The Academic Progress Rate, like many other NCAA policies, originally was designed to fit all sizes, but now that the membership has had a chance to try it on, the APR's tailors are making adjustments to accommodate constituents who feel they've drawn the short sleeve.

The Division I Committee on Academic Performance (CAP) already has loosened the hem by forgiving the retention point in the APR for student-athletes who leave the institution to pursue professional sports, or who leave for reasons beyond their control, as long as they earn the eligibility point.

While that fits some constituents, others wonder if the same accommodation should apply to all transfers.

Presidents on the Board of Directors were asking that question in August when they approved the CAP recommendation. One said the pro adjustment "puts us in the position of encouraging, or at least forgiving, an early departure to the pros while penalizing the transfer element, which we find acceptable under most circumstances." Another felt treating transfers differently from pro departures was "inconsistent." A third floated the possibility of a bonus APR point for the institution the student-athlete transferred from, pending graduation from another school.

But Board member and CAP Chair Walter Harrison, president at the University of Hartford, was among several who urged further review. Harrison's CAP may soon begin doing just that, though general transfer data are hard to obtain.

There are any number of reasons why student-athletes opt to transfer, Harrison said, and many of them fall under the CAP's "beyond their control" boundary, such as the student's degree program or sport being discontinued, or a member of the student's immediate family suffering an injury or illness that requires the student to be closer to home. But other transfers are more nebulous. The CAP already has identified seeking more playing time or leaving because of a new coach as reasons that would not warrant an APR adjustment.

Some people, though, say all transfers -- if they are in good academic standing -- are the very cohort the NCAA claims is left out of the flawed federal graduation-rates methodology. The NCAA's new Graduation Success Rate will include transfers -- why shouldn't the APR?

But many reformers hang on to the importance of retention as a cornerstone in the APR calculation. Retention is, after all, awarded the same one point per term as the APR's eligibility component. The original models used to inform the creation of APR in fact indicated that retention rates were a better leading indicator of graduation than were eligibility rates. Some people also believe retention is important because it demands that some thought be given during the recruiting process to match a prospect with an educational institution.

Scott Kretchmar, the faculty athletics representative at Pennsylvania State University, is one of those people. He said forgiving the retention point for all or most transfers would simply weaken reform.

"When you want to change a culture, you need to be strong in upholding the standards," said the Big Ten Conference's Division I Management Council representative. "Even the pro adjustment makes 'business as usual' much more likely. We want to encourage new behavior that has to do with coaches realizing that some very good athletes should not be in university settings."

Eliminating run-off

Harrison, too, acknowledged that including all transfers would be a major step that he's not yet ready to take. On the surface, the transfer issue looks like common sense -- the pattern of a student going to a single institution and graduating "is for most schools a myth left over from the past," he said.

So why treat student-athletes differently?

"For one," Harrison said, "they're receiving substantial scholarships. Second, they may transfer for a variety of reasons. I don't know the proportions of those reasons, but that's what I hope we can study."

The primary reason reformers don't want to extend the pro-departure adjustment to all transfers is because of run-off. For years, educators have sought to end reported cases of coaches "running off" student-athletes whose on-field or on-court performance doesn't blossom as the coach had hoped. The unsavory outcome is that scholarships often are revoked or reduced, and the student-athlete is forced to look for a better deal elsewhere while the coach recruits fresh potential.

The first attempt to curb that trend came several years ago when the Board adopted the controversial "5/8 rule" in basketball, which restricted coaches from signing more than five initial counters in any one year and no more than eight in two. The thinking was that it forced coaches to put a higher premium on recruiting the right students and commit to retention once they sign.

But basketball coaches hated the rule, partly because there was minimal relief from it. While a few waivers were granted because of circumstances considered beyond the control of the institution and or the student-athlete (for example, death, permanent injury or illness), only one was given for a student-athlete deciding to play professional basketball -- and it involved the individual graduating within three years.

NCAA President Myles Brand called the 5/8 rule "a blunt instrument" because it did not relieve the sanction even when the student-athlete in question was in good academic standing. Not surprisingly, the rule was rescinded once the APR was implemented.

"The APR is a far more fine-grained instrument because it realizes there are legitimate reasons why student-athletes leave an institution," Brand said. "As long as they leave in good academic standing, the school won't be penalized."

Waiting for waivers

National Association of Basketball Coaches Executive Director Jim Haney said coaches so far are pleased with trading the 5/8 for the APR, especially because of the pro-departure adjustment, but that the subsequent waiver process will be telling.

"We're not the only sport with this problem, but generally the coach is about the last person to know about the pro departure," he said. "It is a situation clearly beyond the coach's control. Once a guy decides he's going to the NBA, the coach's influence is pretty much over."

But that brings up yet another concern for some people. If the early pro departure isn't listening to the coach, he may not be listening to academic counselors, either. If so, he'll end up as an "0-for-2" and may subject the institution to a contemporaneous penalty. While the institution can appeal the penalty, some people think the damage already is done to the team's highly public APR score. They argue that if mitigating circumstances warrant a waiver, why not an APR adjustment?

CAP members say it's because they do not want schools to forget about students just because they've made future plans that interrupt their progress toward degree. The rejoinder to that, though, is that academic eligibility is a two-way street -- the student must want to continue, and some pro departures are thinking about their first NBA paycheck more than a diploma.

Data do show that the majority of NBA draftees in the most recent APR cohort (56 percent) earned the eligibility point.

But some administrators would like to see not only the retention point forgiven, but the eligibility point, too, as long as the player was eligible "while in uniform." CAP, though, maintains such cases are better handled through waivers and not through an APR adjustment that might undermine reform. CAP member Jack Evans in fact said he finds the idea of partial credit for a partial semester "a difficult bridge to cross."

"While those ideas are good to talk about, we don't give people 1 1/2 credit hours for seven weeks of work in a 14-week course. There are some irreducible units by which we measure work," said the faculty athletics representative from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. "This is about a culture change. The message from the Board at the time reform gained momentum was clear: change behavior that results in improved student-athlete academic performance. The mandate was not to figure out some way to make what we have been doing all along look better."

With that said, people still will be monitoring the waiver process to see how much culture they'll really have to change.

"When I look back on the 5/8 rule," Haney said, "while there was a waiver process, not one was granted. As a result, there became an ever-increasing groundswell -- not just from coaches, but also from athletics administrators, presidents and others -- who said, 'We've drawn such a bright line that it isn't right.'

"All of us can accept the need for balance -- if a student-athlete finishes his eligibility and opts for the NBA, the team won't get penalized the retention point. If he  does leave, though, then we can still use the waiver process if there are mitigating circumstances. But if there are never any waivers, then I think you'll see the same groundswell for relief. You can't force kids who have changed their loyalties and allegiances to go to class."

Dave Keilitz, Haney's counterpart at the American Baseball Coaches Association, said while transfers are more problematic in baseball than any other sport, coaches are willing to let the issue rest for now. The ABCA had asked CAP to consider the idea of allowing a minimal percentage of transfers to be forgiven the retention point regardless of the reason for transfer, but CAP put that idea on hold.

"We're not going to pursue the transfer issue any further right now," Keilitz said. "We're going to let it play out and see what the data are in another year."

That's what CAP will do, too, Harrison said. With the emphasis on data-based decision-making these days, he said CAP members don't want to jump to conclusions because of what appears to be a common-sense response.

"Retention is an important part of the original reason for the APR, and taking out transfers takes out a large number of people who are not retained," he said. "I want to have a year or two to study the transfer pattern and the effect that any change would have before making further alterations."

That means the APR is ready to wear, for now.

Impact of APR pro-departure adjustment

Basketball

Total student-athletes in 2003-04 APR cohort -- 4,115

Drafted -- 34* (0.8%)

*12 underclassmen

Drafted and earned retention point -- 14

Drafted and lost retention point -- 20

Drafted and lost eligibility point(s) -- 15

Drafted and lost both retention and eligibility points ("0-for-2") -- 12

Football

Total student-athletes in 2003-04 APR cohort -- 18,930

Drafted -- 242* (1.3%)

*33 underclassmen

Drafted and earned retention point -- 109

Drafted and lost retention point -- 133

Drafted and lost eligibility point(s) -- 86

Drafted and lost both retention and eligibility points ("0-for-2") -- 43

Baseball

Total student-athletes in 2003-04 APR cohort -- 7,580

Drafted -- 523* (6.9%)

*264 underclassmen

Drafted and earned retention point -- 203

Drafted and lost retention point -- 320

Drafted and lost eligibility point(s) -- 94

Drafted and lost both retention and eligibility points ("0-for-2") -- 51

Academic Progress Rate data from 2003-04 show that the number of student-athletes drafted in basketball, football and baseball represent a small percentage of the overall cohort in those sports (though not all student-athletes in the overall cohort were eligible to be drafted). About 40 percent of the student-athletes drafted in all three sports completed their academic term and thus earned the retention point in the APR.