Three Hawks declared ineligible due to academics
Posted on 29. Mar, 2007 by Archivist in Sports
Michael Clegg
Sports Reporter
Three athletes have been deemed ineligible to participate by the athletic department due to poor academic standing – one from the men’s volleyball team and two from the men’s basketball team.
“We normally lose five or six athletes and it’s really not a predictable thing as to which sport,” said Doug Fox, Humber’s athletic director. “It’s one of the reasons we didn’t win this year. We work hard at keeping them academically eligible because you can’t win if you lose players due to academics.”
When a player is deemed academically ineligible he or she is allowed to continue to practice but is banned from playing in games.
“In the case of the basketball players we chose not to have them practice,” Fox said. “We would rather them concentrate on their school so we removed them from the team.”
Humber athletes are held to standards set by the OCAA regarding academic eligibility.
All athletes must pass a minimum of 18 credits in their first year at Humber and follow it up with nine credits in each semester after that.
“It’s not a high standard by any means,” Fox said. “The intent is that you are progressing towards graduation, but we certainly ask the players to achieve more than that. We try and keep up with it, our one basketball player was doing fine at midterms and he was doing fine headed into exams, then he just bombed all his exams and there you go.”
Ineligible players must uphold the OCAA standard in academics for one full semester before being reinstated.
In light of the low academic standards set for athletes by the OCAA the athletic department plans to unveil a new directive called “Building Champions,” a program focusing on developing students as athletes and scholars.
“We really felt we needed to update our mission and our vision longterm of being the best,” Fox said. “That’s going to be our theme, building champions, because that is what we want to do with our athletes.
We want to make sure they are really productive citizens when they leave here and have success here while they are playing.”
Academic success is going to be a focal point for the athletic department in the recruitment process for next year.
“At some schools, a pass is a 50, whereas at Humber a pass is a 60,” said facilities manager and assistant women’s volleyball coach Dean Wylie.
“So if you want to be dumb in the classroom, you can go to another school. If they’re smart in the classroom, they’re smart on the court – it’s a very transferable skill.”
While the program will not change the academic standards set for the athletes, it will formally establish academic success as the directive for all goals of the athletic department.
“Athletics should be secondary and for many it’s the reason they continue,” Fox said. “We are a motivational factor for a lot them to pass. A lot of people may never have continued after high school if they didn’t have this opportunity to play sports and combine academics.”
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