Mixing grades and sports: The Michigan Daily-Saturday, April 17, 1982-Page 5 A delicate balance (Continued from Page 1) That is, until he was injured in the inal spring practice at the end of his freshman year. "The last thing on my mind was geting hurt," he said. IT WAS then that Paris realized an athletic career can be cut short by the turn of an ankle or the twist of a knee. This revelation told him to "hit the books," he said,, adding that some athletes never understand how impor- tint those books are. "People are going to be people," Paris said, explaining that athletes, as other students, don't always take ad- vantage of their educational oppor- tunities. ACCORDING to basketball star Dietz, the temptation of professional athletics can distract students from a different - and sometimes more realistic - career goal in academics. Dietz said she has friends on various teams who believe, although they won't publicly admit it, that they have a chance at making it in the professional ranks. Women athletes, she said, rarely' have that possibility hanging over their heads because there are so few professional sports for women. But Dietz said this fact doesn't mean com- bining college athletics and academics is any easier for women than men. "IT'S ALL UP to the individual," she said. "The spectrum goes from someone who is just playing sports and just getting by (academically), to people who would skip practice for an exam." For those athletes who are "just get- ting by," the University's Department of Intercollegiate Athletics provides ex- tra support. TUTORIAL services, financed by donations from the M-Club, a group of former University letter winners, are offered to any athlete who is having academic troubles and wants the help, said George Hoey, an academic coun- selor in the athletic department. The tutoring service is free, and works in conjuction with the counselors of the school or college in which the athlete is enrolled. Freshmen football and basketball players usually receive the most tutorial help, because their sports require two terms of participation, said Hoey. Schembechler said as long as he "preaches the gospel" of academics first, and football second, the depar- tment is going to make sure the student athletes get degrees. And one of those assurances is an academic support system. "A GUY CAN'T play good football if he's battling academics all the time," Schembechler said, in explaining the need for the tutorial service. Some athletes use the support provided by the department and some don't. Hoey estimated that of the 400 to 500 athletes at the University, 25 per- cent receive tutorial assistance of some sort. And what all that support is building toward is a Univerity of Michigan degree. To get that degree and remain eligible for intercollegiate participation athletes must maintain a minimum number of credit hours: 24 credit hours after the first year; 51 after the second year; 78 after the third year; and 105 af- ter the fourth year (in an athlete decides to remain in college five years to get an extra year of eligibility.) ATHLETES also must maintain a 2.0 University grade point average or face review by an academic performance committee. Schembechler said that while there was always an occasional easy course for an athlete, the opposite occurs, too. Some faculty members, he said, are prejudiced against student athletes. "Some people don't like football. They don't like the notoriety of it, they don't like the publicity of it. They're jealous of it," Schembechler said. BUT, BY all reports, Schembechler manages to see that most of his athletes get degrees. All seniors on the 1980-81 football team graduated, according to Wolverine Recruiting Coordinator Fritz Seyferth. That figure, of course, does not take into account all the football players who may never have reached senior status. Those who dropped out of the program, or the University, never make it into the calculation. In 1980, the University as a whole graduated 46 percent of all freshper- sons it enrolled in 1976. Schembechler puts his graduation rate at 82 percent. Says University President Harold Shapiro: "The greater concern to zme is what students are on the way out, not the way in." This article is the series. last in a four-part Profs aid weapon work, Air Force says (Continued from Page 1) one application of his work could be to reduce radar visibility, he added that he knows nothing about Stealth technology and that he could not even conceive of an "invisible" airplane ever being built. "I'd hate to think that I was contributing to that," Senior said. Robert Buchal, Senior's program manager at the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, said he sees almost no connection between Senior's work and Stealth technology. "We're looking at numerical information at a very elementary level. Maybe 20 years down the pike it might do some good," Buchal said. "This is mathematics work. When you're doing this, you're coming up with theorems and the like. Half the time, you don't get anything," he said. "I wish it (could be used sooner), but that doesn't happen in real life." .SENIOR SAID in an interview earlier this year that the Air Force often in- cludes weapons applicability in its statements on research just to please Congress, which demands such infor- mation to justify appropriations. The Air F'orce also finances research by the engineering college's dean, James Duderstadt, to help the military understand "to what degree different kinds of (laser or particle) beams could be used in space for weapons systems," Fujii said. "One of these days the Air Force is going to be assigned a mission in space . . and we'll be able to minimize our problems for that task" by having already completed work on the fun- damentals of lasers in space, Fujii said. LAST WEEK, the General Accoun- ting Office urged the Defense Depar- tment to speed development of a "con- stellation of laser battle stations in space" to defend against a Soviet ballistic missile attack. The Air Force's objectives in spon- soring Duderstadt's work is specifically directed at the weapons objectives, said Stan Dickinson, a spokesman for Fujii's office. "It may turn out that the work will contribute to a super com- munications system (or other civilian application) but we're not looking into the future for such spin-offs," Dickin- son said. Duderstadt said, however, that his work and that of Engineering Prof. Rudi Ong is strictly in the fundamental area of plasma physics. "There's no particular weapons system that I'm aware of," Duderstadt said. DUDERSTADT said that his work "could apply equally well" to many other uses, including new energy sour- ces and the cutting of metals with lasers. Referring to his work's military potential, Duderstadt said, "My suspicion is that people are very skep- tical about whether (a laser weapon) would ever work, but suppose the Soviet Union is way ahead of us on that ... the Air Force wants to keep uR. "The Department of Defense wants to make certain (such a system) will work . . . that may be one of the reasons why they sponsor research like this. But we're never privy to that infor- mation," Duderstadt said. THE AIR FORCE said that other University researchers contribute to "rocket and air breathing propulsion concepts," which would include anything from missiles, to jet engines, to satellites. Engineering Profs. James Nicholls' and James Driscoll's work on ignition, combustion, and detonation, also will be used to understand detonations in unconfined fuel-air explosions, which involves any fuel mixture that has the potential to explode, Nicholls said. Nicholls said his investigations into the fundamentals of detonation "could be used on many, many things, from hazards to, possibly, weaponry." But he defended his work as being like any other work in the technical fields. CRITICS OF defense research "don't understand that if you come up with a better computer program, you can eventually use that for a weapon, too," Nicholls said. In a report published yesterday, Michigan Student Assembly researcher Bret Eynon said that a classified research proposal submitted and later withdrawn by Senior was intended "to examine.. . U.S.'cruise missiles to see if they were detectable (by radar)." Senior said in. an earlier interview. that the proposal did involve the cruise, missile, but he would not say what the purpose of the project was. The Classified Research Panel, which reviews all classified proposals, questioned the propriety of the project, and Senior withdrew the proposal. "TO ME THAT review panel served its purpose," Senior said. "I was aware it was close (to being in violation of University policy)." Eynon's report is a revised version of one which he submitted to MSA in January. The report was published in a pamphlet prepared by the Committee for Non-Violent Research entitled "Going for Broke:' The University and the Military-Industrial Complex." The faculty Senate Assembly will discuss the issue of Pentagon-spon- sored research at the University on Monday at its monthly meeting. More than 150 faculty members signed a statement this week that called for more stringent review of military research. ROII -9 1L 1LeR LOVER D LAo- ^ i 1 . "Cramming pays off"