From the time a student-athlete steps on campus, they face expectations.
However, there are other expectations that sometimes go unnoticed by fans, like the expectation to succeed beyond the world of athletics. At The University of Alabama, that is where the Bill Battle Center for Athletic Student Services comes in.
With the help of 10 full-time employees and 90 part-time employees, the center’s goal is to help student-athletes succeed in their post-athletic career. Through tutoring, practicing mock interviews and helping build resumes, the center is one of the driving forces for success after college. Jon Denver, associate athletics director for the center, said the center’s main goal was to have every athlete graduate.
“Graduate every one of them would be the top goal,” Denver said. “And get a job when they leave here, that would be the ultimate goal, but we’re at a level now where we’re trying to maintain the high level of academic achievement that we’ve done here in the last year. Thirteen Academic All-Americans, 3.2 [GPA] combined cumulative average for all our student-athletes, graduation rates are extremely high right now so we’re at a place right now where we’re looking not to go backwards. We want to keep going forward.”
Denver said one of the main reasons for an athlete’s success at the University was largely due to their coaches who stay on top of them throughout their time in school.
“Well, essentially it starts with the head coach,” Denver said. “The coaches look at a lot of things when they recruit student-athletes. They look at their academic credentials. Most of the student-athletes that come here are very motivated students. They all have done really well up to this point, and they have also been pretty dedicated to their sport.
“So it starts with the coaches and what they recruit and then once they’re here in our freshman program, we continually work with them on all the benefits of staying in touch with us. If they don’t and their grades start to slip, then we have a program that we bring them back in to study our mandatory program until they improve their grades and that kind of thing. So we keep them in the loop fairly well. Our department probably sees the student athletes more often than probably anybody else, other than their coaches. We’re around them quite a bit, and they rely on us for information. I think they buy into our system fairly well.”
Another part of the center, opening in the future, is the career center that is going to play an integral part for the incoming athletes. Though it’ll be available for all athletes, freshman and transfer students alike will have hands on practice from the beginning that will be built upon community service and extracurricular activities to create a balanced resume ideal for future employers.
