There’s a new star at the University of Georgia, and he doesn’t throw a ball or wear a jersey.
He’s Ted White, and he’s the Bulldogs’ associate athletic director for academic services.
White was asked to give a presentation to the UGA Athletic Association board of directors Friday in part because he has done so well at his job. In a nutshell, that job is to make sure students who come to Georgia on an athletic scholarship leave with a college degree in their hands.
To that end, UGA President-select Jere Morehead calls White “a transformational figure.”
“I was the faculty athletics rep when Ted was hired, so I had a chance to see what it was like pre-Ted and post-Ted,” Morehead said. “What you’ve heard here today is very indicative of what a transformational figure he has been at the University of Georgia.”
Said Georgia athletic director Greg McGarity: “Ted’s been doing a phenomenal job since he got here in 2006. We have so many people on staff who do great things that people don’t know about, people that are under the radar and selfless. Ted is one such person, and it’s nice to bring him to the forefront at one of these meetings.”
White — along with his superior, Carla Williams, senior associate AD for student services — is credited with executing a turnaround of the academic performance of Georgia’s athletes over the past seven years. In the semester just completed, Georgia’s athletes recorded an overall GPA of 3.01, with a UGA record of 56 percent of them recording a 3.0 or better.
“The 3.0 is like our four-minute mile,” White told the board. “We’ve been chasing that since I got here. So it’s great to achieve it, but we want it to become the norm.”
It’s trending that way. According to an advanced copy Academic Progress Report (APR) obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution though an open-records request — it will be released officially next month — the lowest score by a Georgia team was 965 from men’s tennis. That means 96.5 percent of the athletes in that sport are on track to graduate within five years.
That’s well above the NCAA acceptable cutoff of 930. Anything below that subjects a program to penalties such as loss of scholarships or a ban from postseason play.
Most of Georgia’s sports were close to 100 percent. Men’s basketball, which had a four-year low APR of 940 in 2008-09, was at 990 in the latest report. Only football was down from the previous year’s report, and by only two points — to 968.
White’s stringent system of academic checks and balances made a big difference. White explained to the board some of his group’s measures:
- Athlete's grades are monitored daily and updated in a web portal system. They use a "traffic-light system." Green means they have an A or B, yellow means C or C-minus and red means D or F.
- That portal can be accessed by every senior administrator, sport facilitator, coach and assistant coach. Coaches are instructed to look at their team's report every morning to get a snapshot of where it is academically and identify problem spots. Clicking on an individual player's name provides more detail.
- Class attendance is mandatory and class checkers are sent out daily. If an athlete is even one or two minutes late, academic monitors know immediately, White said.
- Any combination of five absences or missed counseling appointments carries a suspension from 10 percent of competition dates. Daily tutoring is required of any student in yellow status.
- When teams go on the road for any extended period, classes are videotaped and sent to the athletes' department-provided iPads via private portal. Counseling appointments are kept via Skype.
- Strong academic performance is conversely rewarded with more academic freedom.
“I learned early in my career that information is very powerful,” said White, who came to Georgia from LSU. “So the portal provides transparency from every angle. You can’t hide from anything.”
Some people have insinuated that Georgia’s stringent academic requirements puts the program at an athletic disadvantage in the ultra-competitive SEC.
“A lot of people say we’re at a disadvantage because of our drug program, and a lot of people say we’re at a disadvantage because of our academic policies,” McGarity said. “But it’s the right thing to do, and we have nothing to be ashamed of. If some people view that as a disadvantage, well, everybody is entitled to their opinion. But we think it’s the right thing to do and, over the test of time I think it has shown results.”
Outgoing UGA President Michael Adams even acknowledged that some conference brethren are not as diligent at raising academic standards.
“I don’t want to leave the impression that everybody is just avoiding the issue, but some hide behind the philosophy that every institution has its own academic responsibility, and then some of them really believe that,” he said. “It’s sort of hard to always figure out where everyone is coming from.”
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