Scholar Baller vs. The Dean’s List

Renford Reese, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Political Science

Director, Colorful Flags Program

Cal Poly Pomona University

Recently I learned of the University of Tennessee’s

attempt to duplicate the Scholar-Baller concept without

calling it Scholar-Baller. After hearing a

comprehensive Scholar-Baller presentation in

Knoxville, the academic support services department

was motivated to create its own academic incentive

program for athletes—something that was similar but

not associated with Scholar-Baller. The Vols

experimented and settled with the VOLScholar

program. Student-athletes earn the right to wear the

VOLScholar patch, which is a torch, when they earn a

3.0 GPA or higher. In the same vein, Purdue

University Athletic Department’s academic support

services team attended a Scholar-Baller presentation

and was inspired to create a similar academic incentive program. Purdue created the “SA”

patch, which stands for “Success in Academics,” as a way to recognize student athletes who

achieve their established GPA goal.

I argue that the academic incentive programs at the University of Tennessee and at Purdue are

synonymous to the university Dean’s List. In other words, there is little about the abstract torch

of UT or the “SA” patch of Purdue that student-athletes of this day “connect” with. The Scholar-

Baller concept is an alternative academic incentive to the Dean’s List. The

“ThinkMan/ThinkWoman” concept is a motivational image that student-athletes who are a part

of the MTV or hip-hop generation can “connect” with on various levels. Whereas the traditional

image of the Dean’s List is one of the one-dimensional nerd, the Scholar-Baller image is one that

reflects a multidimensional student who excels in the classroom and on the athletic field. In

essence, the Scholar-Baller concept inverts the traditional academic imagery paradigm and

makes being a scholar cool and hip. Consequently, when teams such as the Vols and the

Boilermakers attempt to appropriate the concept by traditional means, they are missing the point.