Every year for the past 13 years, the Big East Conference has recognized more than 150 DePaul student athletes for their academic performance, naming them to the conference’s All-Academic Team. Last academic year, 168 DePaul student athletes — 80% of all student athletes at DePaul — made the team. 

“I think our coaches are very good at setting expectations of coming to school here and being a student athlete at DePaul,” DeWayne Peevy, the vice president and director of DePaul Athletics, said. “If you’re not academically focused or don’t plan on trying to pursue a degree, … it’s usually not a good fit from the start. Inherently, we get better athletes who are students from the start.”

Big East says that in order to make the Big East All-Academic Team, student athletes must have a minimum grade-point average of 3.0 for the previous academic year and have earned a minimum number of credits. 

In addition to the All-Academic Team awards, DePaul received five Team Academic Excellence Awards this summer in men and women’s tennis, women’s basketball, women’s soccer and women’s volleyball.

DePaul has academic advisers specifically for athletes. Kate O’Brien, the associate athletics director for Academic Advising and Life Skills Programs, is among those who helps new student athletes get integrated into DePaul.

“Their first year with us, whether they come in as a first-year student or a transfer, they meet with us once a week,” O’Brien said. “The goal is to hopefully help them become good self advocates and be more independent.”

Less than 2% of NCAA athletes go on to play their sport professionally. There are about 190,000 student athletes in Division I, which includes DePaul.

Aly Kindelberger, a DePaul senior and volleyball player, said she must plan how much time she dedicates to school and to her sport.

“It’s just important, for me at least, to block off specific times for homework because there’s four and a half to five hours taken out of my day (for practice and games) that other students have,” Kindelberger said.

Even though a sport can take up a lot of time, Peevy said practices are built around the student athletes’ school schedules.

“It’s very important because I feel like academic success is a lot easier to attain if you’re passionate about what you’re studying,” Peevy said.

O’Brien believes that many student athletes are as competitive in academics as they are in their sports. 

“One thing that’s really fun about working with student athletes is that they’re pretty competitive about everything,” O’Brien said. “The competitive spirit kicks in, and they want to beat their rivals in sports and in school.”

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