Wednesday, January 28, 2015 // The Statement
4B
Wednesday, January 28, 2015 // The Statement 
5B

K

evin Bain stared down at the blank 
slate below him. With water dripping 
down his face, the diver concentrated, 
took a deep breath to clear his mind, then 
pushed forward.
Then a freshman, Bain was on the road 
competing for the Michigan men’s swim and 
dive team, but his work for the Wolverines 
that day was done. Mere moments after twist-
ing, contorting and testing his body in the 
pool, Bain had to take a different kind of test: 
the pencil-and-paper type much more familiar 
to University students.
“It’s always a balancing act,” said Bain, now 
a senior studying Business and Comparative 
Literature. “We may have to meet with pro-
fessors or group projects at odd hours, take 
exams on the road, just find different ways to 
make it work.
“I remember coming in as a freshman and 
mapping out my schedule, and it wouldn’t 
all fit,” he said. “It’s kind of a tug-of-war, and 
sometimes you have to make sacrifices, it 
works out, but it’s always a battle.”
Such is life for many of the 934 student-
athletes at Michigan. The unique dynamic of 
being among the nation’s best academically 
and athletically means those that balancing 
the two worlds is key. It’s rarely easy, fair, or 
fun, but the University ensures that athletes 
are given the opportunity to make it work.
***
Josh Bartelstein chuckles when thinking 
back on his senior year. As a captain of the 
2012-13 men’s basketball team, Bartelstein 
helped guide his team to its first Final Four 
and National Championship appearances in 
20 years.
But, as a teaching assistant and senior in 
Sport Management at the time, he remembers 
not having quite the same success in the class-
room.
“I think I went to four classes a week for 
that month,” Bartelstein said. “We were lucky 
to have chartered flights, or it could’ve been 
less. We were doing pretty much everything 
on the road. We always had our books, tutors, 
advisors — it was crazy really.”
The team was also lucky to have John 
Beilein at the helm. Taking over the program 
in 2007 — a program that hadn’t advanced to 
the NCAA Tournament since 1998 — the coach 
knew his team needed work ethic more than 
talent to survive at Michigan.
“They don’t always just recruit the best 
kids. They recruit kids that fit our culture and 

can do what we do academically,” Bartelstein 
said. “They need to be intelligent kids who are 
ready to work hard, otherwise they’ll have to 
go elsewhere.
“For some guys, it’s hard. It’s hard to write 
a 10-page paper as a sophomore knowing that, 
a year from now, you’ll make a million and a 
half dollars playing in the NBA. That’s where 
you see coach and his values kick in, because 
to him, it’s not really an option. You might hear 
guys complain. But it’s not either-or, it’s part of 
the whole package when you come here.”
That package deal translates to other sports. 
For Michigan hockey coach Red Berenson, it 
presents decisions that no coach likes to make.
With nine National Championships and 35 
NCAA Tournament appearances, the Wol-
verines draw interest from North America’s 
most talented hockey players. But to make it at 
Michigan, Berenson expects more.
“I’ve told kids, great hockey players, if you’re 
not interested in school, don’t come to Michi-
gan,” Berenson said. “I’m going to make your 
life miserable, and you’re going to make my 
life miserable, because that’s not what we’re 
doing here. If you’re coming here, you need to 
be hungry for an education and to become the 
best player you can, that’s what it’s all about.
“I’ll take hockey away from you in a heart-
beat if you aren’t doing what you’re supposed 
to do in school.”
***
Berenson can demand the hunger, because 
he had it too. Long before he knew he would 
spend 17 years in the NHL or 35 years as a 
coach, he was lacing it up for Michigan on the 
ice and in the classroom.
A business student with an unknown hock-
ey career ahead, Berenson didn’t dare distract 
himself. Even a seemingly small distraction 
like a TV in his room could hurt him.
“We were more on our own,” Berenson said. 
“We didn’t have the tutors, study tables, men-
tors. You were on your own, and don’t screw 
it up. Now, you’ve got more structure, you’ve 
got people around to keep an eye on you who 
know what your grades are, tutors available. 
It’s more structured for the student-athletes 
to succeed.”
This structure is good, Berenson said, given 
the increased demands on athletes. With 
national media attention, millions of dollars 
in funding, and thousands of fans attending 
games, Berenson knows that his players face 
greater pressure than he ever did
“There’s more demand on the student-ath-

letes today,” he said. “The season’s longer, the 
workout schedule is more difficult than ours 
was — you really have to balance your time and 
manage things well.”
Even with the resources available, that’s no 
small task. Business sophomore JT Compher, 
a forward, alternate captain on the hockey 
team and a second-round pick in the 2013 
NHL Draft, finds that with games just about 
every weekend, he is rarely available to partic-
ipate in group projects, a tough pill to swallow.
“The biggest challenge is my time con-
straints and meeting with groups,” Compher 
said. “Sometimes, I might not be able to meet 
with a group, but I make myself available to get 
the rundown and do whatever I can to help. 
It’s basically just managing my time when I’m 
not at the rink.”
But not all athletes experience the same aca-
demic workload. According to a 2008 report 
by the Ann Arbor News, athletes accounted 
for about half of the students enrolled in the 
University’s general studies program which 
offers potentially lighter workloads and flex-
ible requirements.
Bain said this stems from NCAA rules about 
declaring majors and progressing toward 
degrees efficiently. These rules, designed to 
ensure no one gets left behind, sometimes 
backfire, pushing athletes to general studies, 
Sport Management or other programs seem-
ingly tailored to their unique needs as stu-
dents.
“By the end of our junior year, we need to 
have 60 percent of our major finished,” he said. 
“If we try to switch majors and we don’t have 
the requirements for that major, we’re ineli-
gible. Athletes don’t really get the option to 
switch or change majors, so we may end up in 
majors that simply fit what we have.”
Bartelstein has seen this incidental funnel-
ing firsthand. While former teammates such 
as Zack Novak, Matt Vogrich and Jordan Mor-
gan sought degrees in business and engineer-
ing, many other teammates were steered away 
from such disciplines, even if indirectly.
“You have to know what you’re signing up 
for,” Bartelstein said. “If you want to do busi-
ness or engineering, no one will say no to you, 
but you have to understand the time commit-
ment and degree of difficulty certain classes 
present.
“You hear people at the academic center say 
things like ‘take this class’ or ‘stay away from 
this professor,’ but it’s not a forced decision. 
They want to make sure student-athletes are 

setting themselves up for success.”
That’s not to say it can’t happen, however. 
Bartelstein also saw his team, even in its rise 
to national prominence, make adjustments for 
players’ academic commitments.
“They’re probably happy they did it now, 
but there were times that they’d be missing 
sleep the night before a game or taking tests 
on the road,” he said regarding his teammates 
pursuing less flexible degrees. “There were 
times for a lot of guys where they were told 
‘I’m not sure you can do this, but if you want to 
put in the effort, we’ll make it work.’ So maybe 
guys miss practices or we work our schedule 
around exams, but Coach Beilein always made 
sure that academics were a priority, and we 
catered to that the best we could.”
Still, the numbers indicate Novak and the 
like are a minority group. More athletes major 
in Sport Management and general studies 
than any other majors, despite the fact that 
these programs may present less clear paths 
to jobs after college. This is in stark contrast 
to Berenson’s playing days, but the coach is 
learning that with the right mindset, any of his 
players can still find success.
“I think it’s fine, but I’d like them to pick a 
major and then go for it,” Berenson said. “A lot 
of them haven’t thought about it. They aren’t 
sure what they want to do, and my take is if 
(general studies) is what you want to do, then 
make sure you do well so you can go to gradu-
ate school once you’re done.”
***
The type-casting expands beyond majors. 
Just about every Michigan student knows 
the ‘athlete look.’ There’s the green Gatorade 
water bottle, the blue parkas and the matching 
Adidas backpacks. And there’s the tired, quiet 
expression, often accompanied with head-
phones and a spot toward the back of the class.
Regardless of their personal academic suc-
cesses, athletes can struggle to shake the ste-
reotypes associated with seemingly ‘easy’ 
majors, time away from class and cultural 
norms surrounding athletics.
Throw in the fact that Michigan athletes 
have a $12-million academic facility other 
students can’t use, along with free tutors and 
personal advisors, and the divide between ath-
letes and regular students is wider than ever.
“There’s definitely that stereotype,” Bartel-
stein said. “And some people at Michigan fit 
the mold, but I think too much is made of it.
“I know with our team we had academic 
conversations all the time, it wasn’t just go to 

class and then leave. Our classes were a huge 
part of our lives. We spent more time in classes 
and studying than we did anything basketball-
related.”
Bartelstein feels that the stereotype is truer 
for Michigan’s revenue sports: football, bas-
ketball and hockey. But Bain, who was recently 
nominated to be a Rhodes Scholar and serves 
as a member of the Student-Athlete Advisory 
Committee, sees it discourage smaller-sport 
athletes as well.
“People assume when I show up to class that 
I’m just at Michigan for athletics, not academ-
ics,” Bain says. “It sucks that they’re already 
judging us when they don’t know us, and kind 
of missing out on the interesting people that 
we might be.
“A lot of athletes don’t always wear their 
varsity jackets, because we just don’t want to 
deal with the stigma. It’d be great if we didn’t 
have to worry about teachers or students judg-
ing us before they met us.”
***
As a former student-athlete, Kinesiology 
Prof. Rebecca Hasson said she doesn’t try to 
treat student-athletes any differently than 
other students, but that the key to success 
when teaching students is communication.
“The athletes aren’t any more busy than any 
of the other students,” Hasson said. “Because 
the communication lines are open, we will try 
to work with one another’s schedules as much 
as possible. We make certain that if a student 
is doing poorly, we address it early on. Their 
grades are submitted to the Athletic Depart-
ment as well as to our offices, so they need to 
go to student services or come to office hours 
immediately.”
Hasson tries to be sensitive to the unique 
issues that arise for student-athletes, like 
high-pressure times around championships 
where a student could be missing weeks of 
classes, but she believes student-athletes have 
more to offer than just their athletic perspec-
tive.
“For the student-athletes, that is just one 
identity they hold,” Hasson said. “The student-
athletes are probably a little more outspoken, 
because they have those leadership skills on 
the court and can bring that to class.”
“If you just treat the student not as a stu-
dent-athlete, but as a student who just has very 
limited time but is as valuable to the class as 
any other student, that will make for the best 
learning environment.”
Hasson said she has seen more issues in 

younger student-athletes as they transition to 
college life.
“At the younger ages — and for all students, 
really — there is a lot of pressure and you are 
tired on top of everything, and it’s hard. As 
the students transition, they become great at 
time management, though. They work well 
in teams, and so I guess I come to athletes’ 
defense a little.”
“The stakes are higher here, but I think that 
in my experience, it’s not that the professors 
have to make special accommodations, but you 
just have to accept that you have to be willing 
to let a student miss class because that is the 
next step in their career. “
***
Jay Basten, a Sport Management professor, 
said each student-athlete is unique and has 
a different set of priorities, but overall their 
presence and participation in his classes, espe-
cially those that touch on college level sports, 
has added to the learning experience in the 
classroom.
“It’s great having student-athletes in those 
particular discussions, because it gives the 
non-athlete students some real insights into 
the challenging they face.” Basten said. “For 
me, I’ve been here for 15 years teaching in the 
program, and overall it has been very positive 
having them in the class. They are an impres-
sive group of students, but they do have some 
distinctive challenges.”
These challenges, Basten said, are dealing 
with limited time and balancing their other 
time commitments on the field or on the court. 
Addressing these issues as a professor is a bal-
ancing act as well. While Basten said he obvi-
ously must find alternative ways to ensure 
student-athletes are receiving and under-
standing the material in class, he also does not 
support making special concessions or differ-
ent standards for student-athletes.
“When student-athletes do have issues 
as far as conflicts, ultimately we believe that 
our classes are as important as their practice 
times,” Basten said. “I encourage them to come 
to office hours, but I particularly stress that 
they should come if they are missing classes, 
but I don’t really do anything proactive for any 
student, because I believe they need to be able 
to take responsibility for themselves.”

By Zach Shaw, Daily Sports Writer and Emma Kerr, Daily News Editor

Graduating from the Gridiron: 
How athletes achieve success in an academic environment

Read the rest of this article online at
MichiganDaily.com

