Board votes for academic changes

NCAA board of directors votes to penalize schools that don't graduate athletes, rescinds 5/8

By Alan Schmadtke, KRT Campus

Calling it “a sea change in college sports,” NCAA President Myles Brand heralded a new set of academic reforms voted in Thursday by the Division I Board of Directors—reforms that would penalize schools that don’t keep athletes eligible and fail to graduate them.

The board also rescinded the controversial 5/8 rule for basketball, effective immediately. Put in place to prevent coaches from running players off, the rule said programs could sign no more than five recruits in any one year and no more than eight in any two-year period.

Under the 5/8 rule, Fresno State’s men’s basketball team had reached its maximum number of scholarships in a two-year period with seven. Lopes signed five players last season and two this season—Hector Hernandez of Denver’s Lincoln High and Dwight O’Neil of Washington High, The Fresno Bee reported Thursday.

The Bulldogs are losing one scholarship for 2004-05 season as part of NCAA sanctions placed on the program for past violations.

With the 5/8 rule no longer in effect, Fresno State will be allowed to sign up to three more players for the 2004-05 season, the report said.

Under the academic reforms that go into effect over the next three years, coaches whose players become academically ineligible and don’t graduate will find themselves losing scholarships and, if poor performance is ongoing, being removed from postseason consideration.

“ This is landmark legislation,” Brand said. “We will need to implement these and hold strong.”

As part of the reform, the way the NCAA calculates graduation rates will change. The association will start giving schools credit for athletes who transfer in and then graduate. The NCAA will start tracking students for the new rule beginning with the 2004-05 freshman class.

The Committee on Academic Performance will administer the new system, which includes two sets of penalties—contemporaneous and historical. “Contempora-neous” relates to the immediate loss of scholarships, and “historical” relates to the postseason ban for programs whose athletes continually haven’t made the grade in the classroom.

Scholarships could start being eliminated in the fall of 2006, and postseason bans could hit in the fall of 2008. The board wants to study three years of academic progress data before hammering programs with postseason penalties.

Board chairman Robert E. Hemenway, chancellor at Kansas, had a message to future college athletes: “We’re going to do everything in our power to determine that you graduate.”

NCAA leaders view Thursday’s action as forcing accountability on coaches and athletic departments in much the same way other decisions have forced accountability on athletes. Earlier academic reform packages, for instance, increased the number of core courses athletes must pass in high school to get into college and increased the amount of coursework an athlete must pass a year to keep his eligibility.

This fall, the NCAA will send a letter to every Division I school outlining the status of each of the school’s sports had the reforms already been in place. That’s to highlight which sports have the most work ahead.

An NCAA committee is studying where to draw a so-called “cutline”—the dividing line for all sports. The cutline has to be drawn before the NCAA’s evaluation letters can be prepared.

“ This reform is not just targeted at football or basketball. It’s targeted at all sports,” Hemenway said.

In other action Thursday, the board:

• Hinted to a task force ready to get tough on recruiting standards that it would like to see even more restrictions on what has been proposed. The task force has not made any formal recommendations but is expected to crack down on such things as private plane rides to campus and extravagant meals during official visits. Brand has hinted the board will pass those standards this summer.

• Asked for more input on standards for Division I-A football membership. Among those are averaging five I-A home games and averaging 15,000 in actual home attendance.