Women’s soccer sees dip in Graduation Success Rate

The North Carolina women’s soccer team has won more championships than any other athletic program in school history — but its success on the field might make it harder for the Tar Heels to earn their degrees.

The Graduation Success Rate — an NCAA measurement for the proportion of college athletes on athletic scholarships that graduate within six years — for the UNC women’s soccer team was 67 percent for 2011-12, according to the most recent report from the UNC Faculty Athletics Committee.

UNC’s overall athlete GSR for the same year was 88 percent.

According to the report, which was published in October, the GSR includes student athletes that transfer into an institution.

Schools are not penalized when a student athlete leaves in good academic standing to transfer to another institution, pursue a professional career or other reasons, according to the NCAA. At UNC, “good academic standing” requires a minimum 2.0 GPA and the successful completion of a certain number of credit hours each semester.

Lissa Broome, UNC’s faculty athletics representative who wrote the report, said the athletic department is aware of UNC’s GSR and is working to help athletes graduate within six years.

“If you leave before you graduate in good academic standing, you don’t go against the GSR,” she said.

Amy Perko, executive director of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, said schools receive bonus points to their GSRs when athletes return to complete their degrees.

“There are incentives in the NCAA system that reward schools that have former players come back and complete their degrees,” she said.

Women’s soccer coach Anson Dorrance said his best players stay at UNC for at least the fall season of all four years of their college eligibility.

Because the professional soccer draft is in January, the players often try to play professionally in the spring of their senior year before they graduate.

Dorrance said because of the program’s historical success, the women’s soccer players are held to a high athletic standard.

Senior midfielder Crystal Dunn, a sociology major who said she does not expect to graduate in four years, said there is more motivation for soccer players to go pro because the sport provides a lot of opportunities for professionals.

Dunn said she wants to enter the professional draft in January.

She is not allowed to enroll in classes for the spring semester because she would have to leave UNC in March if she is picked by a professional team. She said she would like to play professionally for a year and then try to play in the FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2015.

Dunn, who needs about a year’s worth of classes to graduate, said she is not sure when she will be able to return to UNC to finish her degree.

Megan Brigman, a redshirt senior defender and a communication studies major, will graduate in December. She said she is doing so to avoid possible conflicts between her education and her soccer career.

Dorrance said he and his staff encourage players to graduate in December, but it is a hard standard to enforce.

With about 800 students involved in athletics at UNC, each needs his or her own academic support system, said Michelle Brown, director of UNC’s Academic Support Programs for Student-Athletes.

Brown said a variety of resources, including tutoring and academic counseling, are available to athletes.

Anna Sieloff, goalkeeper and a senior business administration major, said these resources have helped her plans to graduate in December 2014. Sieloff said the team also has team study halls before away games to complete assignments on time.

She said the team study sessions are especially geared toward the younger players because they are more likely to fall behind.

“It takes longer to go full circle,” she said. “It’s a lot to balance both academics and athletics.”

university@dailytarheel.com