ENTER for ACADEMIC & TUTORIAL SERVICES
The University of Kentucky is proud to be the first university in the nation to open an academic center for student-athletes. We call it CATS  Center for Academic and Tutorial Services.
We, like all universities, tell parents and recruits that the student-athletes education is of utmost importance. The difference is that at the University of Kentucky, we have made a sincere effort to provide the best possible educational environment, one that is conducive to academic success.
Those efforts have paid off. The Wildcat football team has led the Southeastern Conference for three straight years in the number of players named to the league's Academic Honor Roll. In all sports combined, UK placed more student-athletes on the SEC's Academic Honor Rolls in 1986-87 THAN ANY OTHER SCHOOL. The Wildcat basketball program boasts an 80 percent graduation rate, one of the best in the country.
As a result, our CATS program is a model that other universities have used as a blueprint in forming their own programs. We are one of the few schools in the country to have an assistant athletics director for Academics, Bob Bradley, who is president-elect of the NCAA's National Association of Academics Advisors for Athletics (N4A).
Plans are on the drawing boards for an expansion of our CATS facility, which will include a language laboratory, additional tutoring rooms, an expanded computer facility and a media center.
Annually, the University of Kentucky Athletics Association budgets nearly a half-million dollars to maintain CATS  the premier athletic counseling center in the country.
CATS provides our student-athletes with many advantages over the student-athletes at other universities. Examine the list below:
1. ADVISING  It is not unusual for freshman student-athletes to be confused about courses, campus, or any number of academic procedures. In addition to our study center, the CATS facility houses the office of the Assistant Affairs, a full-time assistant, a Reading Coordinator and four Academic Graduate Assistants (AGA's). These trained staff members are there for one purpose  to help the student-athlete mature academically. Our goal is to help student-athletes be successful out of the arena of athletic competition.
2. STUDY SKILLS  CATS provides us with an area where we can conduct organized weekly study skills classes. Many schools give their student-athletes a crash course in study skills. This is not enough. We have a Freshman Orientation Handbook and Study Skills workbook that each freshman student-athlete receives. The student-athletes attend organized classes in CATS, where they learn to utilize proven classroom study skills and university resources.
3. STUDY HALL  Most major colleges have required study hall for their freshmen student-athletes. These study halls are almost always in the evening after practice and are held in
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