UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA WILMINGTON
Fall 2013 Athletic Review
Purpose:
On an annual basis, all campuses will review the course grade-point averages calculated for student-athletes
and other student subgroups versus nonstudent-athletes and other identified subgroups. A summary of
student-athlete comparisons will be included in the required Board of Governors’ Intercollegiate Athletics
Report, beginning in 2014.
In addition, campuses will develop a common threshold or definition of clustering by student-athletes or
other student subgroups that will trigger an automatic review of flagged courses to determine whether there
were any irregularities in the reasons clustering occurred. (December 2013)
Finding:
Athletes accounted for 2.89% of the undergraduate student headcount in fall 2013. Therefore, as I reviewed
the results of our reports, I looked for anomalies where significantly more than these percentages of each were
athletes. I did not find anything that hinted of special treatment for athletes. I looked at major, instructor,
course, coaches as instructor, and prior term grading distributions. The only data points of concern were the
four coaches teaching athletes, who are also in their respective sport. Even so, this is not significant enough to
warrant immediate attention, only careful monitoring in future terms.
Major Distribution (% Athlete)
You might expect athletes to gravitate towards declaring particular majors. I did not find that to be the case
this fall. Some majors you would expect to attract athletes, but there are some majors identified that do not fit
this profile. Here are the declared majors with proportionally high percentages of athletes:
Non-Athletes
UC-Statistics
UC-Physical Education
UC-Physics
UC-Pre Physical Therapy
UC-Finance
UC-Athletic Training
UC-Special Education
UC-International Business
Exercise Science
Community Hlth Education
UC-Accountancy
Parks & Recreation Management
Geoscience
UC-Chemistry
UC-Anthropology
UC-Exercise Science
UC-Biology
UC-Middle Grades Ed
UC-Entrepreneurship & Bus Dev
Athletes
0
6
7
94
25
56
16
65
230
91
43
35
10
42
11
11
227
23
59
1
3
2
17
4
7
2
8
28
11
5
4
1
4
1
1
20
2
5
Grand Total
1
9
9
111
29
63
18
73
258
102
48
39
11
46
12
12
247
25
64
% Athletes
100.00%
33.33%
22.22%
15.32%
13.79%
11.11%
11.11%
10.96%
10.85%
10.78%
10.42%
10.26%
9.09%
8.70%
8.33%
8.33%
8.10%
8.00%
7.81%
OFFICE OF THE REGISTRAR
601 SOUTH COLLEGE ROAD – WILMINGTON, NORTH CAROLINA 28403-5618 – 910-962-3125 – FAX 910-962-3887
UC-Management & Leadership
Physical Education (Licensure)
Rec/Sport Leadrshp/Tourism Mgt
UC-Art History
UC-Marketing
UC-Undecided
UC-Criminology
UC-Pre Dentistry
Pre-Special Education
60
37
93
14
74
397
47
36
38
5
3
7
1
5
26
3
2
2
65
40
100
15
79
423
50
38
40
7.69%
7.50%
7.00%
6.67%
6.33%
6.15%
6.00%
5.26%
5.00%
Class Distribution (%Athlete)
I looked for courses subjects with a high representation of athletes. Athletes have to adhere to progress
towards degree requirements that are often more stringent than our own. They are advised to take courses like
CLA and EXS that can double and/or triple count in their degree program. Athletes tend to be attracted to ASL
courses, because of their natural use of “see, then do” programming. Here are the results for course subjects
with high percentages of athletes. I did not find anything significant or suspicious.
CLA – Classics
ASL – American Sign Lang
EXS – Exercise Science
EVSL – Environ Sci Lab
REC – Recreation
HEA – Health
AFN - African Amer Studies
GGY – Geography
FNA – Fine Arts
FIN - Finance
PED – Physical Education
INB – International Business
PRT - Portuguese
Non-Athletes
33
46
659
207
522
618
22
583
81
774
3290
241
71
Athletes
23
14
88
24
54
60
2
48
6
47
193
14
4
Total
56
60
747
231
576
678
24
631
87
821
3483
255
75
% Athletes
41.07%
23.33%
11.78%
10.39%
9.38%
8.85%
8.33%
7.61%
6.90%
5.72%
5.54%
5.49%
5.33%
Instructor Distribution (%Athlete)
Instructor Jeffrey Wright’s course with the single athlete is a Chemistry 491 (independent study). We have
proper approvals for this course registration from the College of Arts & Sciences. I did not find anything
significant or suspicious.
Wright, Jeffrey LC *
Gayford, Matthew Carl
Tucker, Allison Kristen
Honeycutt, Larry R
Schultz, David J
Arminana, Patricia
Sethuram, Amrutha S
Wade, Joshua Aaron
Ennes, Megan Elizabeth
Deagon, Andrea Webb
Lane, Chad S
Yates, Jenny L
Agnir, Mirla Criste
Dowd, Deborah Ann
James, Elizabeth Ila
Guimaraes, Marcia Santos
Hogan, Diane Karen
Malo-Juvera, Victor
Non-Athletes
0
16
17
42
14
18
45
55
38
73
47
54
52
52
59
20
20
20
Athletes
1
9
8
18
6
7
16
19
12
23
14
16
15
14
15
5
5
5
Total
1
25
25
60
20
25
61
74
50
96
61
70
67
66
74
25
25
25
Total
100.00%
36.00%
32.00%
30.00%
30.00%
28.00%
26.23%
25.68%
24.00%
23.96%
22.95%
22.86%
22.39%
21.21%
20.27%
20.00%
20.00%
20.00%
Molestina, Sofia Victoria
Schultz, Joy Turpin
60
32
15
8
75
40
20.00%
20.00%
Independent Study/Internship Distribution (%Athlete)
As the Chapel Hill case involved independent study work, my next step was to look at the course numbers to
see if 491s, 492s, or 498s were taken by athletes more than by the general population. I did not find this. None
of these independent course numbers showed a percentage of athletes higher than average for that term’s
offerings.
CHM 491-002
GGY 491-003
PED 491-004
BIO 491-010
EXS 491-003
EXS 491-001
BIO 491-004
BIO 491-005
PSY 491-011
CLR 498-800
Non-Athletes
0
0
0
2
3
4
6
13
14
53
Athletes
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
Total
1
1
1
3
4
5
7
14
15
55
% Athletes
100.00%
100.00%
100.00%
33.33%
25.00%
20.00%
14.29%
7.14%
6.67%
3.64%
Coaches instructing their own athletes – NEW!
Allen (Swim), Bunn (Swim), Forrester (Swim), & Sprecher (Track & Field) are teaching 1-2 of their own players
in a PED 101 activity. After discussing with the Director of the School of Health & Human Services, we don’t
feel that this is of significance; however it could be misconstrued if shared publicly. We will work with the
Athletics Department in future semesters to ensure this does not happen.
Allen, David Bruce
Bunn, Luther Bernard
Sprecher, James R
Forrester, Daniel
Bonetti, Anthony J
Ho, Cynthia
Non-Athletes
23
103
28
77
85
49
Athletes
5
10
2
4
1
0
Total
28
113
30
81
86
49
% Athletes
17.86%
8.85%
6.67%
4.94%
1.16%
0.00%
Spring/Summer Grade Distribution (%Athlete)
The last parameter I check in this round was grades. Overall, athletes’ grades were about the same as nonathletes’ grades. Below are the grade averages for each term studied. I have more detail on this, but no
individual trends are noted.
Non-Athletes
Athletes
Spring 2013
3.095
3.114
Summer 2013
3.040
3.143
The numbers presented above are real. Of course, the conclusions I mention are my own. I would be happy to
dig deeper or share my raw data with others for different perspectives on this. However, having gone through
the exercise, I am confident that we do not risk the type of problems that we have seen elsewhere in the system.
Future Study
 Review/Respond to parameters requested of General Administration in December of this year.
 Identify athletes studying under their respective coach. Work with athletic support services to
recommend other options for students falling into this category.
 Continue monitoring these data points each semester, prior to the registration deadline and following
census.
 Add reviews before and after registration closing, allowing us to be proactive in addressing potential
problems.

Future monitoring and reporting of this information will be handled by Craig Funderburk, NCAA
Eligibility Specialist, within the Office of the Registrar.
I want to thank Craig Funderburk for his tremendous help in designing the background reports for this
overview. They can be easily used in future terms, simply by entering a term parameter. Additionally, Craig is
credited with asking all the right questions to get to this level of review. If you have additional questions,
please contact Craig or I.
Respectfully Submitted,
Jonathan Reece
University Registrar