SPORTS

 

Earlier this week, the team at Davidson Sports Information published an A-10 press release about the number of Wildcats named to the Commissioner’s Honor Roll.

I can appreciate the numbers behind the press release. However, as a Wildcat alumna, I think there is a bigger story here.

While numbers don’t lie, the writers of the press release apparently didn’t feel the need to do any additional math. They simply laid out the raw numbers as follows: UMass – 333, George Mason – 332, Fordham – 319, Davidson – 312, and Saint Joseph’s – 296. Those are the top 5 conference schools based on the number of students named to the honor roll.

Follow me, let’s do math and tell the far more impressive story of what our Wildcat Scholar-Athletes accomplished. In this case, let’s find the numerators and denominators for our equations.

While UMass had 333 scholar-athletes named to the honor roll, they have roughly 23,200 undergraduate students and a total student body of more than 28,600. George Mason has more than 26,500 undergrads and 39,000 total students. Fordham comes in with more than 9,300 undergraduate students and roughly 16,300 total students. And the final comparison is Saint Joseph’s with almost 4,800 undergrads and a total student body of more than 8,400.

And now, a number that will not come as a surprise to many of you – Davidson reports an enrollment of 1,983 in the latest “fast facts” page on the Davidson.edu page.

So, let’s look at the number of scholar-athletes in comparison with the student body. UMass’ 333 scholar-athletes represent 1.16% of their total student body or 1.4% of their undergraduate population. George Mason’s 332 represent .85% of their total student body or 1.25% of undergraduates. The 319 scholar-athletes from Fordham equate to 1.95% of the entire student body and 3.39% of their undergraduate peers. Saint Joseph’s 296 scholar athletes represent 3.52% of the total student body and 6.19% of undergraduates. And because most of the teams in the A-10 have graduate students playing on their intercollegiate teams, I submit that the percentage of the total student body is the most important number. (The A-10 press release even included the information that graduate students were include in the honor role.)

Ranked in order – lowest to highest – here are the results of my math homework of the percentage of scholar-athletes as compared to the entire student body: #5 – George Mason with 1.25%, #4 – UMass with 1.4%, #3 – Fordham with 3.39%, #2 – Saint Joseph’s with 6.19%, and (drumroll please) coming in at #1 on our list Davidson – 15.73%.

That’s right, more than 15% of all Davidson students are scholar-athletes on the A-10 Commissioner’s Honor Roll.

How ‘bout them apples? 

I think it was well worth taking the time to do the math.

Go ‘Cats!