As far as the eye can see, student athletes today live the good life. They get to travel across the state and country representing the school and they receive free school gear as well as getting trained by professional coaches. From the outside, this seemingly glamorous life would be the envy of most students.
But what most students don’t see are the countless hours in the weight room after class, the summer workouts when everyone is at the beach and more importantly, the time spent studying for classes on a cramped bus driving back from a road game. The life of a student athlete may not be quite as flashy as it appears as they work at being both full-time students and full-time athletes.
“It can be difficult to organize your time,” senior women’s basketball player Illyssa Vivo said in between treatment sessions. “I don’t have time to eat in the time after class and before practice, I just carry around snacks.”
For several years now, the athletic department has brought about the issue of allowing student athletes priority registration in order for them to register for classes around their sports practices and games. Their pleas have mostly fallen on deaf ears but this year, with the addition of new
Provost David Stern and Associate Provost Katharine Cole, the possibility of student athlete priority registration is receiving a second look.
“The issue is we’ve grown,” said Athletic Director Larry Marfise. “It’s a delicate subject because there are lots of reasons why non-athletes should have priority registration also. The fact is we have limited facilities for everything that goes on.”
One of the most pressing issues is the gym. Currently, the men’s basketball team, women’s basketball team and women’s volleyball team all practice in the gym at the same time.
“You need earplugs in there,” said women’s volleyball coach Chris Catanach. “3-6 p.m. is all of our designated practice times. It was supposed to be the easiest time block for athletes to schedule their classes around.”
However, over the years, the University has added more afternoon and night classes to meet class demand, resulting in players missing practice for class.
“It can be critical to team cohesiveness,” Coach Catanach said. “If my center has to miss practice it’s like running an offense with no quarterback––everything goes through our center.”
The argument is that if athletes were given
priority registration, the school would be able to stagger team practices while allowing athletes to work their class schedule around practices.
“The system we’re in just doesn’t work,” said women’s basketball coach Tom Jessee. “If a player misses practice I have to ask myself ‘What do I teach this hour? Something that’s not important?’”
The noise in the gym can be especially frustrating for coaches when trying to teach and implement new plays. “I challenge any teacher or anyone who opposes [priority registration] to come to our practices and try to teach,” Coach Jessee said. “It’s simply too loud to teach.”
In basketball, the disadvantage runs deeper than just the noise. The 3-6 p.m. time block negates recruiting high school athletes as their games begin at 6 p.m.
When you take into account that schools across the nation allow student athlete priority registration, including six of the nine schools in the Sunshine State Conference, the question remains, “Why has it not been put into effect at UT?”
University Registrar and former UT student Michelle Pelaez explains that priority registration did exist at one point.
“Approximately 15 to 20 years ago, honors students, UT diplomats and athletes were all allowed priority registration,” Pelaez explained. “But it got to the point where there were more students in the priority registration group than not so it was scrapped.”
However, as the school has expanded greatly in recent years, the need for priority registration has returned, and as athletic director Marfise made his usual case this past fall for priority registration, it did not fall on those same deaf ears this time.
“It was discussed at the January meeting with the University Registration Task Force,” Pelaez said. “If all goes quickly and in favor of priority registration the earliest implementation would be seen in spring 2015.”
While this may be fantastic news for athletes and students who are part of the other chosen priority registration groups, it could be seen as a slap in the face to other students.
Senior marketing major Ricardo Sotomayor had his share of registration troubles during his
four years at UT.
“Last year, I heard about a good teacher
for a finance class. Registration time came and the class was full and I was stuck with a four-hour night class and a teacher who didn’t connect with me at all. I ended up with a C in the course,” Sotomayor said.
Ricardo’s story is not an uncommon one amongst UT students. When classes fill up quickly, it leaves some students either left out of a required class or forced to take it at an inconvenient time.
The negative sentiment increases with the thought that freshmen athletes could have priority registration over seniors. The athletic department has already found a solution for this.
“I call it ‘first in line’,” Coach Jessee said. “Freshmen athletes would only cut the line in front of other freshmen and likewise sophomore athletes would only cut in front of other sophomores, etc.”
While the “first in line” idea seems to quiet some concerns, it won’t solve all the students’ objections to athlete priority registration.
However, the fact remains that many schools have already adopted priority registration for athletes and other campus groups, and students have simply had to deal with it.
“I transferred here from Indiana State University,” Vivo said. “It was a school of about 11 thousand and we had priority registration there. [The students] and everyone just respected it.”
If the University decides to change its policy it will still have to respond to the other hard working students who will see it as unfair.
“I understand not all student athletes are going to be career athletes,” Sotomayor said. “Some are playing sports for the scholarship, but I’m an RA for the discounted housing. I understand I’ll have meetings and work duty on weekends. It’s something you just have to do. We all have our struggles.”
Nathan Krohn can be reached at nathan.krohn@spartans.ut.edu.