If you are an elite athlete, it's time to shop around for a place at university. You offer the prospect of success, positive publicity and profile, they offer coaching, facilities, support and, in some cases, lower points. Louise Holden reports on Ireland's third-level sports scholarship schemes
The sports scholarship, or elite athlete programme, is a common feature of American university life, with 3,500 third-level institutions there offering to pay the fees, room and board of promising sportspeople. Irish athletes such as Sonia O'Sullivan and Eamonn Coghlan are among those who have gone to the US to take up a university sport scholarship.
American university teams are high profile and professionally managed. They serve as advertisements for their colleges. If a team has national or even regional success, the US media wants to know. College teams are a valuable means to market universities and to recruit new students. US universities give their coaches generous budgets to recruit promising athletes from around the world, finance their studies or even bankroll their entire stay in the US.
Sports scholarships have been available in Ireland for many years, but have not always been considered by top Irish athletes, for two reasons. Firstly, their monetary value is not so great given that Irish university education is free, and secondly, university sports and teams are not as high profile here as they are in the US.
However, the model of sports scholarship in Ireland is changing and the top universities are now fighting harder to keep elite athletes at home. The marketing of universities is bigger business than it used to be and getting Ireland's top rugby players, Gaelic footballers or long-distance runners to study on campus is one good way to create a UCD, TCD, UL or DCU ambassador for life.
DCU has recently announced Ireland's first university-wide, direct-entry programme for elite athletes, which means that sportspeople who have represented their province or their country (or their county in the case of GAA sports) can now skip the CAO process and apply for courses directly through the scholarship programme.
Athletes applying to courses by direct entry must also satisfy the university's minimum entry standards of two honours and four pass grades in the Leaving Certificate, with whatever additional minimum standards are required for their chosen course. However, they do not have to achieve the full CAO points set for those courses. Entry to the DCU sports scholarship programme is based on a portfolio of sporting achievement, a short written personal statement and a faculty interview.
This announcement will probably raise the number of top athletes studying at DCU, which currently stands at around 40. The university is concentrating its efforts on athletics and Gaelic games, although they currently have scholars from a range of sporting areas including golf, swimming, volleyball and basketball. Because of their current concentration on GAA sports such as camogie, and also on women's basketball and athletics, the DCU sports scholarship cohort is half male and half female - an unusual ratio for an Irish colleges where male rugby, soccer, Gaelic football and hurling scholars have tended to dominate.
Prof Niall Moyna, head of the DCU School of Health and Human Performance, believes that in Olympic terms, female athletes represent Ireland's best hope of taking home gold medals. He is also very interested in fostering Gaelic games athletes, because of the university's location in north Dublin, and the fact that county and interprovincial Gaelic games athletes cannot easily secure scholarships outside of Ireland.
"This initiative will be extremely competitive for our elite sportspeople," says Moyna. "It will recognise the fact that world-class athletes must give up a lot of their time to achieve excellence in sport. This direct-entry scheme will simply close the gap for key sportspersons who lose some ground in the points race because of the heavy demands of training - and fall short of the level required for their chosen course."
Moyna contends that elite athletes tend to do very well academically anyway, because they are disciplined time managers with a lot of motivation to succeed. "One of our athletes here, Fionnuala Britten, is top of her class and head of the Vincent de Paul Society as well," he points out.
Dublin GAA man Bryan Cullen, now a Master's student at DCU, joined the university as an undergraduate on a direct-entry programme into the School of Health and Human Performance, which was, at that time, the only course scholars could access directly.
"During my Leaving Cert year sport was my priority and training took up a lot of my time. I didn't get the points for health and human performance, so I couldn't have done the course I wanted without the scholarship. This general direct entry scheme is a great opportunity for those who are committed to sport but also want to go on to third level."
UCD is the only other university offering direct entry to elite athletes, but only in the case of the diploma in sports management, although UCD's director of sport Brian Mullins expects that to change in the coming years. The UCD sports scholarship has been around for 30 years, and rugby and soccer players dominate the fraternity. Of the 100 sports scholars at UCD, roughly 80 are male.
"Bringing elite athletes to UCD is essentially a marketing exercise that UCD can use to show other students the benefits of studying here," Mullins explains. "When someone such as Derval O'Rourke, a UCD scholar, wins a gold medal, people realise that it might be better for a talented athlete to choose UCD. There are a number of options available to top Irish athletes now - they can afford to look around a bit."
David Maheady of UL advises would-be sports scholars to examine carefully what a college means by a sports scholarship before signing up. "Some institutions are essentially offering a bursary, rather than a scholarship," he explains. "A bursary is just a sum of money handed over at the beginning of the year and that's the end of it. A scholarship, or an elite athlete programme, offers more extensive supports throughout the life of the scholarship."
Like UCD, TCD and DCU, UL offers financial support for transport, accommodation and other living costs, tailored to suit the needs of the individual athlete as well as sports support services such as coaching, testing, access to facilities and injury treatment. "By investing in the resources available to our athletes, we invest in the sporting culture of the university, which benefits all students," says Maheady.
UL does not offer direct entry to any courses, although Maheady believes they probably should. The direct-entry move by DCU will probably raise the stakes for all colleges hoping to attracts Irish athletes, although Maheady says there is less competition between Irish universities to attract athletes than there is between the third-level system in Ireland as a whole and the US.
"We still have plenty of Irish athletes taking scholarships in America, but the demand for scholarships here is very healthy," says Maheady. "I have hundreds of mums and dads ringing me up every year telling me that their sons and daughters should be on a sports scholarship."
UCD
How many scholars? 100
Sports represented: Rugby, soccer, hockey, Gaelic football, hurling, athletics, camogie, women's football, golf, handball, table tennis.
Entry requirements: Athletes who have played/represented Ireland at national level, rugby players who have played inter-provincially and GAA athletes who have played for their counties can apply directly to the diploma in sports management. For all other courses, scholar applicants go through the CAO.
Supports available: Depending on the needs of the individual scholar, accommodation and travel costs, membership of the sports arena, access to facilities, coaching, testing and medical supports.
Athletes who have come through the UCD system: Brian O'Driscoll (rugby) Peter Lawrie (golf) Derval O'Rourke (athletics) Paul McDonald (golf) Stephen Lucey (hurling) Brian O'Riordan (rugby)
DCU
How many scholars? 40
Sports represented: Gaelic football, hurling, athletics, camogie, women's basketball, men's volleyball, tennis.
Entry requirements: Athletes who have played/represented Ireland at national level, rugby players who have played inter-provincially and GAA athletes who have played for their counties can apply directly to any course at DCU through the scholarship programme rather than through the CAO. Minimum university and subject requirements apply, but not the regular CAO points requirement.
Supports available: Accommodation and travel costs, membership of the sports arena, access to facilities, coaching, testing and medical supports. DCU sports scholars can continue to play with their local teams and work with their own coaches as well as the university coaches.
Athletes who have come through the DCU system: Bryan Cullen (Gaelic football) Darren Sutherland (boxer) Kevin Reilly (Gaelic football) Conor Mortimer (Gaelic football) Martina McCarthy (athletics)
UL
How many scholars? 20
Sports represented: Rugby, basketball, athletics, hockey, soccer, golf, rowing.
Entry requirements: Athletes who have played/represented Ireland at national level, rugby players who have played inter-provincially and GAA athletes who have played for their counties can apply through the regular CAO system.
Supports available: Accommodation and travel costs, membership of the sports arena, access to facilities, coaching, testing and medical supports.
Athletes who have come through the UL system: Tomás Coman (athletics) Barry Murphy (rugby) Sarah Jane Belton (rugby) Brian Geary (hurling) Eimear Cregan (hockey)
TCD
How many scholars? 25
Sports represented: Athletics, basketball, canoe, cricket, equestrian, GAA, hockey, rowing, rugby, sailing, soccer and swimming.
Entry requirements: Students must gain entry to college on their academic ability.
Supports available: Financial support, nutritional advice, physiological assessment/fitness testing, follow up training which is carried out at the university's human performance laboratory.
Athletes who have come through the TCD system: Mark Kennelly (athletics) Keelin Fox (badminton) Bernard Dunne (boxing) Ed Joyce (cricket) Linda Caulfield (hockey) Niall Conlon (rugby)
