Myles Brand called Thursday's announcement a "sea change" and "landmark legislation". Those of us who have been around the NCAA merry-go-round a time or two beg to differ.
Calling the academic reforms that were approved by the NCAA Board of Directors seismic is a little like calling Hilary Duff Grammy material. Let's give her a few albums. Let's give the NCAA's reforms some time to sink in, ferment, perhaps be reworked.
The biggest news is that the NCAA now has power to take away scholarships and keep schools out of the postseason if they don't reach certain academic standards. That's all the public should and will care about. Will a single program be touched by this academic sword and be cut out of the NCAA Tournament?
At best, no one knows yet. At worse, there are skeptics coming out of the woodwork.
"I don't have any hope for that being anything that's going to catch somebody," Ohio State athletic director Andy Geiger told the San Diego Union-Tribune.
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| Bob Huggins wasn't too concerned about his zero percent grad rate at Cincinnati.(Getty Images) |
"It's going to take some time," said Florida State compliance director Brian Battle.
It sometimes takes years for NCAA legislation to shake out. It won't be until 2007 that any school would be kicked out of the postseason. And only then after it passed through a series of "filters", warnings and lesser penalties.
Geiger, for one, said a school would have to be "beyond dumb" to let that happen.
Reduction of scholarships? Yeah, it would hurt -- basketball more than football. But they could be absorbed.
How many Division I basketball teams absolutely can't get along without that 13th scholarship? Embarrassment hasn't proved to be a deterrent. Bob Huggins wasn't exactly losing recruits or sleep when he had a zero grad rate at Cincinnati. The legislation isn't transparent. Florida State applied the new standards to its scholarship athletes recently and found that 40 would be ineligible.
"There were some pretty high profile names in there," Battle said.
The problem is incongruity and inconsistency. The NCAA doesn't know or won't set what the cut-off line will be until it gathers enough data. That hardly suggests a sea change. Will it be the lowest 20 percent? 10 percent? 5 percent? Don't forget the filters, warnings and probations before a program gets the boot.
"You're not going to get a postseason ban unless you're really, really bad," Battle said.
Times and minds change.
Example: A couple of years ago the NCAA started to address minimum eligibility standards for I-A football. The bar was set at a home average attendance of 15,000, which, it was reported, could knock 20 to 30 schools out of I-A. The same NCAA that announced the new academic standards is seriously considering doing away with the attendance requirement.
There is some discomfort with such a rule, especially with the everybody-into-the-pool philosophy of the NCAA Tournament which features equal access to 327 teams.
A brief timeout here to compliment Brand, the NCAA president, on bringing a new aggressive philosophy to his position.
Though the academic reforms aren't his baby (they've been in the legislative pipeline for years), he supported them and pushed the agenda. The same goes for the dramatic meeting in February between the BCS and non-BCS presidents that he guided to a conclusion in Miami.
With Brand's significant help, the meeting resulted in a fifth bowl that will provide more access to non-BCS schools. The man knows how to use a bully pulpit.
The problem with this new legislation is the obvious holes. Critics already have pointed out a greater temptation for academic fraud. Though it will be easier from now on to get in school, it will be much harder to stay eligible and matriculate through a university.
"It's going to increase cheating because it increases the pressure on faculty to pass students who cannot do the work," Denver University professor Linda Bensel-Meyers told the New York Times.
Bensel-Meyers, you'll recall, is the former Tennessee professor who alleged extensive academic fraud at the school.
The NCAA standards will be such that an incoming freshman can literally do nothing more than sign his name to his SAT and be initially eligible if he or she has a high enough high school GPA.
The hard part is achieving 40 percent of required degree credit by the end of the second year, 60 percent after three years and 80 percent after four. That makes it almost impossible to change majors and stay eligible.
Look for more majors like "leisure studies", "physical education" and "liberal arts" on the bios of players during televised football games. Also look for truckloads more money being spent on more academic support. Some athletic departments already major in keeping their athletes eligible. Think of the tutors and resources they will have to add because of new standards.
There is already a feeling on campuses that athletes are pampered anyway. Some professors will no doubt react negatively when they are asked to produce more academic updates more often.
"They don't want to do it because they don't have to do it for the average student," Battle said of the instructors.
"Coaches and players will not realize the full impact until they lose a player,' Battle said. "You're going to have to see an increase in staff and increase in tutorial. We've already gone to two learning specialists. You are going to see more kids getting waivers from the NCAA because they are learning disabled. There's going to be an emphasis on passing kids and potentially an increase in academic fraud."
Meanwhile, coaches are going to have to change their basic recruiting philosophy. Do they risk recruiting an athletic stud who is a marginal student or taking an academic sure thing who might be a marginal player?
"Our athletic director told our coaches, 'Your job as a coach has changed. If you've done a good job academically, you have to do a better job,' " Battle said.
There were similar sea-change claims made 20 years ago.
That's when Proposition 48 was adopted and strengthened initial eligibility-standards. Some of those standards were based on the SAT and ACT entrance exam scores. Coaches and athletic directors howled. A group of kids in Philadelphia sued the NCAA saying the tests were racially biased.
With the new standards, the NCAA is relying more on high school core courses than the entrance exams. Interesting. The NCAA used to be loath to trust high school teachers, intimating they could be too close to the star athlete and pass him through the system. Now their grades are the foundation for initial eligibility.
It's a process. Schools and coaches will adjust. So will the NCAA if some of these changes might not be as radical as they seem.
Schools were supposed to be embarrassed by bad graduation rates when they were first published about 14 years ago. Cincinnati survived. Oklahoma football's 33 percent grad rate in 2003 was the third-worst among the 56 bowl teams. Somehow the Sooners won a national championship and a couple of conference titles during the time those numbers were compiled.
The equation will remain the same. Athletic directors, fans and media will judge coaches by their winning percentage, not necessarily by their graduation rate.
If schools truly cared about those, Huggins would have been out years ago. Carl Franks enjoyed a 90 percent plus grad rate coaching Duke football. That didn't matter a lick when he was fired last season for not winning enough football games.
No legislative tremor can change that.
