Running and Academics

Well, I don't have any hard research to back me up, but perhaps you could search for the All-Academic awards in the NCAA. I know my cross country team had a cumulative GPA of 3.45 my junior year in college (57 guys) and the top seven had a GPA of 3.72. The only two 4.0s in the class ahead of me were on the cross team. In high school, two of the top five in my class of 480 were on the cc teams.

Personally, the structure that everyday practice gave me helped to prioritize and made me study more, and more efficiently. In addition, the atmosphere on my team was academically conducive. We ran together and studied together.

there was a thread a while back, that you can search for, that was talking about SAT scores and running and any possible correlation. beyond that, i'd like to say really quick that running has the opportunity to help in the area of grades. you see, running forces the lungs to start pumping massive amounts of air, the blood is cleaned by the incoming air, the lymph is cleaned once the blood has been cleaned to a certain stage, all this amounts to less restriction and a higher capacity for thought. the good part, as a coach, is that you can let them know this is a long process, and to get the grades up you'll need a couple seasons to see the real effects materializing. the "is gabe farmin" thread also has some interesting notes on how people may use running to think better

Some years back there was a blurb article in Runners World, or Running Times (at the time, I think I was getting both) about an elementary or junior high girl doing a science project on running and academics. Her results overlapped with some university researcher's studies of mice and running, and the upshot was that there was some sort of correlation, but the researcher hadn't found a biochem explanation yet.

Sorry I can't help with more than that... it's been awhile.

When i was in high school my team had a combined GPA of 3.97, myself and two other individuals were National Merit Scholars. One of those individuals went to Harvard and is now at Univ. of Michigan med school (also got a 1600 SAT score in HS). The other went to Brown and has done quite well. I opted for the Univ. of Oklahoma for a free ride and have had more success academically here than in HS.

I know this isn't hard evidence. But it does say something about running and its effects on study habits, drive and commitment.

I also read somewhere that individuals that run and play chess are less likely to get alzheimers.

I don't know how much research there has been on this, but even so individual exceptions are always likely to exist. I coached a girl once whose mother felt that since her daughter was not likely to become a "professional" at running that it was a waste of time and would only interfere with school. This girl was in grade nine. Turns out that this was more an indication of problems between mother and daughter eventually requiring years of family counselling, rather than a problem between running and academics.

Anecdotally, we all know (as others have said) of runners with high academic standing - but I would find it difficult to claim that running "leads" to high marks. Rather, some/many runners do well academically because the process and self-discipline inherent in training and racing mimics that of studying and exams. It is learning how to prepare in a consistent manner over long periods of time. In my coaching experience, particularly amongst girls, dedicated runners have often achieved high school averages above 90%, but not everyone of course. Within the confines of the school environment, being a part of a cross-country team can be a valuable experience socially and the exercise benefits are obvious. My question to the mother would be why shouldn't her daughter participate? This is a healthy endeavour, unless her time is already taken up by other priorities, and/or is academically challenged, in which this may become an additional unwarranted stress.

Parents must realize that if their child has that much difficulty with school and/or motivation such that all extraneous activities save for class and studying are restricted, then they are not really University material anyway! High school should not be that difficult for most.

Tell the mother about how the top ranked colleges will recruit solid runners. You don't have to be a Kinney finalist to be recruited, just solid. Her daughter could be accepted into a college because of running that might not admit her for academics.

Hi Brian-

No way to convince someone that running after school POSITIVELY won't have negative effects on their grades. We all know that grades depend on so many factors; class load, class level (honors classes vs standard level), individual effort, teacher likes/dislikes. So you can't promise anything one way or the other.

I think if you do a non-scientific study you'll find that participation in after school athletics (or music or drama or scouts or any organized activity with solid guidance and positive role models), tends to produce groups who outperform the median scholastically. Plus, colleges tend to look favorably on well rounded high school records. If you have 2 candidates with similar academic records and you're trying for a selective college the candidate who has been active in non-academic areas is bound to get the nod.

I coach runners and nordic skiers in college. GPA stats for last year at our school showed that the Intercollegiate athletes at our college scored just slightly below the college's overall GPA (~2.95). The gap was much smaller than in previous years. Our school has over 20 varsity teams. Women's X-C was ranked #3 out of all teams, significantly higher (~3.1) than the college's overall GPA. Men's X-C was ranked #4 (~3.05). This is pretty typical for most years, although I think it's the lowest showing for Men's X-C in a few years. The nordic skiers achieved slightly higher GPA's than the runners, but we were dragged down in the standings due to being combined statistically with the alpine skiers. Dammit :-)

It's a point of pride with our runners that we will achieve in the classroom. I think you'll find that it's that way with most running teams.

I must be the only person in the world whose grades went down hill after I got serious about running. Bob Kempainen could go to med school and make the Olympic team but I couldn't run for my college team and pass calculus at the same time. And I got straight A's until I was 15/started running.

I was on a team that won 4 straight conference titles and our team GPA one year was only ahead of one team(basketball) in the entire athletic department. Luckily the next year we recruited a few ringers that carried our lazy asses in the academic department.

Start at ncaa.org if you can and browse through there. In the education/outreach section you'll find some data on graduation rates for athletes vs. whole-school. Generally higher for athletes (unless you're a white male, oddly). Much, much better for some groups than others (e.g. black female athletes as much as 19% better than their peers). Anyway, you can also search the site for team gpas and all-academic awards and such for detailed information.

Also, try these: (from a Google search)

http://my.highschooljournalism.org/nc/manteo/mhs/article.cfm?eid=66&aid=284

you'll find the report here:

http://www.nationalforum.com/WHITLYaer10e3.html

compares North Carolina athletes/nonathletes

my alma mater has a good comparison of athletes vs. nonathletes at the college level here: (note pdf file of about 101k):

http://www.csbsju.edu/institutionalresearch/Trends/April%202001.pdf

Basically shows no difference--ie. not detrimental to pursue athletics even at a school where academics has a strong push (note this is a private school; the trends at public universities tend to be much more strongly in favor of the athletes).