NCAA academic report shows progress
The latest NCAA academic report suggests that officials are continuing to make headway in their campaign to ensure that student-athletes compete as hard in the classroom as they do on the field.
The Academic Progress Rate evaluates teams by how many players on the roster are moving satisfactorily toward graduation. Teams that fail to achieve a minimum score can face numerous penalties, including loss of scholarships.
Nationwide, the multiyear APR scores for Division I schools released Wednesday rose by three points from last year. The high-profile sports of football, baseball and men’s basketball all showed increases.
At the same time, the number of student-athletes who flunk out has decreased by 27% compared with recent years.
“The report card keeps getting better and better for nearly all the teams and all the schools,” said Jim Isch, the NCAA’s interim president.
Most local colleges and universities earned clean bills of health. The UCLA basketball team and USC football team — the latter is facing NCAA penalties for improper benefits — ranked in the 70th to 80th percentile nationwide.
In baseball, a sport that has seen dramatic gains, local teams excelled, with USC and Long Beach State leading the way. In basketball, USC averaged slightly below the minimum score of 925 over the last four years but avoided a penalty by showing improvement with a 980 score in 2008-09.
Other teams did not fare as well.
The Cal State Northridge men’s basketball team lost two scholarships because of poor academic performance dating back to the 2008-09 season. The Cal State Fullerton men’s track team lost 0.63 scholarships.
At UC Riverside, the men’s golf team lost 0.45 scholarships.
Walter Harrison, chairman of the NCAA committee on academic performance, said that although the latest report was encouraging, he still sees issues to be addressed in the lowest-scoring sports.
The NCAA is studying men’s basketball, where officials are considering making summer school mandatory for underclassmen because too many student-athletes arrive from high school unprepared.
In football, a proposed change could prohibit players from taking minimal credits during the season, then loading up on classes to “get well” in the spring.
NCAA officials said they would release their first APR report tied directly to individual coaches later this year.
