Collegiate GPA's Effected By Baseball?

Nice topic.

I dont think son would have done as well as he did without baseball, though he didnt major in one of the more difficult majors offered and being in the program he was in at an ACC school with high expectations year after year to get to Omaha was not an easy task in itself. Kudos to Jack Leggett who didnt accept any excuse for missing a class and demanding his team keep a combined GPA of 3.O or higher.

D1 programs usually have mandatory study hall 5 days a week 2 hours per day. I wish I had that when I first started school.  

Of course playing sports in college while taking 15-18 credits per semester to stay on graduation target isnt for everyone.  Time management and organizational skills are needed as well as a mature attitude to know that you are there to go to school first and play sports second and everything else pretty much doesnt matter.

Out of the fear of the unknown my daughter (college softball) studied like crazy in any free time and got a 4.0 her first semester. She was in the top 10% of her class in high school. Once she understood how college and finals worked she relaxed. She still studied hard. She graduated PBK. My daughter entered law school with the same fear of the unknown. She has a 4.0 through two years.

My son was recruited late for the following year due to injury. He still did all the physical and baseball training the team did. On the side he experienced everything there was to do about college except studying hard. He got a 2.5 the first semester. He was top 3% of his class in high school. I told him if he didn't get a 3.5 the second semester he was coming home. He needed a 3.0 for the year to maintain his 50% academic ride. He did it. He graduated with a 3.5. He's now getting his MBA with a year of eligibility remaining.

Son is at a "public ivy" D1.  Mid-size college.

He figured it out, and the mandatory study hall for freshmen helped, I guess.  I think he is on par as to how he did in high school.  No pressure from us with grades....he knows he has to stay eligible to stay in school, and play ball, which is great motivation. 

Note:  his gf transferred to his school this year.  We will see how the grades fare out.   She is a smart gal, so maybe this will help with the studying?  bwahahaha

There are three things athletes can do in college: social, sport, and academics. Doing two out of three well is about all a parent can expect.

S and D attend(Ed) the same very selective academic college (D1). There are no athletic scholarships in the conference (though FA is fabulous). Both were very powerful HS students with matching test scores. Both knew how to study; S was motivated to keep parents off his back while D was totally self-motivated. S was a baseball recruit; D does a sport which is classified as an emerging sport.

In D's sport, the conference has some schools which are NCAA in the sport while the other half of the conference treats it as a club sport. There is, however, a conference championship in which all teams compete as equals. S achieved conference recognition in his last year; D was the runner up in her first year and conference champion in her second.

Baseball was essentially a full time job (ranging from 20-30 hours in the off season to 60 in season). The other sport required about 10-15 hours per week (including conditioning).

Both matriculated thinking Chemical Engineering. S's Chem Eng ended before the first day of class; he was warned off by older members of his team. D is a Chem Eng (who will never be a practicing engineer). D has a 3.5+ and essentially lives in the library; I'd say she works on academics eight hours a day, seven days a week. She can do that as well as her sport; no way S could have done that.

S's class had eight players. Four years later seven graduated (the other signed after his junior year and graduated the following year). When those eight matriculated, several dreamt of medical school, a couple were engineers, two were looking at history and one Economics. At the end, two were history majors, one a science major, one poli sci, and the rest Econ majors. Three are playing proball, one went to medical school (the true walk on). All the rest (including the two who went pro after senior year) had well paying extremely selective jobs lined up before the end of their first semester senior year. Two graduated with academic honors; the rest graduated - the job market did not distinguish those with honors from those without.

Did the baseball time commitment effect GPA; you bet it did. Did baseball effect the choice of majors; you bet it did. Did baseball adversely effect their career paths? While too early to make any definitive pronouncement, all the players are in a position where they are the masters of their respective futures.

S graduated dead middle of his class with an Econ major. He had multiple job offers of which he was satisfied. Having played helped his ability to figure out what type of job he wanted (e.g., team oriented) and really helped during interviews, but the time commitment meant he spent less time in his studies then his sister. At one point (sophomore year) we dropped the hammer and told him if he produced a single semester below 3.0 he was back home or out of baseball. He kept his GPA over the minimum - probably by manipulating his electives towards the easy part of the spectrum. He played baseball the first and second summers, but when it became apparent to him that his career was not developing along the pro trajectory, he found a summer job in the third summer. It juiced his resume mightily.

As I said in the first paragraph, academics, sport, and social, pick two out of three. So, S had a robust social life - it began with a core of baseball players, rapidly expanded to other athletes, and then expanded to include the most diverse group of people imaginable (he came from a fairly insulated background). His school does not house athletes together, but you can choose roommates in the second year. He never roomed with athletes, but most of his teammates did. He joined what most consider to be a social club analogous to a frat and loved it.

From a parent's perspective, baseball in college is what made him what he is today. Yes, it wasn't the first choice major (as is true with most college kids); yes, he didn't and couldn't study as much as his sister and hence didn't quite make the same grades (in an easier major), yes, he gave up a lot to play; but the pluses far, far outweighed any minuses.

College baseball is the only reason my brother has a college degree.  Without the motivation of playing baseball he more than likely would have never entertained college.   

High Academic D1 program......I think baseball was helpful.....taught him how to manage time and set priorities.....skills that have carried him well in first year out of school in his career

Realistically, this is more in line with what I hope my son gets out of baseball. 

SG,

Good question.  I wish I had metrics to back up the statement I'm about to make but I don't because it is all observation and heresay.  Sure, I think there was a trade-off.  But everything is relative and I think it has more to do with how our son's view learning and their passion for their college major.

Son graduated with a more than acceptable GPA in a tough major.  He had a job lined up February of senior year and had his choice of international employers.  Without baseball, he probably could have done marginally better especially in season on the weekends.  But, he learned early on to manage and take tougher courses in the Fall.  I don't think not playing baseball would have changed his GPA or employment opportunities or outcome tremendously.  In his major, you have to do the work or your out because everything was graded on a curve.  He found the time to do the work by taking away from his social life (to Goosegg's point) and just plain getting it done. 

I totally agree with dad43 that baseball was helpful in managing time and setting priorities.  Organization and time mgt was a major concern of mine before he left for college.  Organization and time management ended up being one of his strengths and continues to be in his adult life.  Prior to college, he never had to manage his time.  In my own personal experience, I played a college sport for 4 years about 30 years ago.   The sport was my release from academics and I loved it.  Like my son, I don't think I would have done much better GPA wise without the sport.  So, what it boils down to is what kind of student are you?  Are you self motivated and enjoy learning or is learning something that doesn't come easy and you have to work hard at it..  Anyway that is the conclusion I've come to.

As always, just my opinion. 

My gut sense is that:

a) The structure and support associated with playing on a team with supervision and accountability increases the likelihood of maintaining respectable academic performance and staying on track to graduate;

b) The time commitment and travel reduce the likelihood of players'  achieving significant academic distinction, especially in difficult majors, or establishing themselves as leaders in areas on campus other than sports; 

c) The disruptions caused by baseball-related transfers seriously affect the academic goals for a significant minority of baseball players.

I agree with Swamp and Fenway regarding grades and time associated with baseball taking away from academics. Mine probably would have had a slightly higher GPA, but frankly the difference would have been minor in the long run.

The major impact for baseball players IMO is if they play summer ball or go on an internship. Mine played one year of college league ball and two years of reduced schedule (weekends only) summer ball and worked and had internship. Both of those years made a HUGE difference in him getting either job offers or in his case a getting into a very selective grad school. Without those two working summers his prospects would have been very different. My advice would be if you are a high draft prospect go play summer ball at the highest level, and if not get a summer internship and if you can find a reduced commitment summer ball league.