You wearily walk down the hall for your morning shower, towel wrapped around your waist, and nod your head to your also groggy neighbor – the All-America basketball player who lives in your freshman dormitory.

Although it may sound like a basketball fan’s dream, this is the reality for students at Providence. The policy, which has been in place since the school’s inception, rooms athletes among the student population and is meant to break down barriers between athletes and their classmates.

‘Athletes need to be treated the same as any other student,’ said the Rev. Terence Keegan, vice president and treasurer at Providence.

Robert Driscoll, PC’s athletics director, said that some athletes room with normal students while others will room with some teammates. The policy has not met much resistance from the athletes so far.

‘The athletes are fine with it,’ Driscoll said. ‘They want to be part of the general student body. It’s a very small school, so it’s manageable.’

The program tries to create a common bond between the student population and the athletes. While athletes might tend to act superior around students that do not participate in a sport, putting the athletes in residence halls attempts to create a positive relationship.

‘They don’t get treated differently,’ Driscoll said. ‘The regular student body is more likely to embrace the athletes. They live with the students. They eat with the students. The athletes are just students that happen to have exceptional talents. That’s part of the philosophy.’

While the athletes might live like an ordinary student, they still get privileges that the other students do not, including being able to schedule classes before their neighbors.

‘We allow them to register for classes early so that the class schedule does not conflict with their practice schedule and games,’ Keegan said. ‘We want to make sure they go to class. This is something that the NCAA insisted on: athletes need to be students first.’

These special privileges can cause tension between students and athletes. Despite the effort to distribute benefits to all the students at Providence, there are still some students who do not like having the athletes so close.

This was the case for Jim Gorman, a 2001 graduate of Providence. Gorman lived on the same floor as the hockey team in his freshman year. Some members of the basketball team lived on the first floor of the same dorm. Gorman felt that the few privileges that the athletes received were too many.

‘A few athletes were open, but others were arrogant,’ Gorman said. ‘At night and on weekends, they had a different air about them. They would make a lot of noise and disturb a lot of students that were trying to study or sleep.’

The athletes did not think twice about the excess noise. With class schedules that started later than most students, the late hours that the athletes kept did not hurt them.

‘They got special treatment with studies,’ Gorman said. ‘They could stay up all night since their classes didn’t start until noon. They weren’t reprimanded for their behavior.’

This lack of discipline came into the view of the public in April 2000. Four Providence basketball players – Donta Wade, Llewellyn Cole, David Murray and Jamaal Canah, according to the Providence Journal – were arraigned for assault after attacking a student. The student, who worked as a bouncer at a local bar, refused to allow one of the athletes in because he did not have identification. The basketball players tracked the student down and assaulted him, as well as two other students, at his apartment. Each of the athletes was reprimanded. Three of the players were expelled and one was barred from varsity sports for a year.

‘It has affected my perception of athletes on campus,’ Gorman said. ‘They felt that they were entitled to special privileges and that they could intimidate another student to do so.’

Providence still has faith in its residence policy. It hopes that, despite a few setbacks, the negative stereotype that athletes have earned will eventually disappear. Keegan emphasized that each person has a unique talent.

‘Some students write for the student newspaper,’ Keegan said, ‘and other students play basketball.’

The Providence administration is happy with the results the policy has brought so far. The administration believes that PC is a closer community because of the residence policy.

‘Everyone is very supportive,’ Driscoll said. ‘It dispels rumors that (athletes) get preferential treatment with living. When the athletes are around the other students, that’s a positive for us.’

Published on February 4, 2004 at 12:00 pm