The "Big Three" Come Together to Focus Our Athletes on Academics

These three coaches: Coach Singletary (Boys’ Basketball), Coach Shelton (Boys’ Football), and Coach Moore (Girls’ Basketball) understand that in order to create and run a successful athletic program, there must be a promotion of success in the classroom. They are patterning their approach to the results of a very real and relevant study “of 58,000 high school juniors and seniors that found athletes were generally better students except for the two ‘big’ sports, football and basketball…. Finding that athletes in revenue sports do not, on average perform as well in the classroom as their nonathletic peers” (Zaugg, 1998). This would indicate that in a higher-pressured, or more profiled sport, the emphasis is shifted from the classroom to that sport.

“Many coaches who run successful athletic programs demand high academic standards from their athletes. This includes selecting hard-working individuals, monitoring academic progress, cooperating with the academic faculty, instilling academic pride, and demanding more than the minimum. The higher standards and expectations improved the rate of graduation and the success of the individual after graduation” (Zaugg, 1998).

There are three parts to the establishing of this culture that the “Big Three” at DeLand will utilize:

1. All three coaches will identify prospective players by visiting the feeder schools’ games and practices
2. Establish a rapport with their student athletes
3. Cultivate the small learning community by using the sport for their foundation