By Gregory Lewinter, SM ‘11 and Ellen Staurowsky, Ithaca College
Scholars, professors, industry leaders, and students gathered April 20-22 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina for the Fourth Annual College Sport Research Institute Conference. Among the topics receiving prominent attention was the impact of the Academic Progress Rate (APR) on athletic department budgets, coach recruiting strategies, and issues associated with athlete academic preparedness.
The APR, officially implemented by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) on April 29, 2003, is a “real-time, snapshot” tool used to measure both academic success and graduation rates. The APR, initially used in Division II Athletics to test its feasibility, was implemented to measure the success and/or failure of both individual teams and coaches to retain and graduate their student- athletes. The system is based on a 1000-point scale, where a 925 is considered a passing mark. The APR score for the team and coach are determined utilizing a point system based on student-athlete eligibility, retention, and graduation. This annual measurement has instituted a three-strike rule to punish a team or coach for a failing APR score, which can lead to a loss of scholarships and/or a ban on postseason play. A seemingly transparent initiative to measure academic success and to demonstrate the prioritization of academics in the scheme of the many concerns facing college sport has ultimately left the NCAA with only more questions regarding the academic integrity of intercollegiate athletics.
Within individual athletic departments, there is also the practical reality of how to provide the necessary infrastructure to respond to the need to provide additional academic support to athletes, especially in the sports of football and men’s basketball. As Nathan Kirkpatrick from the University of Georgia pointed out in his presentation, the NCAA acknowledged in June of 2010 that APR compliance standards were proving to be difficult to meet for non-Bowl Championship Series (BCS) and low resource institutions. In the aftermath of the economic downturn, while some NCAA Division I institutions have been able to ensure financial viability through the negotiation of television contracts and merchandising deals, others have struggled to maintain market position. Based on a pilot study of athletic administrators, athletic directors, and faculty athletic representatives at five low resource/non-BCS institutions, Kirkpatrick found that institutional decision makers are reallocating financial resources to invest in academic support personnel leading to cuts in non-revenue programs and other personnel areas within athletic departments.
Kirkpatrick’s work takes on new meaning in light of penalities leveled by the NCAA in May of 2011 against Grambling University, Jackson State University, and Southern University because of sub-par academic performance. While Grambling and Jackson State have been barred from post-season play in the sport of football, Southern became the first institution in the country to be barred from post-season in both football and men’s basketball. According to the Washington Daily News, of the 58 harshest APR sanctions handed down by the NCAA, nearly half were assessed to historically black institutions.
Not only has the APR generated a financial strain based on the need for appropriate academic support, it has also impacted the approach coaches take to recruiting athletes in some cases. Based on the results of a study of 103 NCAA football operations coordinators (FOCs), John Barnes (University of New Mexico) and Joshua Castle (Indiana University of Pennsylvania) found that 45.6% indicated that they changed their approach to recruiting. When assessing prospective players who might be perceived as potential discipline problems, more than half (56.3%) of the coordinators were “at least slightly less likely” to recruit them because of the APR. Sixty four percent (64%) of the football operations coordinators were more hesitant to recruit athletes they perceived to be academically challenged while 45% indicated that they would be reluctant to recruit “special admits”. In order to ensure that APR standards are being met, FOCs reported that 66% of football programs and 75.7% of athletic departments had either put more money into academic support or increased resources in some other way.
According to this group of FOCs, not only has the APR affected recruitment strategies. Programs are also dealing with issues related to retention once an athlete becomes part of a team. The APR is cited as a reason for retaining football players who are described as discipline problems, however, the nature of the infraction or behavior does appear to have an effect on how coordinators view retention issues. While more than half of the respondents expressed a belief that the APR would encourage them to keep athletes in their program who violated a team or institutional policy, approximately 60% of respondents indicated that retention strategies did not change as a result of the APR, especially for athletes convicted of misdemeanors or felonies. At the same time, when deciding the status of an athlete who was convicted of a misdemeanor, 17.5% were more likely to retain the athlete. Castle and Barnes conclude that while the passage of the APR legislation has had a positive impact on the recruitment of more academically qualified prospects who may have fewer disciplinary issues, some programs appear to be retaining football players who would otherwise be released due to misconduct because of the pressure to meet APR compliance standards.
While FOCs may have greater hesitation about actively recruiting academically at risk athletes known as “special admits”, a further consequence of the public transparency of the APR has been a growing awareness of the degree to which NCAA eligibility standards need to be revisited and the assumptions underlying the NCAA academic reform movement critically examined. As Gerald Guerney and Carla Winters from the University of Oklahoma reviewed in their presentation on the academic preparedness of specially admitted college athletes, the NCAA changed initial eligibility standards in 2003, providing for a sliding scale that allowed athletes to qualify for admission even if their standardized test scores were alarmingly low as long as they had an appropriate high school grade point average. Recognizing that grade inflation has been occurring throughout US educational institutions, they conducted a study using data from the Wide Range Achievement Test IV (WRAT IV), a test designed to measure basic academic skills in the areas of word recognition, sentence comprehension, spelling, and math computation, comparing specially admitted athletes who met standards in place prior to 2003 and specially admitted athletes who qualified under the 2003 standards. From those specially admitted athletes who met NCAA standards after 2003, there were significant differences in the levels of basic skills between the groups in the three of the four areas (word recognition, sentence comprehension, and spelling). Thus, as the academic reform movement within college sport continues, and as greater pressure is exerted on athletic departments to meet the standards established for the APR, eligibility requirements for athletes may need to be revisited as well.
Graduation rates and academic eligibility have ultimately risen since 2003; however, many questions still remain surrounding the APR. Are the financial and administrative pressures as a result of the APR too great for institutions to handle? Are coaches using illegal strategies to maintain a passing APR mark? Is there now too much pressure on the student- athlete? All of these questions remain unanswered as experts and professionals in the industry need more time to understand and examine the usefulness of the APR. It is clear that the APR has created more questions for the institutions, athletic departments, and the NCAA than anticipated.
References
Castle, J., & Barnes, J. (2011). The APR’s impact on college football. Paper presented at the College Sport Research Institute, University of North Carolina-Chapel, Hill.
Gurney, G. S., & Winters, C. A. (2011). Academic preparedness of specially admitted student-athletes: A question of basic skills. Presentation at the College Sport Research Institute Conference, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Kirkpatrick, N. (2011). A pilot study: The impact of the NCAA academic progress rate (APR) on low resource or non-BCS institutions as it relates to football and/or men’s basketball programs. Paper presented at the College Sport Research Institute Conference, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Staff. (2011, May 24). NCAA releases latest APR report. Washington Daily News. Retrieved May 25, 2011, http://www.wdnweb.com/2011/05/24/ncaa- releases-latest-apr-report/
