NEWS

 

This is the second time I have had the reaction to an A-10 press release about the numbers of scholar-athletes from 15 member institutions who have made the Commissioner’s Honor Roll.

Two years ago, the results came out, and Davidson was #4 on their list of raw numbers of scholar-athletes. I wrote a complementary article to that 2021 A-10 press release, and I’m at it again because I think there is still more to the story, even if Davidson moved up two spots to #2 this year.

The headline on the press release was “Nearly 4000 Athletes Named to A-10 Commissioner’s List.” Specifically, there are a record 3,953 scholar-athletes on the Commissioner’s Honor Roll. The top 5 schools in the “raw data category” were UMass with 371, Davidson with 318, Fordham at 316, St. Josephs at 308, and George Mason at 289.

And that is essentially the core story for the A-10 press release – a paragraph about what it takes to make the honor roll, and then the numbers. There are a few additional highlights regarding the sports with the highest percentage of honorees.

Yes, it is important to provide the raw numbers of students who made the honor roll. But I think it is a far more important to put these numbers in perspective of the size of the respective colleges/universities to determine what percentage of the student body is actually reflected in these numbers.

For the sake of relative brevity, let’s limit these numbers to those top 5 schools.

Undergrad       Grad                Combined

University of Massachusetts                 23,146          6500                29,646

Davidson                                                  1,927             0                   1,927

Fordham                                                  9,904          7,082               16,986

St. Joseph’s                                              2,685          4,196               6,881

George Mason                                        26,882         10,285             37,167

 

While UMass had the highest number of scholar-athletes on the list, the percentage of their overall student body earning this accolade is 1.60% of undergrads and 1.25% of all students.

Number two on the raw numbers list, Davidson’s 318 scholar-athletes reflect 16.5% of the entire student body.

For Fordham, their 316 scholar-athletes reflect 1.86% of their combined undergrad and graduate students.

St. Joseph’s has 4.48% of their combined student body, and 11.47% if you only include the undergraduate students.

George Mason’s 289 scholar-athletes reflect 1.08% of the more than 26,000 undergraduate students enrolled. They reflect 0.78% of the larger graduate and undergraduate student body.

Here’s the brief recap, now in order of the percent of student body.

Davidson:         16.5% of the student body is on the A-10 Commissioner’s Honor Roll

St. Joseph’s:    11.47% undergraduate only / 4.48% combined undergrad and graduate

Fordham:           3.19% undergraduate only / 1.86% combined

UMass:               1.60% undergraduate only / 1.25% combined

Geo. Mason:       1.08% undergraduate only / .78% combined

 

Davidson has long highlighted the incredible fact that 25% of students on this undergraduate-only campus participate on one of the 21 intercollegiate, Division 1 sports teams. But I hope alma mater will believe that it is also worth highlighting that 16.5% of the entire student body is on the A-10 Commissioners Honor Roll.

That, in my humble opinion, is something that not only Davidson should celebrate, but so should the A-10. It is a remarkable, remarkable achievement. Davidson scholar-athletes have an impact across the A-10, well beyond the athletic venues where they compete.

Maybe the A-10 will look at their own numbers differently when viewed from this perspective. In any event, it is another great day to be a Wildcat!

 

Editor’s note: And while last time I only included the undergraduate student populations, the existence of the transfer portal and COVID years make it more accurate to include the graduate student populations. After all, one of the Davidson scholar-athletes on this list is on her way to play a fifth season at St. Joseph’s next year as a graduate student.