Scholar Baller vs. The Dean’s List

Renford Reese, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Political Science
Director, Colorful Flags Program
Cal Poly Pomona University
 

Recently I learned of the University of Tennessee’s attempt to duplicate the Scholar-Baller concept without calling it Scholar-Baller. After hearing a comprehensive Scholar-Baller presentation in Knoxville, the academic support services department was motivated to create its own academic incentive program for athletes—something that was similar but not associated with Scholar-Baller.  The Vols experimented and settled with the VOLScholar program. Student-athletes earn the right to wear the VOLScholar patch, which is a torch, when they earn a 3.0 GPA or higher. In the same vein, Purdue University Athletic Department’s academic support services team attended a Scholar-Baller presentation and was inspired to create a similar academic incentive program. Purdue created the “SA” patch, which stands for “Success in Academics,” as a way to recognize student athletes who achieve their established GPA goal.


 


I argue that the academic incentive programs at the University of Tennessee and at Purdue are synonymous to the university Dean’s List. In other words, there is little about the abstract torch of UT or the “SA” patch of Purdue that student-athletes of this day “connect” with. The Scholar-Baller concept is an alternative academic incentive to the Dean’s List. The “ThinkMan/ThinkWoman” concept is a motivational image that student-athletes who are a part of the MTV or hip-hop generation can “connect” with on various levels. Whereas the traditional image of the Dean’s List is one of the one-dimensional nerd, the Scholar-Baller image is one that reflects a multidimensional student who excels in the classroom and on the athletic field. In essence, the Scholar-Baller concept inverts the traditional academic imagery paradigm and makes being a scholar cool and hip. Consequently, when teams such as the Vols and the Boilermakers attempt to appropriate the concept by traditional means, they are missing the point.