I don’t think that it is too out of line here, he said. The only thing that I can say is that women athletes have historically done better than men.

At other Illinois schools, the gap is comparable. At Illinois State University, the women’s sports program has a 2.88 cumulative GPA while the men have a 2.44. At Western Illinois University the gap is closer with a 2.81 GPA for the women’s teams and a 2.65 for the men’s teams.

This is not something new, Bandy said. We are not doing anything different here.

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Judy Auld, SIUC women’s tennis coach, said she pays close attention to how her team’s GPA ranks among the other sports teams at SIUC.

I definitely do (pay attention), Auld said. That’s one of my goals at the beginning of the season, for us to finish in the top one or two slots.

Auld said academics play a large role in the athletes that she recruits.

I have backed off of girls that don’t meet the standards that I would like them to meet, she said. When I recruit a player, I want to see her play tennis at SIUC and to see her graduate.