Students react to bonuses

By Angelita Caudillo
The Collegian

Incentives for meeting certain goals are often outlined in coaches’ contracts, such as former Fresno State women’s basketball coach Stacy Johnson-Klein’s, and can encourage coaches to create programs such as the Academic Gameplan, used by the football team, so student-athletes can succeed.

Programs like the Academic Gameplan can help raise a team’s collective GPA: the Fresno State football team has raised its GPA from 2.2 to 2.7 over the past eight years.

By meeting certain goals in their contracts, some coaches receive bonuses. Johnson-Klein had some of these outlined in her contract.

For a team GPA of at least 2.0 Johnson-Klein would receive $5,000, for a GPA of at least 2.6 she got $10,000 and for a GPA of at least 3.5 she would get $20,000.

Team graduation rate can also affect how much extra a coach earns. Johnson-Klein would receive $5,000 for a graduation rate of at least 45 percent, $15,000 for a graduation rate of 61 percent and with an 80 percent graduation rate she’d get $20,000.

Some students question whether these incentives will hurt or help the student body and athletes.

Senior child development major Cambria Avediakian said coaches should want their players to do well academically without monetary compensation.

“It should be motivation enough to want to have their best athletes participate,” Avediakian said.

Junior social work major Susana Escobara said she saw the incentives as a good and bad thing.

“It’s good because it reflects on their (coaches’) job,” Escobara said. “If it comes out of students fees then it’s not fair.”

According to academicgameplan.com, the football team now has more than 34 players with semester GPAs over 3.0. Since Hill and Baxter put the Academic Gameplan into place the team’s graduation rate has doubled and has produced 65 Academic All-WAC football players. In previous years before Hill and Baxter arrived, the football program had the worst graduation rate in the country.

In a recent Academic Progress Rate (APR) report released by NCAA, Fresno State’s APR was 18 points higher than the national average of 921. It also ranked best among the 2005 WAC institutions.

Students said athletes should get the support and help they need from a coach to become successful but without the incentives.

“It’s positive if it’s helping them (athletes) but they (coaches) should already want to help,” freshman liberal studies major Camion Dunnicliff said.

A coach giving his time to help athletes obtain organizational skills and study techniques is essential to not only have an effective athletic team, but to help them succeed in life, students said. The only objection by students was the university should offer the Academic Gameplan to everyone.

“It’s kind of unfair they’re getting the extra help, but if students wanted the help they would find it,” Dunnicliff said.

Avedikian agreed: “It’s great to have an Academic Gameplan, but it should be a part of the university.”

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