Federal government wants to step in and

[tornado]

force the NCAA to distribute their NCAA Tournament bids according to the FED's standards!

Is there no end to the meddling and bullying the federal government wants to thrust into everyone's lives?

President Obama's buddy and Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan
(ex-Chicago Public Schools chief whose old system that he presided over in Chicago is so badly broke and corrupt that it likely can never be fixed)...

Arne says this...that the federal government wants the NCAA to prohibit any colleges,
even private ones from competing in the NCAA tournament if they don't
reach the feds' predetermined graduation rates.
"U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan says schools not on track to
graduate at least half of their basketball players should not be allowed to
compete in the NCAA men's and women's tournaments.

If such a standard were in place now, three women's teams and 10 men's
teams, including traditional powers Syracuse and Purdue, would not be in the
tournaments."

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/2011-03-16-arne-duncan-ncaa-grad-rates_N.htm

..and if this isn't bad enough -- this article covering the exact same story -- actually gets it 180 degrees WRONG...
They seem to want to ban the schools that "ARE ON TRACK TO GRADUATE AT LEAST HALF.."
"U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan says
schools that are on track to graduate at least half of their basketball players
should not be allowed to compete in the NCAA men's and
women's tournaments."

http://www.phillyburbs.com/lifestyle/education/low-grad-rate-should-mean-no-tourney-invite/article_eafdaf96-5099-11e0-860a-0017a4a78c22.html

Where are the cries that this is horribly racist? Clearly this is gonna penalize the schools that take the highest risk, minority and inner city kids...
The schools that give a lifeline-type opportunity to a kid who is marginal and at higher risk for bad grades...
all over the place we see that people are claiming this is racism and bias...we just saw this exact thing in the lawsuit by the non-qualifiers...

http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showpost.php?p=221944&postcount=1

[Beninator]

I think that this a very refreshing approach. After all we are talking about STUDENT athletes! We may have debates on here as to how good of a coach JL was, however, JL and BU placed an emphasis on and graduated his players. JL should be commended for that! Raising the graduation standards would be another equalizer for mid-major schools like Bradley that place an emphasis on academics. All we are talking about here is a greater than 50% success rate. Heck, if I had a little over a 50% success rate with my job, I would be fired and for good reason!

A couple of quotes from the article were conveniently left out as well.

"The math on this is not complicated," Duncan said. "If you can't graduate one in two of your student-athletes, I just question the institutional commitment to academics. And I think if the NCAA were to draw a line in the sand, you'd see this behavior change very rapidly."


How remarkably true is this quote!

"Money talks," Duncan said. "So right now there is an absolute perverse incentive. Folks follow the money, and the money says, 'We don't care about academic outcomes.'

Yet another great comment from the cited article:

Benjamin Todd Jealous, president and CEO of the NAACP, said the graduation gap between white and black men's basketball players happens at a range of schools.
"You can't say this is all poor schools, or this is all rural schools, or this is all urban schools," he said. "It tends to be a diverse set of institutions that appear to have one thing in common, which is a lack of leadership from their coaches when it comes to the academic performance of their men's basketball players.

IMHO, placing an emphasis on graduating players is long overdue!

[Da Coach]

Doesn't the NCAA already go way overboard enforcing academic penalties on schools with low APRs, when that isn't the purpose of the NCAA?

[Beninator]

Doesn't the NCAA already go way overboard enforcing academic penalties on schools with low APRs, when that isn't the purpose of the NCAA?

Do you not think that there is vast room for improvement? The NCAA enforcement has led to sub 50% graduation rates for the top revenue grossing teams!

Quote from cited article:

The Knight Commission found 43.7% of the $409.3 million awarded from 2006-2010 was earned by teams projected to graduate less than half of their players. The top revenue-earning conferences from the last five tournaments, and how much was earned by teams with academic progress rates (APRs) below 925:

[SFP]

Sorry the Feds need to butt out on this. They should look into the HS system where there are some schools that do not graduate 50% of their students. Why waste limited resources on a small percentage of the student population? Oh I forgot someone is playing politics.

[tornado]

just for the sake of argument -- let's say the NCAA did go with these guidelines...

Guess what....(men's basketball data used)

--The Missouri Valley would NOT have had a team in the NCAA Tourney...as the most recent data on Indiana State showed an APR of UNDER the minimum standard (923) and a graduation rate under 50% (33% and 44% for the two most recent years reported) (men's basketball data used)

http://web1.ncaa.org/app_data/apr2009/305_2009_apr.pdf

--IPFW would have been ineligible for their ENTIRE life span in Division I...
For all SIX of the most recent reporting years, the Federal Graduation rates at IPFW (men's basketball) were...
17%, 33%, 23%, 20%, 29%, and 20%

-Illinois State wouldn't have had a prayer -- as they have also been at or under 50% in EACH of the past SIX years reported! (50%, 38%, 22%, 20%, 18&, 30%)

-Bradley has never been under 50%

-Texas Tech (the Bobby Knight effect) has been UNDER 50% in ALL five of the most recent five reporting years

-even Indiana is 2002 & 2003 (Bobby Knight's players) are both under 50%
(blows that mantra all to heck, doesn't it?)

-Here are a bunch of other schools whose (men's basketball) Federal Grad Rate has NEVER been above 50%..
Tennessee, Maryland, Memphis, UNLV (was actually ZERO four years back), Syracuse, UIC, Louisville, and MANY others....even Ohio State hit the mark only ONCE out of the past 6 years!!!

http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/newmedia/public/rates/index.html

so -- are they then going to also apply the same ruling to FOOTBALL bowl games?? There'd be nobody left to play in them!!!!

[wily coyote]

just for the sake of argument -- let's say the NCAA did go with these guidelines...

Guess what....(men's basketball data used)

--The Missouri Valley would NOT have had a team in the NCAA Tourney...as the most recent data on Indiana State showed an APR of UNDER the minimum standard (923) and a graduation rate under 50% (33% and 44% for the two most recent years reported) (men's basketball data used)

http://web1.ncaa.org/app_data/apr2009/305_2009_apr.pdf

--IPFW would have been ineligible for their ENTIRE life span in Division I...
For all SIX of the most recent reporting years, the Federal Graduation rates at IPFW (men's basketball) were...
17%, 33%, 23%, 20%, 29%, and 20%

-Illinois State wouldn't have had a prayer -- as they have also been at or under 50% in EACH of the past SIX years reported! (50%, 38%, 22%, 20%, 18&, 30%)

-Bradley has never been under 50%

-Texas Tech (the Bobby Knight effect) has been UNDER 50% in ALL five of the most recent five reporting years

-even Indiana is 2002 & 2003 (Bobby Knight's players) are both under 50%
(blows that mantra all to heck, doesn't it?)

-Here are a bunch of other schools whose (men's basketball) Federal Grad Rate has NEVER been above 50%..
Tennessee, Maryland, Memphis, UNLV (was actually ZERO four years back), Syracuse, UIC, Louisville, and MANY others....even Ohio State hit the mark only ONCE out of the past 6 years!!!

http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/newmedia/public/rates/index.html

so -- are they then going to also apply the same ruling to FOOTBALL bowl games?? There'd be nobody left to play in them!!!!

I do see a silver lining in all of this. We would probably make the big dance. lol

[tornado]

yup -- us & Creighton and we'd play Northwesten & Duke!!

[wily coyote]

yup -- us & Creighton and we'd play Northwesten & Duke!!

I'd hope they'd put the thrid place game back in so we could at least play twice.

[Beninator]

yup -- us & Creighton and we'd play Northwesten & Duke!!

At least there would truly be student athletes on the floor!

[Beninator]

Just an aside here, but keep in mind, the NCAA was founded as a direct result of a sitting President summoning athletic leaders to two White House conferences to encourage reforms. The introduction of the forward pass in football has its origins from a committee formed by these meetings.

http://www.ncaa.org/wps/wcm/connect/public/NCAA/About+the+NCAA/Who+We+Are/About+the+NCAA+history

"In many places, college football was run by student groups that often hired players and allowed them to compete as non-students..."

[tornado]

The NCAA FIRES BACK at the secretary of Education!!!

College athletes are NOT a bunch of dumb jocks!!!!

"NCAA pushes back on dumb jock myth"

http://ncaa.org/wps/wcm/connect/public/ncaa/resources/latest+news/2011/march/ncaa+pushes+back+on+dumb+jock+myth

(note much of this story is about an ex-University of Illinois women's basketball player who is now an actress)

[ChewaBrave]

I don't think the Federal government should be forcing something like that. That having been said, I didn't see anywhere in the article where the "forcing" was taking place, or any proposed legislation. I saw the secretary of education, who theoretically, is largely concerned about education - offering up how he thinks the ncaa should give out bids. Roughly 40 million people in this county have an opinion about bids - be is Tourny bids, or Bowl bids, no difference.

Just because a guy says something, doesn't mean black helicopters are swarming over your house to steal your outdated inefficient appliances.

[Bravesfan]

The NCAA FIRES BACK at the secretary of Education!!!

College athletes are NOT a bunch of dumb jocks!!!!

"NCAA pushes back on dumb jock myth"

http://ncaa.org/wps/wcm/connect/public/ncaa/resources/latest+news/2011/march/ncaa+pushes+back+on+dumb+jock+myth

(note much of this story is about an ex-University of Illinois women's basketball player who is now an actress)

I actually would not mind the theory of penalizing teams that don't reach the minimum 50% graduation rate. However, I don't think the government should be getting involved in this as they have bigger issues of trying to get more of the general population graduating before worrying about how many athletes may graduate.

Second, if any student can drop out and/or transfer when they want, why the double standard against athletes?

I think Bradley did things the right way by hiring a coach who put a huge emphasis on players graduating (many with honors), even at the expense of a better win/loss record. That's why I worry whether the new coaching hire will emphasize academics the same way Les did. But the way Les emphasized the academic progress of his players is the template that Bradley and other schools should continue to follow, by utilizing a proven method that does not involve even more government intervention.

[Chico]

Seems funny to me that Bradley fired a coach who graduates more players than most other coaches, who had a very good recruiting class coming in and who had great new facilities which no doubt helped with recruiting. If it wasn't for the key injuries, IMO, this would have been the best of both worlds. Would have kept the NCAA happy, which is hard to do, and should have kept Bradley happy too.