After a recent report placed several Ball State University sports among the country's highest academic performers, Director of Intercollegiate Athletics Tom Collins said the athletics department takes academics seriously,
"I think we did an outstanding job academically," Collins said. "That's a credit to the coaches who recruit student athletes in the true sense of the word."
Six of Ball State's 17 sports were in the top 80 percentile of the Academic Progress Rate's Public Report, which was released April 30th.
In contrast, four sports were in the bottom 50 percentile compared to all Division I athletic teams. Only the women's volleyball team was in the bottom 50 percentile within its own sport.
The men's tennis team received a perfect score of 1000 points on its APR. It was the only Ball State team to earn 100 percent of its possible points.
Tennis coach Bill Richards said his team had an advantage because its 10-man roster makes it one of the smaller clubs in the Ball State athletic department.
"Being a low-numbered sport definitely helps us," Richards said. "The APR is not reflective of the team's GPA. It's players graduating, staying for all four years and being academically eligible. We've been fortunate enough to have that."
The women's basketball team, which had the highest winning percentage of any team with a 24-6 single-season record, earned 98.7 percent of its possible points. The Cardinals' score of 987 was the highest out of the 10 women's basketball programs in the state of Indiana.
Women's basketball coach Tracy Roller, who just signed a new four-year contract, said her responsibility to graduate players is just as important as what happens on the basketball court.
"Obviously Ball State coaches need to win games," Roller said. "But that's secondary to getting kids to graduate and get a good degree for the real world."
Good performance in the classroom begins in the recruiting process, Roller said. While out on the trail, coaches look for targets who have potential in the classroom as well as on the playing field.
"You have to recruit the best players who fit your program in both the classroom and in the sport," Roller said. "It's tough for a kid to come to college as a student athlete and deal with all the traveling they have to do and still get their work done in class. It's just the type of kid you have that makes it work. Everybody makes mistakes, so it's important recruit players who are going to work hard at what they do."
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