This month the NCAA enacted a policy preventing colleges and universities from retracting athletes’ scholarships because of, among other things, pregnancy. Such decisions had been left up to the schools, which occasionally resulted in cases like that of Memphis track athlete Cassandra Harding, who lost her scholarship and worked two jobs to pay for school while she was pregnant with her son, Assiah.
UWIRE affiliates fill us in on the new NCAA policy and examine the lives of student-athletes who serve simultaneously as student, athlete and parent:
The Daily Aztec discusses the new regulations with San Diego State officials and athletes and notes an important detail:
However, with scholarships being awarded anew each year, female athletes are still not out of the woods yet. The new rule only prevents a scholarship from being withdrawn for the particular year in which an athlete becomes pregnant.
The Daily Orange reports that Syracuse put its pregnancy policy in writing last summer, but didn’t do much to make student-athletes aware of it. Last year, SU basketball player Fantasia Goodwin played the entire season while pregnant, giving birth two months after the final game. Former athletics director Jake Crouthamel points out the difficulty of a blanket policy:
Crouthamel didn’t feel the need for a policy because a “one size fits all” wasn’t necessarily fair due to the varying conditions under which an athlete becomes pregnant. When asked about how he reacted to Goodwin’s case, Crouthamel was not completely surprised about an athlete continuing her participation in sport while pregnant.
“There are degrees of pregnancy,” Crouthamel said. “I’m not saying you either are pregnant or you’re not; I’m saying you can be pregnant and one month pregnant. There’s a heck of a lot of difference between that and six months pregnant.”
One school was proactive in adopting comprehensive measures:
The University of Nevada, Reno recently adopted its own written policy regarding pregnant athletes, and its comprehensiveness may be without comparison. Along with ensuring the athlete does not lose her scholarship, Nevada’s policy also includes referrals to daycare centers and parenting classes, academic progress monitoring, an active support team and even counseling and support for men whose partners become pregnant. Most important, all coaches or trainers must refer the athlete immediately to a health center physician. And if the athlete wants to remain confidential, she can simply go to the health center herself.
“Without a policy, everybody can kind of put in their own two cents,” said Dr. Carol Scott, assistant director of student health services and team physician at Nevada who helped shape its policy. “So maybe one person believes this should be the right (approach) for this student, and then another person. … so you get a lot of opinions but really nobody that is following anything.”
The University Daily Kansan introduces five Kansas student-athletes with children. All-American cornerback Aqib Talib and his girlfriend, varsity runner Cortney Jacobs, have a seven-month-old daughter:
Jacobs was still afraid to tell Kansas track coach Stanley Redwine she was pregnant and continued going to practice through November. Then, during a mile time trial, Redwine pulled Jacobs to the side of the track after she was vomiting and cramping.
“Cortney,” he told her, “I’m not stupid.”
Jacobs went to his office the next day, started crying and told him everything. Redwine was supportive. He went to athletics department officials and made sure Jacobs kept her scholarship and got an extra year of eligibility.
“I just think you support your athletes,” Redwine said. “It’s doing what’s right. It comes down to moral issues. I was just trying to do what I believe in.”
Basketball player Sherron Collins cherishes his 8-month-old son, Sherr’mari, who lives with his mom in Collins’ hometown of Chicago. Collins’ first son, Sherron Jr., lived only 10 days after being born four months premature.
Although Sherr’mari can only say “da-da,” Collins still talks to him. He even turns on the speakerphone so that Brady Morningstar, his teammate and roommate, can hear Sherr’mari holler “da-da” over and over.
“He loves his son so much,” Morningstar said.
Defensive lineman Eric Butler sacrificed his football scholarship and got a job to support his girlfriend after they learned as high school seniors that she was pregnant. He eventually walked on at Kansas:
Football never turned out the way Butler wanted, but he has no regrets. He said it was important to care for his girlfriend and daughter.
“If things didn’t happen the way they did, I wouldn’t have turned out to be the person that I am now,” Butler said.
He had fun at Angelina’s first day of preschool, though he felt a little out of place:
It’s likely all the parents were a little uncomfortable squeezing into the tiny chairs, but their awkwardness was minor compared to what Eric Butler felt because of his 300-pound frame and youthful looks. He thought every eye was on him.
“I’m sitting here, man, and I’m barely 20-something years old,” Butler said. “She’s in preschool already, and I’m sitting in the classroom with all these parents who are 35-plus. It was weird.”
Volleyball player Paula Caten, a native of Brazil, went through a heartbreaking separation from her daughter before the two were reunited in Lawrence last year.
When Caten informed her coach, he told her to get an abortion even though abortions were illegal in Brazil. Caten objected to this because of her beliefs and had her child. She wasn’t allowed to return to the team.
After Caten made her decision to have her baby, she had to make another important one. She could give up volleyball and get a job to support Paola, her baby daughter, or she could move to Kansas, where a friend was playing at Barton County Community College. Caten headed north after her parents agreed to care for Paola in Brazil until she could bring her to America.
The journey wasn’t easy. When Caten’s coach picked her up at the airport and drove her to Barton County, she started crying uncontrollably the second she stepped out of the car. The tears continued regularly for two months. She missed Paola. And with rules that prevented students living on campus from living with their kids, Paola wouldn’t be able to come to America anytime soon.
“I was like, ‘I don’t want to be here,’” Caten said. “‘This was crazy; this was stupid.’”
For all of these parent-athletes, money is in short supply. Their student-athletes schedules have essentially no time for part-time jobs:
“All the girls would go out to places on Friday nights,” Caten said, “and I’d have to stay home to save money. They’d call me Grandma.”
Athlete parents try to make ends meet on cash from past savings, summer job opportunities, help from their parents and the $35 per day allotted to athletes for food by the NCAA. It costs parents, on average, $11,000 to raise a child the first year of life, according to the online magazine Parenting Weekly.
The Daily Collegian archives remind us that these issues have been kicking around for years. From December 1992:
Although Penn State does not have a rule about testing pregant female athletes, Susan Delaney Scheetz, assistant director of athletics, said athletes who refuse to answer questions about pregnancy on a physical form are asked to fill out a waiver absolving the university of liability.
“Some women athletes consider this an invasion of privacy,” Delaney Scheetz said, but she noted that athletes do not understand all the reasons a doctor needs to know about their complete health.
If an athlete is injured and needs medication, the doctor would need to know if she is pregnant.
The Daily Bruin introduces UCLA safety Dennis Keyes, an NFL draft hopeful who also is celebrating the birth of his first child:
Last week, he was in Houston for the 83rd Annual East-West Shrine Game, a week-long all-star event. It was a perfect opportunity for Keyes to impress NFL scouts, but it meant being away from his girlfriend, who was expected to have their baby at any time.
Fortunately, Keyes changed his flight and returned home to Los Angeles early Sunday, just in time to see his daughter, Nalia Elise Keyes, born the next day.
“Before I left, my girlfriend and I talked about it and that there was a possibility that she might deliver before I got back,” he said. “So I was thinking about it the whole time. But she did a good job of convincing me to just come out and play football and have fun. She knows it’s a very important opportunity for me, and she didn’t want me to miss out on that. Obviously seeing my baby born is something I don’t want to miss either, but it was something we talked about, and so far it seems like it’s working out for the best.”
The most famous student-athlete mom in the nation, of course, is USC basketball player Brynn Cameron, the ex-girlfriend of Heisman Trophy quarterback Matt Leinart. The Oregon Daily Emerald broached the topic with the Ducks women as they prepared to play the Women of Troy. Point guard Tamika Nurse is glad Cameron could keep her scholarship and return after giving birth.
“I think that’s necessary,” Nurse said. “It would be really be unfair to take that from her after what she’s been through, not only with a child, but with all those injuries she had.”
While athletes have expectations they need to meet when on scholarship, life can pop up and things happen, Oregon coach Bev Smith said.
While she doesn’t think there necessarily needs to be rules or guidelines on working with pregnant athletes, Smith said guidance from the NCAA would be valuable in helping young women continue to get their education and continue to play if that’s what they want to do.
“I think it’s something we need to talk about and be educated about so that when it does happen everyone’s not figuring out what to do,” Smith said. “I think we should have a plan and I think we’re slowly getting there.”