Thursday, April 28, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

ACADEMICS VS. ATHLETICS: Conflict weighs on Rebels

Spring commencement on same day as MWC track championships in Colorado

By STEVE CARP
REVIEW-JOURNAL

Halima DeCree Miesha McClendon Christine Spence Michele Suszek

A few UNLV senior track athletes would rather walk than run.

With the school's spring commencement taking place May 14, the same day the Rebels will compete in the Mountain West Conference Track and Field Championships in Fort Collins, Colo., the squad's 11 seniors have a tough decision.

Do they reap the reward of four or more years of hard work in the classroom by attending the graduation exercises at the Thomas & Mack Center and share the joy with their families?

Or do they honor the commitment to their teammates and athletic program and compete for the school that paid for their education by awarding them athletic scholarships?

"It is a tough call," coach Barbara Ferrell-Edmonson said Wednesday. "I don't know that there's a right or a wrong to this. It's more of a timing issue. But in life, you're going to be faced with difficult decisions and, obviously, this is one of them."

Four of the 11 seniors were divided on the issue.

Christine Spence, the team's star performer and the school and conference record holder in the high jump, said she has been struggling with what to do for weeks but has decided she will go to graduation rather than compete.

"There's a lot of track meets, but you graduate once in your life," said Spence, who has qualified in the 400-meter hurdles for the NCAA West Regional championships May 27 and 28 at Eugene, Ore. "Life is full of choices and, hopefully, my teammates will understand. I don't want to let the team down, but my family is going to be here for graduation, and that's where I'm going to be."

So will Halima DeCree, who has qualified for the NCAA regionals in the 100 meters.

"My mom has survived cancer twice. She wants to see me walk," DeCree said. "You want to celebrate, take that walk across the stage and get that diploma. It means a lot to me and my family."

Miesha McClendon, who has qualified for the NCAA regionals in the 100 hurdles, said: "It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to graduate. My heart is telling me to walk."

Fellow senior Michele Suszek respects her teammates' decision. But the distance runner will forgo graduation and compete at the Mountain West meet.

"Graduating is important," she said. "I'm the first in my family to graduate from college. However, my team needs me at conference. I understand why some of my teammates would choose to walk. I just don't think anyone should be punished for deciding what they want to do."

UNLV senior associate athletic director Jerry Koloskie said no one will be punished if they choose not to compete.

The school could withhold those athletes from further competition, such as the NCAAs, by imposing a suspension and citing insubordination, but Koloskie said he doesn't see that happening. He said he hoped the athletes would consider the commitment they made to the program and their teammates in making their decisions.

"Administratively, we've made the recommendation that the student-athletes compete," Koloskie said. "But if they choose to do otherwise, that's their decision."

The athletes' biggest fear was that the school would prevent them from competing in the NCAAs if they chose to bypass the MWC championships.

"To me, they didn't seem to give us a choice," DeCree said. "It seemed more like an ultimatum."

The conflict started a week ago when a few of the seniors indicated they would prefer to go to commencement rather than run in Colorado. Ferrell-Edmonson called associate athletic director Terry Cottle, who with Koloskie tried to come up with a suitable alternative.

"We looked at flying them back and forth on Saturday, but the commercial flights didn't match up with the schedule of the meet," Koloskie said. "Logistically, we couldn't make it work."

The school also explored the possibility of bringing the seniors back Friday after their competition, letting them walk with a couple of the colleges that are having their commencement separate from Saturday's, even though their majors weren't from that particular college, then flying them back to Colorado for the last day of the meet. Again, it was impossible to find flights to fit the schedule.

There was discussion about allowing the seniors to walk in the winter commencement in December despite the fact they graduated in May, but the athletes didn't like that option.

Finally, the department proposed moving up the team's season-ending awards banquet to May 15 so all the parents could attend and have their children recognized, perhaps by UNLV president Carol Harter and/or members of the board of regents.

"It's obviously not the same as walking in the commencement," Koloskie said. "But it is something special just for them, and we hope they would understand the situation and accept the compromise."

With Spence, DeCree and McClendon choosing not to compete, it severely compromises UNLV's chances of fielding a competitive team, much less challenging for the Mountain West title.

Ferrell-Edmonson said if her entire team showed up in Fort Collins and competed the way it has recently, she thought a top-three finish was possible. But without her three stars, two (Spencer and DeCree) who were on UNLV's 400 relay team that has qualified for the NCAA regionals, the Rebels will be hard-pressed to avoid last place.

"We'll just have to have other people step up," Ferrell-Edmonson said. "We'll hold it together."

The conflict of dates has been in place for months. The two entities don't confer when setting their dates. The track athletes wondered why they were informed so late into the semester of the situation.

"Why did they wait until the last minute to tell us?" McClendon said.

Suszek said, "I think the administration should handle it better in the future and come up with an alternative where athletes can compete and still walk in graduation."

Koloskie said it hasn't been an issue in the past because graduation took place on a Sunday when no one was competing or it was on a day when most of the athletes were in town and could do both.

"It kind of caught us off guard this time," he said.

Along with the track team, UNLV's softball team is scheduled to compete in the Mountain West championship in San Diego the weekend of commencement and the Rebels baseball team will be at Brigham Young.

Softball coach Lonni Alameda said her four seniors will play in San Diego, but she would like to have them to take part in the commencement if they could.

"To me, graduation is why you come to college," Alameda said. "I'd like to see it where all our athletes can attend and not have conflicts."

Baseball coach Buddy Gouldsmith said his six seniors will be in Provo, Utah, the weekend of graduation ceremonies.

"All of guys are planning on playing." he said. "I don't believe we have anyone ready to walk. We don't have anyone with that conflict."

Ferrell-Edmonson said she appreciates the conundrum her program is in.

Her daughter faced the same situation a year ago when she was graduating from Southern California and the Trojans were competing in the Pacific-10 track championships in Tucson, Ariz. Her daughter managed to walk in commencement and run in the meet, but only because there was a flight from Los Angeles to Tucson that made it possible.

Ferrell-Edmonson has been pushing hard for her athletes to complete their degrees and said nothing makes her prouder than to see them walk in the commencement. She also has been encouraging team unity in her three years as UNLV coach.

"You can understand where they're coming from," she said. "But there's a commitment to the school, too. It's a team thing. You started out together; you want to finish together."