It hasn’t happened too often this fall, but last week tailback Knowshon Moreno was caught a step behind the action. This time, however, the defender was not armed with a helmet.

Only a clipboard.

Though she stands at five-foot-three, sophomore Nia Chau can stop even the best University athletes from making plays on the field. As one of more than 50 class checkers, Chau’s job is to make sure athletes show up to class and adhere to the Athletic Association’s class attendance policy.

Moreno, who was a few minutes late to class and marked tardy on Chau’s clipboard, won’t suffer disciplinary action. But it does mean the University is keeping an eye on its athletes.

And Moreno doesn’t seem to mind.

“It is a good thing to make sure everyone is taking care of business and focused,” he said. “You just got to stay on top of things and make sure you are everywhere on time because we got to be at meetings on football on time, so we got to be at class on time.”

In place for the past few decades, the class checking program turned up a notch after the Athletic Association instituted a strict attendance policy in the spring. The policy states that after one absence, the athlete meets with the coach and sport administrator. After the second class absence, the athlete meets with the Associate Director of Student Services, Carla Williams.

The coach, student and student’s parents are notified that on the third absence, the athlete is suspended for 10 percent of competition. Following absences result in suspension for an additional 10 percent of competition.

Chau said she is a fan of Georgia sports but has no qualms about marking someone absent.

After all, it’s not the class checker that dishes out the punishment – that duty falls to academic counselors, coaches and Athletic Association administrators.

“It is not my job to decide the punishment,” Chau said. “I just do my job.”

Chau, who was on duty outside a lecture hall in the Student Learning Center with clipboard in hand, said the revamped policy makes her job easy.

“They all show up,” she said. “There are none who are consistently absent. There are consequences for being absent.”

Another class checker, John Evans, a junior from Marietta, echoed the same sentiment and said athletes, specifically football players, are “hardly ever absent.” He added he doesn’t feel any pressure from the athletes.

Army of stealth

With more than 50 class checkers at his disposal, Athletic Association Director of Academic Services Ted White said he has a “mini army” at his disposal.

Class checkers are hired before the start of each semester and the Athletic Association works around their schedules. Chau, a Fayetteville native, heard about the job from a friend and applied. The job pays $8 per class period.

Each checker goes through basic training. Chau said it gave her guidelines about how to check class stealthily. The Athletic Association is not looking for people to stand up in a classroom and ask, “Is this football player here?”

“We had one or two situations where the class checker made an announcement and we had to re-train them,” said White, who added class checkers try not to step on professors’ toes. “We try to be as invisible as we can.”

Chau said the training “enforced the honesty policy” since the system relies on the honesty of those involved. Chau is the only record keeper for the classes she watches. At the end of the day or following class she logs into the system and submits attendance records. The log is updated daily and includes not only class attendance but tutoring and study hall as well.

The log is seen by coaches, administrators and academic counselors. Athletes allow officials to oversee their academics after signing the Buckley Amendment waiver – a document that allows third parties to look at academic records. NCAA athletes sign this waiver to be a part of a team.

The system was designed by White when he arrived at the University in May 2006. White said the system allows information to be updated and seen in real time.

“It is wonderful,” said Rhonda Kilpatrick, academic counselor for football and men’s golf and supervisor of the class checker program. “Every morning we have the ability to address any issues that come up quickly and not let things float along.”

Tracking tardies

Class checkers are not told when athletes miss class because of competition, and it’s up to academic counselors to sort out the details of which absences are excused or unexcused.

Kilpatrick said there are times when officials want to see athletes marked absent on logs to ensure class checkers are doing their job. Last week, for example, the women’s soccer team was in Alabama for the SEC Tournament, and she expects the log to show the players were not in class.

As for tardies, the University charts those to see if trends develop.

“We keep track of lates. We don’t have a policy but we track it,” White said. “If we notice a pattern developing we will address it. Students sometimes run late. Our goal is to identify trends and reverse trends if they surface. If a student is late once in a while that happens. We’re all late once in a while.”

White does not want the class checker to feel any pressure from anyone.

“We tell them that they are only responsible for telling us what they interpreted when they were there – what they saw, what they didn’t see,” he said. “We’ll work out the rest. Here is the way we look at it – it is more pressure to not report it because the odds are that class attendance, study hall attendance correlates with good grades and graduations.”

There is an appeal process for athletes who think they were marked absent by mistake.

It requires an athlete to submit proof of attendance beyond his or her own word, said Kilpatrick. She added class checkers are not outside of every athlete’s class, and the Athletic Association tries to use class checkers where it’s most appropriate.

As for the athletes, not everyone is as comfortable talking about class checkers as Moreno.

“I don’t know if I even want to touch on that subject,” junior wide receiver Mohamed Massaquoi said. “That is a subject a lot of people feel weird about.”