Posted on: Wednesday, March 2, 2005
Focusing on brain over brawn
By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist
If Alabama was last in the Southeastern Conference or Ohio State at the bottom of the Big Ten football standings, be assured talk radio would buzz, chat rooms would heat up and coaches and administrators would get hustling.
When Kentucky's basketball Rating Percentage Index drops or Cincinnati slides out of the Associated Press Top 25 poll, people tend to get worked up.
But when those schools — and more — were listed among the most deficient in their sports in the NCAA's new Academic Progress Rate (APR) scores Monday, a new index that measures athlete's eligibility and graduation figures, the reaction was little more than a shrug.
Those days, however, will apparently be ending soon. Fans and coaches might not yet understand the initials or grasp the formula behind the APR, but they will soon pay attention if the NCAA follows through with much-threatened plans to take away scholarships or postseason eligibility for programs deemed deficient.
Making the "student" a genuine part of the much ballyhooed "student-athlete" equation is an idea long overdue.
It shouldn't be too much to ask that teams achieve a 50-percent graduation rate or recruit athletes capable of staying eligible. Or, provide them the opportunity to do so.
Yet, we're told 29 percent of Division I football teams didn't meet the cutoff. Nineteen percent of men's basketball teams and 23 percent of baseball teams, including Hawai'i's, didn't.
Until this week the NCAA and the many recommendations coming from assorted blue ribbon panels and commissions have been more theoretical and have lacked teeth. And, while there are some bugs to be worked out and some challenges to be made, this is, at least, a major step in the right direction.
Even the numbers the NCAA released this week were akin to a midterm grade, a public scolding to those lacking that it is time to get the academic side in shape, or else.
Embarrassment hasn't worked in the past. But the looming threat of taking away scholarships — as many as 10 percent — as soon as 2006-07 or stripping away the postseason as soon as 2008-09 and, suddenly, the penalties are real and the accountability urgent. No coach wants to compete with their hands tied behind the back. No coach could survive it.
Heretofore, the only way to get slapped with those kind of penalties was to get caught handing out cars or envelopes of cash. Even then, you had to be pretty sloppy about it.
Now, the NCAA and its members are saying that academics occupies a place of importance. NCAA President Myles Brand has heralded APR as, "a step toward fully integrating intercollegiate athletics into the mission of higher education."
It is about time.
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.
