National Collegiate Athletic Association
NCAA News Archive - 2010
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Jun 9, 2010 1:57:15 PM
The NCAA News
When the Academic Progress Rates and associated penalties were released Wednesday, the data showed that 137 teams at 80 schools were penalized for poor academic performance.
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RELATED Based on academic performance, 10 teams were subject to the postseason ban this year:
Only Portland State men's basketball received the ban, however. UAB football, Colorado State men's basketball and Jacksonville State men's basketball received full conditional waivers and do not appear on any penalty list. The remaining six received conditional waivers of the postseason ban, but received scholarship and/or practice time penalties. Waivers can be granted for improvement, a demonstrated allocation of resources to academics or active presidential involvement, among others. All waivers are conditioned upon meeting certain APR benchmarks and implementation of an APR improvement plan. "While only one team currently is subject to the postseason ban, the others remain subject to the penalty in future years if they do not meet their specific academic performance conditions or implement their academic improvement plans," said Kevin Lennon, NCAA vice president for academic and membership affairs. |
Out of all that, though, only one team received a postseason ban, and far more teams performed below the benchmark for the worst penalties than actually received them. How can this be?
In some cases, the penalty structure in the Academic Performance Program allows for anomalies in the numbers. The Committee on Academic Performance developed a model that weighs improvement in assigning penalties. Called the "improvement-plus" model, the formula allows teams that demonstrate statistically relevant improvement and meet other criteria (based on institutional mission, institutional characteristics or a by-sport comparison) to avoid penalties as long as they continue to improve.
The APP also has other built-in factors that allow teams to avoid penalties. For example, if a team earns a substandard APR but has no students leave school ineligible, the team is not subject to an immediate penalty.
Every team that earns an APR below 900 (the benchmark for the more severe penalties) and those requesting waivers of penalties must submit an APR improvement plan to the NCAA national office for review. The improvement plan must show that the school has carefully considered the reasons for the academic struggles and lay out a strategy for improvement that is specific to the individual challenges faced by that team. CAP Chair Walter Harrison, president at Hartford, stressed the importance of the improvement plan.
"Every plan is different because we want an analysis of what is that particular team's problem. Then we keep them on task," Harrison said. "If they don't make their plan, they will see penalties in the future. Some people with bad APRs and good improvement plans may not be getting penalties the same way some institutions that have had problems with the APR improvement plans would."
From the very beginning of academic reform and the Academic Performance Program, the NCAA stressed that the intention of the initiative was to help programs improve, not to punish everyone who fails.
"Our goal is not to punish programs. It is to help student-athletes succeed and programs improve," Harrison said. As chair, Harrison oversees the program and listens to appeals from schools facing the most severe penalties.
"I personally get no joy out of punishing schools. We've done it, it's necessary, but joyless," he said. "What I get joy out of is watching programs succeed."