The Division I Men’s Basketball Academic Enhancement Group took another step toward endorsing a summer-school progression for men’s basketball student-athletes when it began assembling its final report at an August 8 meeting in Indianapolis.

The BAEG, charged with recommending solutions to men’s basketball’s low Academic Progress Rate scores, sees the summer environment as among its best opportunities to knock down the barriers that impact academic performance in the sport. While not yet finalized, the BAEG figures to include in its final report due to the Board of Directors by the end of the year a plan that blends academic rigor, campus acclimation and access to the coach as a way to improve academic performance and help shepherd student-athletes toward graduation.

The plan, which would have to be approved by the Division I governance structure, would start with a pre-enrollment summer in which all men’s basketball student-athletes entering their first year at the institution (incoming freshmen and transfer students who have signed financial aid agreements to receive athletically related aid) would be required to pass at least three hours of acceptable degree credit to be eligible to compete in the fall.

Those expectations would double for the second summer, as student-athletes would be required to pass six hours of acceptable degree credit for fall-term eligibility. The six-hour standard would be in place for subsequent summers as well, though the working group wants to develop an opt-out threshold for student-athletes who have achieved to-be-prescribed academic benchmarks. (The group also committed to reviewing academic data to see whether the opt-out could be available for the second summer as well.)

Enrollment in the summer terms would also permit basketball players to have greater athletics access with their coaches and allow participation in eight hour of conditioning, weight training and skill instruction activities per week, with no more than two of the hours devoted to skill instruction.

The summer sessions also would include a life-skills/study-skills/career-development component (required in the first summer and strongly encouraged thereafter) that student-athletes would complete.

Coach/player access a key

The summer environment is among several broad areas the BAEG has on its radar screen, and the summer-school plan is one that seems to satisfy a number of working-group interests. Members first and foremost believe the early acclimation to campus life best positions student-athletes for academic success. Data in fact from universities that already employ a summer-school requirement (sometimes called a “summer bridge” program) show that summer-school attendees perform far more successfully in the classroom the year after than students who do not participate. They also are significantly less likely to be an “0-for-2” in the APR calculation during their academic career.

About two-thirds of Division I institutions already require some form of summer-school participation for their incoming student-athletes. The working-group proposal builds on that momentum and extends the requirement to subsequent years for student-athletes who need it.

Working-group members also like the coach/player access the proposal affords. They believe such access properly positions the coach as the point person for the student-athlete’s college assimilation and as a positive academic influence.

The proposal in fact retains the coach/player access already afforded in the spring (after the end of the Men’s Final Four). At one point in the development of the summer-school proposal, working-group members had considered “trading” the summer access for the spring, but this new version offers both periods.

Working-group members also like how the summer-school proposal “packages” the experience. They all agreed that it should be required in the first year – many members in fact wanted a six-hour requirement instead of three. But those concerns were assuaged when the second-summer requirements increased to six hours. And members who were concerned that a mandatory second summer wouldn’t be fair to student-athletes who met or exceeded first-year academic expectations were persuaded by the group’s promise to at least consider a data-driven opt-out threshold.

In short, the opt-out option is not available for the first year, might be available for the second year (pending further review of data) and will be available for the third and subsequent summers.

Data will drive whatever thresholds would be established. The prevailing thought from the working group is that those benchmarks should be higher than current minimum requirements for eligibility.

National-mandate approach

In their discussion, BAEG members worked their way through another, perhaps more basic concern about whether using a national mandate (requiring summer-school attendance) usurps what many NCAA members believe should be an institutional decision.

“There is an underlying concern from some people about the autonomy of institutional decision-making in academic affairs,” said working-group Chair and UCLA Athletics Director Dan Guerrero. “The working group understands why that is important, but universities as members of the NCAA already have ceded some of their autonomy in that regard, and we believe that in this case we need national standards that are measurably connected with success.”

Others have raised concern with the financial demands a summer-school requirement might impose on institutions, but working-group members reasoned that investing resources in academic success is necessary to accomplish the group’s goals of raising basketball’s APR scores and improving graduation success.

NCAA President Myles Brand agreed that the proposal may require some additional investment from institutions, but he said it may rightfully intensify the discussion at the local level about devoting resources to academic interests. “You can’t use the academic success of student-athletes as a way to save money,” he said.

The summer-school proposal won’t be the only recommendation in the working group’s final report (due to the Division I Board of Directors by the end of the year), though it figures to be among the more significant. The working group during its August 8 meeting also talked about academic requirements for two-year transfers, issues related to the “0-for-2” phenomenon, and possible adjustments to the playing and practice season, but those discussions aren’t as far along as the summer-school model.

Guerrero said the group likely will meet again this fall, perhaps in November, to complete its work. Once the report is submitted to the Board, recommendations will make their way through the governance structure for approval before they are formally implemented.