Academics at issue for Alabama football By Creg Stephenson Star Sports Writer 02-28-2005
TUSCALOOSA - The football team is one of four at the University of Alabama that fall below minimum standards in the NCAA's inaugural Academic Progress Report to be released today.
The football team received an APR score of 880 for the 2003-2004 academic year, almost five percent below the NCAA's minimum to avoid penalty. Women's basketball, men's cross-country and men's outdoor track & field were the other four sports below 925, the number set forth as roughly equivalent to a 50 percent graduation rate.
Schools will not be held to APR standards until the 2006 report, which takes into account the current academic year. If team scores are not above the minimum, programs face sanctions, up to and including a 10 percent reduction in scholarships.
APR is part of NCAA president Myles Brand's new "get-tough" policy on academics in college athletics. The new system has left many college athletic academics administrators, such as Alabama's Jon Dever, scratching their heads.
"I've spent four weeks looking at this, and I still can't answer all the questions," Dever said Friday. "This is the test run. The public warning was this year. The full brunt comes next year."
The crux of the equation is that each athlete is eligible to earn four "points" each academic year (two each semester). An athlete earns one point for being in academic good standing and one for staying in school each semester.
Thus, a player who is in academic good standing and stays in school both semesters would be "4-for-4" for the year. However, a player that either loses academic eligibility or leaves school for any reason is penalized a point for each.
The total points earned is then divided by the total points possible - this number varies by sport, depending upon the number of scholarships given - to reach a percentage out of 1.000 (the decimal is dropped on the APR report).
In 2003-2004, Alabama had three football players - offensive lineman Justin Smiley and defensive linemen Antwan Odom and Ahmad Childress - leave with a year of eligibility remaining in order to enter the NFL draft. Assuming all three had maintained their grades, Alabama was still penalized a "point" for each (along with other deductions) and wound up with a score of 880 for the academic year.
"I think we've got a good plan in place," Dever said. "By the time we got the rules of the game, we were already three-quarters of the way through the report. We've done a pretty good job of making corrections."
Alabama's fortunes improved somewhat this year, as no players left early for the pros. However, four were academically ineligible after the bowl game, and a fifth left the team earlier this spring to transfer. That means the score could fall below minimum standards next year.
The Crimson Tide football program, of course, has been ravaged in recent years from scholarships lost because of NCAA sanctions that occurred in the late 1990s.
Alabama coach Mike Shula said he and his staff are working hard to maintain the program's academic standards, as when a dozen Alabama seniors played in the Dec. 31 Music City Bowl with degrees already in-hand.
"We all know where we need to be, and we'll work hard every year," Shula said. "It has changed a lot of things in college athletics. Our goal is, when guys come in, to have them graduate and win. When you see 16 seniors, 12 of them who had their degrees and two more that will get them this spring, it makes you feel pretty good."
The men's basketball team is one of six at Alabama that achieved perfect scores of 1000. Head coach Mark Gottfried still thinks the system is hopelessly flawed.
"It's a good attempt, but you're living in an unrealistic world," Gottfried said. "There's too many things that you cannot control, and teams will be penalized for that. That's where I think the coaches won't agree.
"It's as if some presidents are trying their hardest to create a formula that you can grab onto that simply clarifies how everyone is doing. That's just not realistic."
For example, programs would lose points if a scholarship athlete leaves school to enter the professional draft or transfers out in search of more playing time. Even players who complete their eligibility in the fall semester are still expected to stay in school and maintain their grades through the spring.
That's particularly a problem in football, where so many NFL-bound players drop out after the fall semester of their senior years to concentrate on working out for professional scouts. The new NCAA academic standards make the athletic department's academic monitoring system that much more complicated, Shula said.
"How all these rates are determined, we still have a lot of work to do to get to where we are going to feel comfortable," Shula said. "I'm not sure anybody will ever feel comfortable any year as far as being susceptible to losing scholarships for a year for being below a certain cutoff point."
Gottfried said he believes the NCAA is setting a double standard that academic-side administrators in a given university are not forced to live up to.
"There's too many other circumstances that are involved," Gottfried said. "It's no different than our university cannot control every student that enters here, whether they stay here and graduate. Nor can we as coaches. You cannot do it."
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