so many
extracurricular activities is the possibility of networking and career planning. For example if a
student decided to join a sorority, she would have thousands of people to relate to in the job
field because of the sorority that she decided to join. Members of sororities or fraternities are
expected to help one another out because it is like a family. Sorority member Elizabeth Foster
says, “The Greek system is really good for networking. When you go into an interview, it’s a
great connecting point that you may have with someone and can help to make a lasting
impression.” Despite the fact that sorority members have these connections with thousands of
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people all over the world, athletes are typically limited to connections within the amount of
people on their team. This can definitely take away many more job opportunities for athletes
compared to regular students.
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Conclusion
There were many differences we found throughout our research pertaining to the lives
of general students and the lives of student athletes. However, we also discovered many
surprising similarities. By far, the most pronounced difference we discovered through our
research was the difference between students involved in other activities compared to that of
the athlete’s involvement in other activities. This information makes us believe that the time for
outside activities (such as clubs and volunteer work) in the lives of student athletes is taken up
by the time needed to be spent practicing for their sport. We believe this has some impact on
their future, however this impact is both a positive and negative. We believe athletes will not
have as “full” of a resume as that for general students which may make them seem less
impressive to possible employers. However the inclusion on being a collegiate athlete on a
resume may present the idea that the person is dedicated and has time management skills to a
possible employer. Based on these ideas and our other research, we believe student athletes
cannot be treated equally to general students while at UIUC; however student athletes will
have similar amounts of time spent on sports to the time general students spend by their
involvement in clubs or volunteering during their college career at UIUC.
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Recommendations for Further Research
There are many areas to be researched within this topic, and many directions someone
could go with research. The first step to improving the research would be to collect more
surveys from students in order to obtain more accurate data. Accurate data would be achieved
by collecting surveys from more athletes and students. Our group was only able to collect
surveys from people we knew, but by collecting surveys from as many student athletes as
possible, one would not only be able to compare the overall results from athletes to students,
but also the differences between different sports teams. We would also like to have
interviewed athletic alumni and alumni from the general population to further research the
impact of being a student athlete has on a student’s future.
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Appendix
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References
National Collegiate Athletic Association. (2010). Graduation Success Rate: public
recognition List. [Data file]. Retrieved from <http://www.ncaa.org/wps/wcm/
connect/public/NCAA/Academics/Division+I/publpu+recognition+list>.
Fitzgerald, Megan. (2009). Athletics and Identity. Retrieved from <https://www.ideals.
illinois.edu/handle/2142/13115>.
Rhet 104C-01. (2008). Racial Segregation Within the Track and Field Team. Retrieved
from <http://www.ideals.illinois.edu/handle/2142/8728>.