Amid these proudest of times for the Texas Longhorns as they prepare to set sail to the Rose Bowl, a warning shot of sorts has been sent across the bow when it comes to graduation rates and academic progress.
NCAA football programs large and small should consider themselves on notice: Improve or lose scholarships.
Of 56 universities sending teams to a bowl this year, only one has a graduation rate in football lower than Texas’ 34 percent, according to a study released Monday.
The study was conducted by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida and authored by Dr. Richard Lapchick. It noted that 27 of the 56 bowl teams this season had graduation rates in football below 50 percent.
Among those also at 34 percent are Texas-El Paso and Central Florida — ironically, the university that employs Lapchick. The only bowl-bound team with a lower graduation rate than UT’s is Brigham Young at 19 percent. Northwestern and Boston College led the bowl schools at 83 and 78 percent, respectively.
No. 1 is not No. 1
The University of Southern California, the Longhorns’ Rose Bowl opponent, was reported to have a 58 percent graduation rate, which went through the 2003-04 season. At 910, USC’s Academic Progress Rate score was well below the 925 standard.
Given NCAA academic reform measures that will apply starting in 2007, the good news for the Texas football program is that the Academic Progress Rate (APR) will be the more important number when scholarship losses come into play.
Texas athletic director DeLoss Dodds was traveling Monday and could not be reached for comment, but UT senior associate athletic director Nick Voinis — while acknowledging “this is something we take very seriously” — downplayed the graduation-rate figure.
“The rates they used are basically old news,” Voinis said. “They used old data that the NCAA deemed were an inappropriate gauge for academic progress. In APR, we’re fine. The old rate didn’t give a clear indication of it.”
Tracking Horns, Cougars
Lapchick said the APR score, which is a rating on the likelihood of student-athletes graduating, should be a better gauge of a program’s performance. The current NCAA-mandated APR minimum score is 925, representing the likelihood of 50 percent of a program’s athletes graduating.
The Lapchick study reports an APR of 934 for the Longhorns. The University of Houston, which will play in the Fort Worth Bowl, has a subpar APR score of 893.
Graduation rates must be considered seriously as well, Lapchick said, particularly in regard to the race of athletes who do not succeed.
“We bring people into our schools who are at different levels of preparedness for our colleges,” Lapchick said. “I’m guessing an urban institution like Houston has a more diverse population and should be better prepared for those who come from urban areas.
“If a school like Texas admits a student who in no way on the face of God’s earth can compete with the general populace, then that student is destined for failure.”
Beginning in 2007 — when the minimum APR could reach 940, representing the NCAA’s goal of a 60 percent graduation rate — schools that do not meet minimum standards could lose scholarships.
That’s what is getting the attention of every athletic department in America. It’s what has been long overdue as well.
For years, it has been easy for coaches and ADs to talk a good game when it comes to graduation. With real consequences that would affect the product on the field, the underlying theme can no longer be Eligibility 101.
“For years, the graduation rates were criticized, particularly by schools that didn’t do well,” Lapchick said. ” There was a lot of coachspeak. The APR is current.”
Even so, we should expect the potential for losing scholarships to become as volatile an issue as the NCAA has seen.
UH athletic director Dave Maggard also questioned the validity of the numbers in the Lapchick study. The Cougars not only had an 893 APR score, but their graduation rate was listed at 38 percent.
Those numbers do not compare with what associate AD Maria Peden reported to Maggard — an APR of 909.
She said that score would have surpassed the standard of 905 for 2005. The 925 standard, according to Maggard, is for next year.
Confused?
This is only the beginning. What everyone should hail is that the NCAA — often bashed, and often never more so than here — is getting something right. Or trying to.
Every football coach in America will tell you a kid who runs a 4.3 and stands a sculpted 6-4 deserves a chance to play college football. The APR standard tells those coaches: Prove it.
Graduate that kid or lose the scholarship.
Maggard might defend his program’s embarrassing score in Lapchick’s study by saying, “I don’t know what Lapchick is seeing.”
But in the end, he must admit like Dodds and everyone else that talking about graduating players just won’t cut it anymore.
“They’re giving people a warning,” Maggard said. “They’re telling you this is where you are. They’re saying you’d better get all this stuff squared away or else.”
Roses are red. And so, too, will be a lot of faces if scholarships start disappearing.
