NCAA's new scarlet letters are APR
Feb. 28, 2005
By Dennis Dodd


If the NCAA meant to generalize and accuse Monday, it waved a fully loaded AK-47 of shame.

Thanks to the debut of the new Academic Performance Rate (APR), for now we can make these general assumptions about academics at certain big-time football and basketball powers:

Ohio State football is in worse shape with the NCAA than we think.

Joe Paterno isn't the academic hardliner he is made out to be.

The Pac-10 -- home of Stanford and Cal -- might be one of the most academically underachieving football conferences in the country according to the APR.

John Chaney might be recruiting too many goons in the classroom, too.

Don't be shocked. The NCAA issued the raw numbers without quite enough explanation. It wasn't going to name names on Monday because the numbers are so new. So what are we supposed to assume? Pac-10 commissioner Tom Hansen didn't seem to be aware Monday morning that his league had arguably the worst APR performance of any major football conference. He was not alone. Immediately after a conference call with NCAA officials Monday afternoon, some APR information could not be accessed on the NCAA website.

"We've been kind of piecemealing it," one conference official said.

But until further notice, those coaches, programs and schools are branded. The numbers were dropped in our laps like scarlet letters to be handed out via airwaves, print and Internet. Don't achieve a 925 APR (approximately 50 percent graduation rate)? You get outed long before you lose scholarships.

Approximately 21 percent of all Division I teams (1,198 out of approximately 5,720) are below 925. Forty-two percent of Division I football programs (113 out of 233) and 47 percent of Division I men's basketball programs (154 of 326) fell below 925.

Never mind that penalties won't be handed out until late 2005 at the earliest. If, and when, that happens, they won't be announced publicly because of privacy concerns. The intent, for now, is embarrassment. By releasing the raw numbers, the NCAA brandished its weapon in the bank lobby and told everyone to hit the floor.

"They need to take this as a serious warning," NCAA president Myles Brand.

We'll see. The NCAA attached more asterisks to this latest announcement than the warning label on a box of Cialis. It works, for the most part, but watch out for the side effects. And if confusion lasts for more than four hours, consult a physician.

We know this: If programs don't hit the magic 925 over time, they will be docked up to 10 percent of their scholarships. Chronic violators could get postseason bans and, further, lose NCAA membership.

"I can't imagine anything more severe," said Hartford president Walter Harrison, chairman of the NCAA's committee on academic performance.

"This is the most far-reaching academic reform in decades ..." Brand said, "distinguished by holding sports teams accountable. ... The message is clear: Recruit student-athletes that can do college work. Help them and keep them enrolled so the opportunity for college education becomes a reality."

It's an edict that is easier spread than done. The NCAA instituted the death penalty for chronic cheaters. It has been applied only once, 18 years ago at SMU. Did its threat curb cheating? Doubtful, if you only consider the SEC in recent years.

The threat of the death penalty did cause a spike in the hiring of lawyers, associate athletic directors and compliance officers at most schools. Either the NCAA doesn't have the stomach to hand out another death penalty, or the lawyers have a blueprint for avoiding it.

The multitude of waivers and appeals associated with the APR might dilute the initial intent. Critics say it will put tremendous pressure on academic advisers to direct players toward laughingly easy majors. In other words, have them major in eligibility, which is already a current problem. A bigger concern: the threat of academic fraud.

Initially, the biggest penalty is that loss of scholarships. As mentioned, any team could lose a maximum of 10 percent, which in basketball (two of 13) essentially means that two more walk-ons get to be practice dummies.

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No one is really sure how football will be affected because few programs operate at the 85 max anyway. If a program hands out only 80 scholarships, a 10 percent loss means only four fewer scholarships.

"My initial impression was, there are going to be a lot of grants lost," Hansen said. "In men's basketball and to a degree in football, you have very little control over people once they get done competing."

There are waivers, appeals, adjustments for squad sizes. Schools have another month to tweak their numbers. The current numbers are particularly embarrassing to historically black colleges. More than 40 percent of their 366 teams posted a score less than 925.

So why even release this damning list if the HBCs are going to be given a break based on their academic "mission"?

Since dropping that SMU nuke, the NCAA hasn't had the stomach to obliterate a second program for cheating. The APR threatens to do the same thing for chronic academic underachievement. It's aimed at football, baseball and men's basketball where most of the underachievement occurs.

It's a long way to NCAA jail, but by releasing the data Monday, the association showed us that:


Six of the 10 Pac-10 football programs are way below 925. Oregon has the worst APR of any BCS program, 849. In addition, Oregon State, Arizona State, Washington, Arizona and UCLA are all at 892 or worse. No other major conference is as bad in football.
Ohio State football stands out with its 870, fourth worst among BCS schools. Throw in the school's current NCAA problems regarding football and basketball, and this is a further reflection on Tressel and outgoing athletic director Andy Geiger.
Noted disciplinarians Chaney and Paterno run programs below the cut line. Penn State was not bad at 922, although it was surprising given Paterno's reputation. In essence, during the 2003-04 academic year, not even half his players graduated. Chaney was worse. With an 818, Temple ranks 309th out of 326 Division I basketball programs.
At least eight schools seem to be in danger if they don't improve significantly in both football and basketball. These Division I programs are no better than 898 in both football and basketball: Arizona State, UNLV, Texas A&M, Temple, Louisiana-Monroe, New Mexico State, Louisiana-Lafayette and San Jose State.
That might be an early reference list for schools that lose scholarships. It might not. The main intent Monday was embarrassment. There are too many factors to consider before schools and programs actually take a hit.

And the lawyers haven't even gotten involved yet.



Top Division I basketball programs in APR (33 ties at 1,000):
Alabama
Alcorn State
Butler
Columbia
Davidson
Delaware
Detroit Mercy
Fairfield
Furman
Holy Cross
Loyola Marymount
Maryland-Baltimore County
Mississippi Valley State
Montana State
Morgan State
Mount St. Mary's (Md.)
NC-Asheville
North Carolina
Northwestern
Pacific
Texas-Pan American
Penn
Rider
Sacred Heart
St. Louis
South Florida
SMU
Southern Miss
Southern Utah
TCU
Villanova
William & Mary
Yale

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guess carolina's basketball squad can win AND read and write... where are those dookies at?.... gotta love it

All that effort just to slam Duke. Wow.

does anyone really believe brendon haywood can read and write?

brendan haywood does

Dexter Manley.

Baylor may suck *at football and basketball, but at least it lets us not worry about stuff like this... sounds like Oregon has some serious problems

Pfft. The NCAA has never, ever, been serious about academics.

Why can a kid with a 2.0 GPA in high school get into the University of North Carolina? Because he can play basketball, period.
Make admissions standards the same for athletes as they are for students and then they can talk about academics being important. That, and schools like Northern Michigan and San Jose State will start going to the Rose Bowl.

not so fast.... looks like you guys cant ball... read... or write...


from espn.com:
"The most prominent programs that appeared in the deepest trouble were the men's basketball teams at Fresno State and Baylor. Fresno State received a 611, while Baylor scored 647 -- a figure affected by the transfer of several players after the 2003 shooting death of Patrick Dennehy."

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=2001958

my friend got into Southern Illinois (#25 in the nation, felt it needed saying) and he scored something like a 17 on his ACT and didnt do shit in high school... he wasnt an athlete either.... it's not like universities dont accept some idiots along the way... sure, it's an educational institution, but it's also a business... just saying i'd bet you could get into chapel hill with a 2.0 on some sort of probationary status, if not even as a regular student... and if you can ball... all the better

Hahah..hahahahhahahahahaaa
I applied to the University of Michigan with a 3.1 GPA, 25 ACT, all of my courses in HS were the highest that my school offered, and I had many after-school activities. Probationary status? It took them until a week before classes started that fall to even tell me "NO".
Jimmy King from Plano Texas got right in though. He could ball.

I played Div 1 ball....I've never been around so many stupid people at one time

I agree. The NCAA can release all the studies it wants, but until it actually cracks down on it's athletes being true student-athletes, nobody is going to change. The NCAA preaching about education is a joke.

I don't think our basketball program is a fair comparison to any other in the country in any other way. They're not the same thing as it stands right now. Give Baylor another 3-4 years to get some prominent players back and we'll see where we stand with the rest of the US. I don't think Baylor really cared WHO they got on the team after Lucas, Roberts and Taylor left, as long as they weren't a criminal and could hold a basketball,...

Is the NCAA measuring the GPAs of the athletes or the "tutors" that are being paid to do their school work?

I'm a college student right now (transferred from Mich. State to Maryland), and I'll agree with most of what this says.

It really is a catch-22 in this respect: I feel like alot of the men and women who are elite athletes but clearly well below average academics would not otherwise have an opportunity for a college education.

That being said, I'm not sure most of these athletes take advantage of the wonderful opportunities they are given.

We can slam almost every program in the country for letting in athletes at the expense of non-athletes. I from Raleigh, NC and when I was in HS the talk of the town was Shavlik Randolph who went to one of the public HS in Raleigh. Everyone knew, and by everyone I mean everyone, that the kid was not Duke material...low GPA and really low SATs. But, nonetheless, he gets into Duke b/c he can play ball. Sure, and some average kid with the smarts to get in didn't because of that. Oh well, that's the nature of going to a bigtime sports school.

My defense is that he might actually have realized what an opportunity he's been given, and is taking advantage of it. I don't know.

I've had athletes in many of my classes at both MSU and UMD (no basketball players though), both bigtime sports schools. I have nothing but good things to say about the way the handle themselves--they show up to class, participate, take notes, etc. On the other hand, it's common knowledge around College Park that most our basketball team thoroughly enjoys their marijuana. It's tought to generalize any program...

You can see how a program can suffer when they try to hold their athletes to the same academic standards as the average students: Notre Dame football for example. Notre Dame just can't compete anymore because they can't push the kids through admissions anymore. Or even the Ivy League schools who don't offer athletic scholarships. You won't see Princeton in the Fiesta Bowl anytime soon (but you will see them win the lax championship, i bet).

The bottom line is this: the academically tough schools that happen to dominate a given sport do so because they lower admissions standards for those respective athletes. It's not surprising that their GPA, graduation rates, etc. should be lower. It's a tradeoff between money and prestige, or maybe not...

Well, I've been at Michigan St for 8 years (undergrad and post) and I can say, yes there are some athletes here who have took advantage of what they are given, but there are just as many "big time" athletes who obviously didn't give a fuck. Driving around in brand new SUVs....and doing numerous other "questionable" activities. Except Derrick Mason who always wrote around on his Huffy. We used to assume he went for the cash or house over the car.

I also just heard that last semester Baylor basketball had a perfect 1,000 rating