Hines, 1

Garrison Hines
Ms. Hamby
Engl 1101-019
15 October 2014

Athletes, Coaches and Academic Advisors?

Throughout the country there are more than 100,000 college athletic competitions. When
thinking of college athletic competitions, the common person will think about the athletes and
coaches that perform to bring a national championship to their respective college or university.
But, behind every great college sports team, there is an even better group of people that works
with every athlete to help with their off-the-court lives. Here, at Charlotte there are about 400
student Athletes, and there are five academic advisors to help them stay on top of school work
and take command of an overwhelming schedule. I like to refer to these five men and women as
the fab five. Headed by Ms. Lisa Hibbs, the fab five seems to be a very exclusive group. Being
an athlete, I have witnessed and participated in many interactions within this small discourse
community. The people in the discourse range from the age of 22-early 50s, and though it seems
like a huge range they are all unified in the fact that they are working with the student athletes. In
my research, I decided to focus Julia Morris is a twenty-two year old grad student working in the
athletic advising office. She is also my athletic advisor and that is how I got the chance to
interview her. I believe that the fab five are a discourse community based on their language and
actions, and the all work together to make the lives of the student athlete easier.

Methodology

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The research process was a bit of a roller coaster for me. At the start of this assignment I
was focusing on the Charlotte Track Squad, but I quickly realized that I did not have enough
time to fully analyze the team. Instead, I tried to observe the one section of the team, but again I
felt that I was not getting the full picture of the team. Because of this, I decided to change my
attention from the athletes to the people who support the athletes. It was a lonely, monday
afternoon in the Athlete Study Hall when I started to observe the room. Because I am an athlete,
I was an active participant in my observations. In my observations, I played close attention to
Jared Fries. Mr. Fries is one of the members of the fab five and he seems to be in control of the
ATAC study hall room. Jared was sitting in his office talking to a member of the basketball
team. Though I am not on the basketball team, I still understood most of the conversation
because they were having a conversation that I had with Jared hours earlier. They were
conversing about class registration and the procedures necessary to successfully register for
classes. Registration for athletes are much different then the registration of regular students.
Athletes are required to fill out a schedule planner (see appendix 1) an take it to their athletic
advisor for approval of registration. This particular basketball player was having the follow-up
conversation to make sure that he was good to take the classes he wanted. Though the sound was
muffled through the door, I still realized some of the words seemed foreign to me. The next day,
was schedule to interview me advisor Julia Morris.
Julia Morris is a twenty-two year old grad student from Winterpark Florida, but she
moved to Charlotte for high school. After her high school career, she went to Oklahoma State for
undergraduate school and has returned back to Charlotte to pursue a masters degree in
Children's literature. On a rainy tuesday afternoon, I was unable to make to the Rose study hall
center (Where Julia runs study hall on Tuesday and Thursday) so I had to conduct the interview

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over an email. Because of this it was hard for me to really observe her mannerisms and the way
she speaks. In the interview, Julia acknowledged that the email interview was different than a
face-to-face conversation. She says, My language definitely changes when I am writing,
especially in email. I am extremely attentive to my email communication because emails create
a paper trail. This concentration on her language through email, takes away some of the things
that she would possibly say to an athlete because she is extremely aware of colloquial shortcuts.
When asked about the words that she uses within the athletic department she says, I may use
abbreviations that are unique to the Charlotte camps and our athletes/athletic center (i.e. Rose,
ATAC, SAC, MUG report, PTD, SA), but these are easily explainable. I do not really find this
to be an issue, as I do not have to use these terms with people who would not understand them.
Because of some of these abbreviations that are easily explained, she feels that no one well ever
be confused when talking to any student at UNCC. Julia try to make it a point to have clear and
consistent communication with all people. In the interview she says, my communication is
pretty consistent. Again, my most important utilization with language is accessibility and clear
communication. The emphasis on open communication suggest that she is focused on the
language with others and that she is her language models very closely with SAE.

Analysis
Looking back on the day, there are many things to review in the suggested discourse
community. First, I will analyze my interactions with Jared, Julia and the rest of the fab five. I
have regular interactions with every member of the group and it is mostly in the study hall room.
In the study hall room it looks a lot like the library. It is mostly quiet and people range from
studying intensely to not studying at all. People are in the study hall room because all athletes are
required to get a total of 6 hours in the room in a week. On this rainy Tuesday evening it was

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particularly noisy in the study hall room, and Jared said "if the room doesn't quiet down,
everyone will lose all the time that they accumulated today!" To someone who is not an athlete
would have not understood the significance of study hall time. Some of the common people
would care less if someone said they would not pay attention to the time they spent studying
because when they are in the library no one is tracking their time. So, when speaking about study
hall time it is specific language for athletes. The next day I was in study hall, I was talking to
Julia about my classes and she was telling me that I need to meet with my university advisor to
register for classes. Though athletes have an extra hold on their account, the conversation was
not specific to athletes. Any person could have walked into the conversation and understood
what Julia was talking about because all students at the university needs to meet with an
university advisor. Another interaction I had with both Jared and Julia, was shortly after my
meeting with my university advisor. In this group conversation, we simply talked about my
major and the requirements to graduate. This was another conversation that could have been held
with any person on campus. The fab five again failed to create a secret code that only athletes
could understand, but about one week later I received an email from another member of the fab
five. Her name is Rachel Ramey, and from my observations she works mostly with the men's
basketball team. In her email, it said that I needed 3 life skills by the end of the semester or I will
not be able to compete in my first meet. Attached to the email was a list of life skills that I would
be able to attend in the coming weeeks. As I looked blankley at my email, I realized that I did not
know what a life skill was. In a reply email, I explained that I did not know what that was and
Ms. Ramey kindly explained what they were. This email/interaction was exclusive to athletes, if
the email was sent to a non-athlete they probably would have had the same reaction that I had
intially. These few interactions shows the mixed roles of the fab five. They seem to be both

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exclusive and inclusive. Secondly, I had my interview with Julia Morris. Because of the perculiar
email interview between Julia and I, it was hard to figure out the specific langue used by the fab
five.

Conclusion
In conclusion, my results are inconclusive. Because of the mixed interactions and the
interview with Julia, I realized that I could not say definitively that the fab five is a discourse
community. They are group of advisors that just happens to work in the athletic department.
Though they are exclusive and have exclusive words specfic to athletics it is not enough to call
them a discourse community. So at the end of the day, the fablous five looks more normal
everyday.