It's not just spikes and serves that keep Jessica King busy these days.

King, the Nanook volleyball co-captain, usually has her grades under control, earning more than a 3.5 GPA in spring 2006, far beyond the team's goal of 3.0. But lately, math has been a struggle, she said. The Athletic Department doesn't have any tutors. And road games make studying for any subject difficult.

"It is hard," King, a communications major, said. "I've missed a lot of my math classes, and it's hard to find people to help you catch up."

King is one of the 111 athletes attending UAF. On the court or on the ice, they compete for the gold. In class, it's a race to make the grade.

Among the UAF athletic crews, GPA's can be just as important of a statistic as the number of season kills or goals. Student athletes need to maintain at least a 2.0 semester and cumulative GPA to compete. A bad grade can mean being left off the travel team, losing athletic and academic scholarships, and even expulsion from the team.

"Our student-athletes routinely meet both NCAA and institution academic standards and have incredible GPA's given the fact that they play an intercollegiate sport while carrying, on average, 15 units per semester," said Pamm Hubbard, assistant athletic director for compliance.

In fact, on average, most teams are doing better than regular UAF students. The fall-spring GPA average in 2005-06 for full-time UAF students seeking a baccalaureate degree was a 2.72, according to UAF Planning, Analysis and Institutional Research. Of all the Nanook teams, only men's basketball had a lower score, with 2.52. The women's cross-country and skiing team averaged a 3.63 GPA, the highest in the Athletic Department.

Nevertheless, all of the coaches deal with struggling students. Last year, a majority of teams dropped at least one student for academic ineligibility, according to team coaches. And while the department is willing to pay for tutors, finding them has proven difficult, said Forrest Karr, director of athletics.

"For the past two years, I've been saying the university should fund a centralized tutoring office for all students," said Karr in an e-mail interview.

For women's basketball, it's been a matter of goals. In 2004-05, the team had a 3.07. Coach Lynne Andrew said she wasn't satisfied with that grade, and set the bar higher the next year with an aim for 3.25. By year's end, the team scored almost that exact score with 3.23. Now it's aiming for a 3.40.

"I want all my student athletes to achieve higher GPA's," Andrew said.

To get there, Andrew, unlike many Nanook coaches, sets out specific grade rules. If a player falls below a 3.0, she's required to spend four hours a week at the study table, which is in the Patty Center's student athlete academic center. If her grades fall below a 2.5, she's stuck there for six hours. No excuses.

"Even though we have university standards and NCAA standards, my standards are definitely the highest," Andrew said.

Other coaches disagree with the approach. Rifle coach Dan Jordan, whose team GPA was 3.13 last year, said the focus shouldn't be on hours studying but on how athletes spend their time. He plans on pushing for the Athletic Department to require freshmen athletes to attend workshops from the Writing Center, for example. And if the department doesn't adopt the policy, he'll implement it himself.

"I don't think a lot of freshmen coming in know how to study or take tests," he said.

Volleyball coach Phil Shoemaker takes a similar approach. Most teams require freshman to spend time at study table, but Shoemaker doesn't.

"We have found, in general, study table has been of limited success," he said. "And I believe a lot in the individual responsibility part of things."

His team had a 2.94 GPA in 2005-06, the second lowest in the department.

When compared to each other, one team consistently ranks at the bottom of the list – men's basketball.

For the 11 years he's been with the basketball squad and three as head coach, Frank Ostanik said he's kept a 3.0 as his goal. But, as he said, "We've never had that."

The team's GPA, now a 2.52, has been improving, though. It had a 2.19 in 2003-04 and a 2.33 in 2004-05.

Ostanik said most of the problems can be tracked to the individual students and their travel schedules. Athlete backgrounds play a role too, he said.

"We're getting a lot of kids from inner cities that don't have as strong of school systems," Ostanik said.

Often a low team GPA is the result of one or two outliers. That's what happened to the rifle team, said coach Jordan. The rifle team's GPA last year was 3.13, compared to 3.46 two years earlier. Jordan attributes a large part of the drop to two players, both of whom were dropped from the team mid-season.

Still, several of the players made top honors last year. In the spring, senior Matt Rawlings was listed on the Chancellor's List; Kimberly Harris made the Dean's List.

For his team, Jordan said it's more important to find a balance between sports, academics and social life than to earn straight A's.

"I definitely want more than eligibility, but I'm not so hung up about 4.0's," he said.

Rawlings, who has his eyes on the Olympics, said he and the team are constantly stuck behind the books, usually at the library.

"That's not saying we don't have time to have fun," he said. "But it's a challenge."

Among UAF's teams, competition does exist over grades, but its lighthearted, coaches say. Swim coach Scott Lemley has already warned skiing's Scott Jerome that his team is aiming for No. 1.

"I've walked up to Scott Jerome and thrown the gauntlet down," Lemley said. "And he's just sort of laughed."

Even with the runners, there's a bit of a race for good grades. At the beginning of the season, the men's and women's teams met without the coaches present and set out their goals. The lists, pinned inside their offices, say the women's team wants to get a "higher GPA than the guys." The men's squad's list said the team wants a "higher GPA than the girls."

But competition among grades is discouraged from an administrative standpoint, said Hubbard, the compliance director.

"The athletic administration makes it a point not to have an academic competition amongst the student-athletes because our primary concern (and quite honestly - why I work here) is provide them with the academic and athletic support for them to achieve their goals – whatever they may be," she said in an e-mail.

It's more than rivalry that drives many players. Coaches for both cross-country and swimming say athletes in individual sports are much more self-motivated than players in group sports like basketball or hockey, and are more likely to excel in the classroom.

"There's something about the individual team sports like skiing or swimming or running that tends to attract a certain type of personality," Jerome said.

Six of the cross-country teams' runners made the Great Northwest Athletic Conference's All-Academic Team on Nov. 2. Junior Marius Korthauer, a business administration major, had the top GPA with 3.90.

Jerome said his team's good grades aren't such a surprise, though. It just comes from good recruiting.

"When we recruit people, we're obviously recruiting the whole package," he said. "It tends to be if someone is really committed to excellence, it runs through everything they do."

No matter what team they're on, though, all the players have to plan ahead for traveling. Hockey coach Tavis MacMillan said the team calls ahead to hotels to make arrangements for studying. Sometimes entire rooms are rented, he said. During one match-up this year, the team studied in the same conference room used for team meetings. When the 'Nooks faced Nebraska-Omaha, they studied in a wireless-connected lobby.

"I think almost every guy on our team has a laptop," MacMillan said. "You have to."

MacMillan's squad is aiming for a 3.20 this year, up from 3.15.

Changes are coming to student travel, though. Starting next year, the an athletics oversight council at UAF will have to approve all travel schedules.

"This will maximize class-time and should help maximize academic potential," Karr said.

Luckily for King, the volleyball road season is done. And while the Athletic Department didn't have any tutors available, a math teacher at her church volunteered to help her. King said her grades are finally shaping up.

"I think it'll help me keep on track," the player said, "for my math anyway."