NCAA standards a farce

sports@dailylobo.com
@ThomasRomeroS

The NCAA always has to try to convince the public that academics are something it truly cares about. In order to make it look like the NCAA actually does want students to earn a good education, the Academic Progress Report (APR) was developed eight years ago.

Confused about what the APR actually means or what it is? NCAA’s website has a nice little explanation:

“The Association holds Division I institutions accountable for the academic progress of their student-athletes through the Academic Progress Rate, a team-based metric that accounts for the eligibility and retention of each student-athlete, each term.”
The Lobos had no problem meeting this metric. Eight teams had a perfect single-year APR score, and all sports were above the 930 marker for APR.

Good for UNM, but how does the NCAA come up with these obligatory numbers? Here’s the NCAA’s explanation for how to come up with random numbers: “The APR is calculated by allocating points for eligibility and retention — the two factors that research identifies as the best indicators of graduation. Each student-athlete receiving athletically related financial aid earns one retention point for staying in school and one eligibility point for being academically eligible. A team’s total points are divided by points possible and then multiplied by one thousand to equal the team’s Academic Progress Rate score.”

Maybe there is a method to the NCAA’s madness, or else they’re blowing more smoke than ever before. The NCAA has to throw these types of bones to the media to cover itself and its billion-dollar TV contracts.

I’m not faulting UNM or any other NCAA institution because they’re obligated to do whatever the NCAA says except when it comes to recruiting. But there remains the question of what happens if a team doesn’t keep up its APR. The NCAA does have strict penalties for offenders.

If a team fails to meet the 930 APR benchmark once, then the team will have its weekly practice reduced to 16 hours. That’s four hours taken away — the equivalent of one day per week of practice time. The second offense adds “competition reductions” to the first-level penalties.

I’ll let the NCAA explain its third and final level:

“The third level, where teams could remain until their rate improves, provides for a menu of penalty options, including coaching suspensions, financial aid reductions and restricted NCAA membership. The Committee on Academic Performance has the discretion to apply appropriate penalties once teams have fallen below the benchmark for three consecutive years.”

There is something missing from the NCAA list of penalties: a postseason ban. The NCAA thinks that a “postseason ban is not considered a penalty for poor academic performance.”

Wouldn’t a postseason ban deter teams from considering falling behind in APR? Few, if any, teams fail to meet the NCAA’s 930 APR standard, but wouldn’t a postseason ban completely sway teams away of even sniffing the benchmark?

Well, credit due to the NCAA; they tried to levy postseason bans on Alabama State’s volleyball and baseball programs. However, the Hornets appealed and won, thus negating any postseason ban whatsoever.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the NCAA does care about students earning an education. But I have to wonder if the association would even contemplate banning Notre Dame’s football team if it somehow didn’t meet the APR standard.