When Jack McArdle works on formulas and statistical analyses of the academic performance of student-athletes, he sees more than just the Greek alphabet and a points system. Behind the numbers and symbols, McArdle sees the faces of all the student-athletes who struggle to understand Shakespeare’s “MacBeth” or Avogadro’s Law. He sees himself.

Now a University of Southern California psychology professor and a principal NCAA research consultant, McArdle is best known in collegiate athletics circles as one of the key players in the research that framed initial-eligibility standards and anchored the more recent academic-reform effort. But back in the late 1960s, he was a football student-athlete at Franklin & Marshall College, failing chemistry class and eventually leaving the pre-medicine program for a mathematics and psychology double major. He didn’t fare much better in the math program at first, because he believed he would be a pro athlete. Eventually, his grades improved – he earned his first “A” as a senior and never achieved a lower mark after that in his academic career.

“I can relate to these kids (who have unreasonable professional hopes),” McArdle said. “But I just want to shake them. I thought I was going to be a pro player, too. You can really get caught up in that. I really feel for these guys.”

His personal experience prompted his professional career of studying student-athlete academic performance. He was working on longitudinal academic studies in the late 1980s when then-NCAA research chief Ursula Walsh interviewed him for a position as a consultant with the NCAA.

McArdle was wary of the offer – he was concerned that the NCAA was creating research that simply promoted the Association and its rules, and he wanted no part of that. He confronted Walsh on that point, and he believes his forthright approach won him the position.

A nationally known and award-winning experimental psychologist and statistician, McArdle works with other groups, too. He is the director of the National Growth and Change Study laboratory and has focused much of his work on age-sensitive methods for psychological and educational measurement. The National Institute on Aging recently gave him a grant for his work with the Health and Retirement Study, an existing longitudinal study based at the University of Michigan, which surveys participants over age 50 every two years. The honor is given to less than 5 percent of researchers receiving NIA grants annually.

Over the nearly two decades he has worked with the NCAA, McArdle has watched the Association grow to become an organization that relies heavily on data and research to make decisions about its rules. He is pleased that he has been able to be a part of that.

“It became apparent that it was a benefit to everyone to listen to what we (as researchers) are saying,” McArdle said. “I just want them to have all the facts.”