As the academic year gears up (this year, in fits and starts thanks to the path of Hurricane Irene), I am immersed in the clich\u00e9-ridden language of over-used sports metaphors. Sports seem to naturally creep into our vocabulary as we try to focus our students on things like winning, success, and persistence. We say things like \u201cGet back in the saddle,\u201d or \u201cIt\u2019s the bottom of the ninth,\u201d or \u201cIt\u2019s only the first quarter \u2014 there\u2019s plenty of time left on the clock.\u201d<\/p>\n
Here at Seton Hall, we have a new initiative \u2014 Academic Coaching \u2014 for students who are struggling or lacking confidence. Working with our new \u201ccoaches\u201d has thrown me in to the ring, so to speak. It was boxing\u2019s \u201cGreatest\u201d Muhammad Ali who reminded us that success only comes to those who work. \u201cI hated every minute of training, but I said, \u2018Don\u2019t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.\u2019\u201d It worked. <\/p>\n
I\u2019m no hockey fan, but Wayne Gretsky\u2019s explanation of greatness is easily translated into a metaphor for academic success. \u201cA good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.\u201d Surely, great students anticipate and infer where the professor is taking them and find ways to get there at the front of the class.<\/p>\n
Olympic runner Jesse Owens, whose participation in the 1936 Olympic games created an international incident but helped chip away at America\u2019s prejudices, observed about his sport, \u201cA lifetime of training for just ten seconds.\u201d Surely, our students dedicated to careers in nursing, medicine, and other health professions can apply his wisdom to the life and death situations that just could arise in their work. They may never need the knowledge, but they must be prepared.<\/p>\n
Football\u2019s Aristotle, the late Green Bay Packer Coach Vince Lombardi, had a lot to say about being a winner and about attitude. \u201cWinning is habit. Unfortunately, so is losing,\u201d he quipped, words of thought for students who get in the habit of doing poorly. <\/p>\n
Tennis great Billie Jean King also had words for our students who are beaten down by failure: \u201cChampions keep playing until they get it right.\u201d I regularly remind students that Michael Jordan got cut from his high school basketball team.<\/p>\n
And then there\u2019s baseball, my own special love. It\u2019s a sport \u201cwhere a curve is an optical illusion, a screwball can be a pitch or a person, stealing is legal and you can spit anywhere you like except in the umpire\u2019s eye or on the ball,\u201d to quote journalist James Patrick Murray. I love baseball because, aside from its beauty, it is a metaphor for life. It\u2019s a sport where athletes who fail 70 percent of the time make the Hall of Fame; it\u2019s a sport that has a lot of tedium and routine, punctuated by moments of breathtaking splendor; it\u2019s a sport where the athletes look like the kid next door and the manager dresses up in a uniform that never gets dirty. It\u2019s a sport that gave us the wisdom of Casey Stengel and Yogi Berra. It was Casey who observed the value of humility in sports (and academics): \u201cIf we\u2019re going to win the pennant, we\u2019ve got to start thinking we\u2019re not as good as we think we are.\u201d And Yogi, who says he never said half the things he said, tells our procrastinating students who are unable to plan ahead, \u201cIf you don\u2019t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.\u201d <\/p>\n
Baseball legend Hank Aaron\u2019s advice works for students who have struggled with a poor test grade or a failed course: \u201cMy motto was always to keep swinging. Whether I was in a slump or feeling badly or having trouble off the field, the only thing to do was keep swinging.\u201d<\/p>\n
Here at Seton Hall, former baseball coach Mike Sheppard, also a retired professor in our College of Education and Human Services and now one of our new academic coaches, reminds all students, not just the players, \u201cNever lose your hustle.\u201d<\/p>\n
Our own Freshman Studies Associate Dean, Robin Cunningham, herself such an outstanding athlete that her jersey hangs from the rafters in Walsh Gym, works with our summer bridge program, the Seton Summer Scholars, to provide an extra boost of studying and academic preparation before classes begin. She adopted the motto, \u201cIt\u2019s not where you start, it\u2019s where you finish\u201d to inspire her students.<\/p>\n
Through our newest initiative from our Academic Success Center in Mooney Hall, we have mandated academic coaches for students on probation and we are offering the service to other students who are tentative about their work habits and time management. The concept applies the techniques of one-on-one athletic coaching to the academic arena. Seton Hall employees volunteered to go through two days of training to provide our students with a free service that parents could pay up to $60 an hour for privately. <\/p>\n
I was working one-on-one with a student the other day to help him plan for a better semester than the one he had just completed. We talked about course options, we strategized about time management and I gave him some advice about communicating with professors. \u201cGee, I get the feeling Seton Hall really wants me to be successful,\u201d he said as he was leaving. I told him to go hit one out of the park. <\/p>\n
Students interested in working with a coach this semester may visit the Academic Success Center in Mooney Hall, Room 11, or call (973) 275-2387 for an appointment.<\/p>\n
~Tracy Gottlieb, Ph.D.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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