Winter 2008 — Vol. 61, No. 1

Imagine you’re a freshman. You have a new campus to navigate, roommates to get along with, classes to find and so much academic work to keep up with.

Add to that at least four hours a day of hard-driving exercise, 10 hours a week of study hall, possible travel. And, on top of everything else, you have an 8 a.m. Friday class that you didn’t even sign up for!

That’s the life of a new student athlete.

“They pretty much have three plates spinning at once,” says Elizabeth “Ginty” Porter, life-skills coordinator at Vickery Hall, Clemson’s student-athlete enrichment center. “They’re students, athletes and individuals.”

“If they have problems in one area, it throws them off in the others.”

Clemson’s life-skills program is part of Vickery Hall’s overall support of its 550 student athletes. It parallels the Division 1A CHAMPS Program of Excellence for academics, athletics, personal growth and development, community outreach and careers.

Vickery Hall, funded by IPTAY, opened in 1991 as the first facility in the nation solely dedicated to student-athlete enrichment. Its programs have been widely recognized and emulated by other athletic departments across the country.

Porter has been with Vickery Hall since its inception. In fact, she was recently named Division 1A CHAMPS Administrator of the Year and recipient of The Dr. Gene Hooks Award in recognition of contributions to and success in student-athlete well-being.

“Colleges and universities make lots of promises to prospective student athletes and their parents,” she says. “At Clemson, we make good on our promises.”

Clemson’s life-skills programming for student athletes is based on the standard student development concept with an “athletic accent.”

In fact, students who are not in athletic programs can find similar services throughout campus. But Vickery Hall works better for student athletes because of their time constraints. “By having the programs together,” says Porter, “we’re a constant source of support and services in one physical location.”

Freshman athletes take a 10-week course their first semester — Fridays at 8 a.m. — that brings in experts on subjects of time management, athlete nutrition, sexual responsibility, alcohol education, stress management and mental toughness, career choices, banquet etiquette and other issues.

Upperclassmen continue to benefit from personal growth programs including monthly experts on topics such as financial management, gambling pitfalls and various legal concerns. They also have access to a sports psychologist, nutritionist and others schooled in student-athlete issues. They, too, have study halls and weekly meetings with a counselor.

Being a T.I.G.E.R.!

Practically all student athletes take part in community outreach. Coordinator Linda White helps them realize the special opportunity and, perhaps, obligation they have in using their status to help the communities around them.

Last year, more than 90 percent of the student-athlete population logged in 3,671 hours to community projects.

One particularly successful effort is a character outreach program for children — Be a T.I.G.E.R.! In fact, Clemson is the only Division 1A athletics program with its own character education initiative.

Student athletes teach positive traits — Teamwork, Integrity, Gratitude, Education and Respect — in age-appropriate lessons and methods for kindergarten through fifth-grade pupils. Last year they reached more than 5,000 children.

It includes assembly programs and personal appearances in area schools, newspapers for children written by student athletes and coaches, and an annual field day. Be a T.I.G.E.R.! launched a new email buddy program last year — T.I.G.E.R.! Talk — partnering with Clemson’s Eugene T. Moore School of Education and using the Digital Express Computer System. Totally administered by student athletes, the program already has more than 60 volunteers.

Teams also take on special initiatives. For example the rowing team’s Row for the Cure and volleyball’s Dig for the Cure raise money for breast cancer research. Student athletes also serve Collins Children’s home, St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital, churches and other nonprofit organizations.

And the Solid Orange Squad, a group of more than 100 student athletes, stands ready for various service requests from the community.

Making the grade

Clemson’s retention of student athletes is almost identical to the rest of the student body. The graduation rate is 71 percent compared to 75 percent of other students (2007 NCAA Division I Federal Graduation Rate Data). This difference is small when you consider that a number of student athletes are recruited by pro sports around their junior year. Many of them return later to finish their degrees but aren’t counted in the totals.

As for academic success, last spring semester, Clemson student athletes scored a 2.93 overall GPA, the highest on record. Two hundred and twenty-nine student athletes had a 3.0 or better, 116 were named to the Dean’s List (3.5-3.9), and 36 were named to the President’s List (4.0).

Eight programs had a GPA of 3.0 or better, tied for the most in one semester in school history. The women’s swimming program had the top team GPA with a 3.39, while men’s soccer had a 3.25 to lead the men’s programs. Rowing had a 3.30 team GPA, and 38 members had a 3.0 or better.

The football team had a 2.46 GPA, and 26 members had a 3.0 or better, including quarterbacks Cullen Harper, Mike Wade and Willy Korn. Wade made the President’s List.

Men’s basketball had a 2.63 team GPA; Cliff Hammonds made the Dean’s List as a double major in architecture and psychology. Women’s basketball had a 2.81; Carrie Whitehurst earned a 4.0 in her final semester.

Men’s swimming program had a 3.03. Volleyball had a 3.17 team GPA. Both soccer programs had at least a 3.25 GPA (women’s had a 3.31), a first in school history.

Women’s track and field had a team GPA of 3.1, its best on record; men’s had a 2.51. Women’s tennis posted a 3.20 GPA; men’s tennis had a 2.77. Golf had a 2.82. Baseball had a 2.78, and top pitcher, Daniel Moskos, had a 4.0.

Paying the bill

Vickery Hall is supported by IPTAY, the University’s athletic fund-raising organization. For more than seven decades, IPTAY has been the lifeblood of Tiger athletics, making Clemson a national power and providing a model of success for other educational systems.

Contributions from individual annual donors, new donors and Collegiate Club members as well as corporate donors help IPTAY fulfill its priorities, including Vickery Hall.

Administrators hope to extend life-skills programming to include additional expert speakers on issues that student athletes need to know, more workshops and presentations for making top impressions in the job market. And they want to develop more programming in leadership, ethics and sportsmanship.

“Student athletes make a huge investment in Clemson, and they go on to represent us in most every phase of their lives,” says Porter. “We want to return the favor. We want to prepare them for Clemson and beyond, ethically and with commitment and substance.”

For more on Vickery Hall or to learn how you can support life-skills programming for student athletes, go to www.clemsontigers.com and click on “academic support” or contact Bill D’Andrea at dandrea@clemson.edu or (864) 656-2956.