Topic: Poor academics will begin to cost scholarships

[HERDUSA]

New academic rules challenge programs
By Steve Wieberg, USA TODAY
GRAPEVINE, Texas — Nearly a third of the 117 programs in major-college football could feel the bite of unprecedented new academic penalties drawn up by the NCAA.

That sport, along with men's basketball and baseball, has perennially below-average graduation rates that the NCAA says will be most severely affected when the measures begin phasing in next fall, cutting into teams' rosters of scholarship players.

The NCAA's Division I board of directors finalized those first-phase guidelines Monday.

Teams will face sanctions — initially being prohibited from replacing a scholarship player who leaves while academically ineligible — if they lag in keeping players in school, keeping them academically eligible and ultimately graduating them.

The NCAA has drawn up an "academic progress rate" to annually assess individual programs' performances. Each athlete will account for two points a semester, one for staying academically eligible to play and one for remaining at the school or graduating.

Programs with chronically poor academic track records ultimately could be shut out of such postseason showcases as football bowls and the NCAA basketball tournament. The first of those bans wouldn't be handed down until 2008-09. The most chronically underperforming programs could subject their schools to the most punitive measure — restricted membership in the NCAA, barring all their teams from postseason competition — as early as 2009-10.

The NCAA, which compiled school-by-school academic data last year, already has identified which programs are subject to the initial one-year scholarship-replacement restrictions. Their schools will be notified by the end of this month or early February. They'll also be publicly identified at that time.

University of Hartford President Walter Harrison, who heads the NCAA's Committee on Academic Performance, said 30% of football programs in both Division I-A and I-AA, 25% of Division I baseball programs and 20% of Division I men's basketball programs will be affected, using the guidelines set Monday.

A team's potential losses are capped at 10% of the sport's scholarship allotment, meaning a I-A football program could be barred from replacing as many as nine departed scholarship players and men's and women's basketball programs two each.

Though the initial penalties are designed as warnings in advance of potentially stiffer sanctions, "I don't think the loss of nine scholarships in football will be seen by coaches as a slap on the wrist, or the loss of two scholarships out of 13 in men's basketball," Harrison said.

"They're strong penalties. They're very clear. I think they give coaches something to shoot for, and they have serious consequences if they don't do it."

[HERDUSA]

Interesting that this post and topic has had the looks it has in the time that it has been on the site, but nothing mentioned , at what point on the timeline did the intent of college change from what it was originally designed for to what it has become now for a small percentage of high school graduates. Obviously the majority attend college for other reasons than athletics, but for those who do not it has now come to the point of witholding post season play as a possible penalty for colleges that have the priority in reverse.

The following is from an article written regarding this move by the NCAA

Had the proposal been in place this school year, an estimated 30 percent of college football teams, 25 percent of baseball teams and 20 percent of men's basketball teams would have lost scholarships.

Its unfortunate the NCAA has to become involved to this degree

[TomorrowHERD]

This is a really bad idea, and I'm sure the NAZ..I... mean .NCAA knows it.
If a kid(s) are in danger of not making the proper prescribed NCAA mandated grades their will be pressure to give them the proper grades.  They will also be led towards easier classes, with no regard to graduation.
    You guys know this will happen, it happens already at many large schools.  Tennesee for instance.  As usual as in the TN case the big boys will not be investigated, prosecuted or persecuted like those of us in the NonBcS conferences.  
   Just another way to keep us down.


   
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[Mako]

While I think the specifics are always up for debate, I have advocated for a long time that the NCAA needed to finally get into the academics and ensure that schools were graduating their players.  Let's face it.  Every Divison I-A player has dreams of the NFL but, assuming that each of the 117 schools gives out 20 scholarships per year, that's 2340 players.  Now, there are 32 teams in the NFL and let's assume that each adds 5 new players per year (not counting free agents as new players).  That's a whopping total of 160 players each year.  In other words, a Division I-A player has only about a 7% chance of making it into the NFL.  

Moreover, the average career for an NFL player is about 5 years so very few of those who do make it are going to be able to live for the rest of their lives on their NFL earnings.

[HERDUSA]

7% of making it is in all likelyhood high but without turning this into something that its not ment to be the interesting percentage would be of the lets go with your (Mako's)  7% , what percentage of that is still there at then end of year 2 or what percentage of all college football players make it to year 2 in the NFL which obviously is the league they are all striving to play in not the CFL or Europe , that percentage is probably less than 1 %. So accounting for that , this move is great and long overdue by the NCAA.

HERDUSA