Written by Marshall Hughes
With the push for academic success among student-athletes, graduation rates are at an all-time high in college football. Harding especially is placing an emphasis on academics for its athletes.
In NCAA Division II football, theAcademic Success Rate Reportpublishes the percentage of all players who graduated from the colleges where they were playing. These players include those receiving financial support, transfers and players not receiving scholarship money.
“Athletics directors and presidents are routinely discussing academics – more so than ever before. At the ground level of academic reform on campuses, there has been monumental change,” said Walter Harrison, chair of the NCAA Committee on Academic Performance.
The number of Division II football players is more than 11,000 across the country. The Academic Success Rate reports the graduation rate of players during a six-year time period. The most recent report is for the graduation class of 2008. It has an ASR rate of 53 percent.
The Academic Success Rate for thefootball program at Harding Universityis 63 percent, which is well above the national average, and above the average of the other football programs in the Gulf South Conference in which Harding competes.
In fact, Harding had the second highest average in the conference, surpassed only by Delta State University’s 65 percent ASR. The school with the lowest ASR in the conference is the University of Arkansas at Monticello with an ASR of 26 percent.
“I try my best to stress to my team that the reason you come to college is to get a degree,” Harding head coach Ronnie Huckeba said.
Huckeba said his staff takes special steps to ensure that his athletes keep their minds on academic pursuits.
“Our coaching staff has set up mandatory study halls for freshmen and others who are having trouble. We also monitor our player’s class attendance daily,” Huckeba said.
Huckeba said position coaches keep up with their players’ grades, and those students who are struggling academically must check in with their coach each day that they went to class and study hall.
With so much emphasis on academic success and graduation rates by the NCAA, Huckeba said Harding’s football staff will continue to make academics one of their top priorities.
