As Rob Mallory enters another year at the helm of Kentucky Wesleyan College Athletics, the start to this year, along with the end of the last school year, have not only been interesting for him, but beneficial for the university as well.
In the last academic year, the KWC Panthers’ student-athletes have earned the following honors: 134 G-MAC All-Academics, 4 CoSIDA Academic All-Districts, 2 CoSSIDA Academic All-Americans and 60 D2ADA Academic Academic Achievement Awards.
For Mallory and many others, it was a great feeling.
“I’m immensely proud of the effort our student-athletes put forth in the classroom,” he said. “Not just last year, but especially last year. Especially given the challenges that were presented at the end of the semester. This is one of the best academic institutions in the state … That’s something, we in athletics, is a standard we’re trying to live up to.”
In recruiting, coaches will often ask about an athletes academics for many reasons. Mallory said while having a student-athlete playing is ideal but the classroom must come first.
“Coaches all want to win, there’s no doubt about that,” he said. “But you can’t win if you can’t have your players on the field because they’re not eligible or on the court because they’re not eligible. That certainly a big component of it but I do think it’s more than that as well.
“For us, you don’t work in athletics if you’re not wired to be competitive and wanting to win games but at the end of the day, the mission of the college and there by the mission of the athletic department is not to win games. It’s nice, it’s fun and it’s great to celebrate that type of achievement but we’re trying to develop young men and young women to be successful in whatever they choose to do beyond Kentucky Wesleyan campus and to be great contributors and great citizens of the world. It’s not just about being able to maintain eligibility, it’s about fulfilling the mission of the institution and the goals of the athletic department.”
COVID-19 has changed nearly everything that goes on in a person’s daily life. Mallory said their job has shifted a bit because “everything that we’re doing right now is with safety at the number one priority.”
Mallory was while safety is always vital, it’s a different type of safety.
“It becomes more about supporting your student-athletes than it is about preparing your student-athletes,” he said. “We don’t have competition right around the corner necessarily in a lot of sports. Fortunately, we’re going to be able to compete in cross country, golf and tennis, here in the fall and hopefully get an on-time start to our winter sports but for most of our student-athletes, without that competition around the corner, you take the shift off of preparing them for their season and you put more of the focus on supporting them. We want to be supportive every day, every year but this year in particular, because of the loss of sport, they’re out of routine. There’s a mental health component to that. There is the challenge of a hybrid learning model that they’re not used to.”
Mallory said he was having a conversation with someone and the notion was brought of that since teams aren’t playing, it means coaches and administration are doing less.
Mallory said that’s untrue.
“I would argue that most of us, including those sports that are not in their traditional season like football, soccer and volleyball, are busier than we might normally be,” he said. “Whether it be because we’re trying to figure out how to nativage the COVID-19 space and participate in athletes safely but also because what we are able to do, we’re doing very differently.”
With the way practices are now, sports are practicing in smaller groups so for programs with larger rosters, coaches are having to host workouts all day.
Mallory is no matter what is going on in the world, they still have a goal of helping every student they can.
“What can we do to support our student-athletes and make the experience that they’re having, even though it’s very different, still very positive,” he said.
