Steve Roberts: Auckland University doctoral student says our athletes shouldn't have to choose between sport and education

An Auckland University doctoral student says our high-performance athletes shouldn't have to choose between their sporting careers and their education.

Steve Roberts has been conducting this research by speaking to up-and-coming university athletes here and in the US - and says our athletes are missing out on educational opportunities because our universities and high-level sporting organisations aren't working together.

Auckland University doctoral student Steve Roberts joined Jack Tame.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
See and a doctoral student at Aukland University, says our
high performance athletes shouldn't have to choose between their sporting
careers and their education. Steve Roberts has been speaking to
up and coming athletes both here in New Zealand and
in the college sport mad USA as part of his research.
Now he says that the athletes here are missing out
on educational opportunities because our high level sporting organizations and

(00:23):
universities aren't working together. Steve Roberts is with us this evening. Hi, Steve, So,
why do you think our athletes are missing out?

Speaker 2 (00:33):
It's just the system they have and what they're left
with once their careers are over. They don't seem to
have and be getting the same opportunities that the American
interviewees I had are getting and can realize.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
I mean, I've got mates in the US who've played
Division one basketball and that kind of thing who were
just like basically able to access facilities that professional athletes
in New Zealand could only dream of. But spell it
out for us. What are the facilities for athletes in
the US college system like compared to the facilities here.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
Oh, it's not even it's not even comparable. You know
how all Blacks don't even have facilities like that. It
goes further than that, The Yankees don't even have facilities
that some of these college teams have. It's the resources
that they can put behind you and another world. And

(01:31):
it's difficult to understand if you if you don't know, Yeah,
that's it.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
I I mean, we do see some New Zealanders go
to the US on college scholarships to study over there
and access those high performance facilities. But what do you
think in an ideal scenario, we could be doing better
in New Zealand.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
You know, we have the pieces to give an experience
like the US. It's just a matter of how we
arrange those pieces. We have the universities, you know, if
we compare what universities have to national sports organizations. You know,
if you look at the Blues, the Blues have a
strength and conditioning team of a couple of people and

(02:12):
a couple of physios, and you know, the University of
Auckland has a school dedicated to that. They have a
school dedicated to nutrition, to sports science, to all of
those things. It's you have to be able to access
those types of things and the development and the development

(02:33):
chain to make it worthwhile for them.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
Do you reckon there are sports that are especially well
suited to working more closely with universities.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
Yeah, there are, I'd probably say, well, you know, especially
the ones in New Zealand that don't need to send
people to the US because that's kids who go after
the US. But those US schools are essentially pain to
develop athletes. That's a that's a system that does it

(03:05):
for the rest of the world. You know, we go.
I looked at that kid from the University of Wisconsin.
It's the swimmer that just swam the fastest fifty meter
freestyle in New Zealand history out of the University of Wisconsin.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
Yeah. Yeah, I mean it's always going to be hard.
I would have thought for our universities to compete for
the NCAA environment over there. But what about the educational
side of things? Why is giving young athletes an education
alongside supporting their training so important?

Speaker 2 (03:35):
Yeah, it's quite an it's quite an involved question that
because you know, one from a training point of view,
I'd much prefer my athletes show up for practice having
sat in a classroom that's their condition, then being out
on their feed all day working a laboring job. Yeah,
you know, that's common sense to want that to turn
up to your practice. The other one is opportunity after

(04:00):
the sport, and the circular flow of money that comes
from education. You know, a degree is worth one point
five million dollars more in your working life than someone
that doesn't have one. Yeah, you know, so access to those.
A master's is two point five and a PhD is

(04:20):
three point five million more. So creating that type of
alumni and that kind of circular motion of achievement, academics
and sport money, it all comes back on itself and
it's self sustaining.

Speaker 1 (04:34):
Yeah. Yeah, oh that's really interesting. Thank you so much, Steve,
really appreciate your time. Steve Roberts as a doctoral student
at Auklan University's Faculty of Education and Social Work. It's
interesting I was working in the US when Steven Adams
was studying and playing basketball, and he ended up graduating,
as I think they called him a student scholar or

(04:54):
an athlete scholar, like compared to lots of the other
people who were on basketball scholarships. He apparently did quite
well in the academic department. Although I don't know something
tells me he's probably gonna be okay, probably not gonna
be out there looking for a job anytime soon. You're
hoping that Steven Adams has earned a few million and
banked that away by now. For more from Hither Duplessy

(05:14):
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