Former Cal rugby All American Michael Bush is working on a Master's Thesis at Berkeley that involves rugby, and he needs your help in gathering data.

Bush is conducting a study of student welfare and sports experience among student-athletes around the country in sports that aren't traditionally varsity.

"The NCAA conducts the Growth, Opportunities, Aspirations and Learning of Students in college (GOALS) survey every five years to track experiences and well-being of student-athletes from a variety of sports across all three divisions," explained Bush. "Some of the areas examined include college experiences, recruitment, time commitments, and finances." 

In describing the lifelong benefits of college sports, the NCAA claims "student-athletes learn important skills such as leadership, time management and how to work with others toward a common goal.”  

This raises the question, said Bush, of whether other athletic endeavors outside the NCAA foster these traits while maintaining a higher standard of student-welfare and collegiate experience. His study uses collegiate rugby—a non-NCAA sport—to comparatively examine if NCAA regulation has become overbearing on student-athletes. Essentially the idea is this - do non-varsity sports provide the same benefits as varsity sports, while requiring less time and thus allowing the student-athletes to participate more in the college experience?

If you would like to participate in the survey to assist Michael Bush in his Master's Thesis, please go here:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/RugbyGOALS