http://onnidan1.com/forum/index.php/topic,64559.0.html
-----
News
Is Winning Everything?
by Reginald Stuart , June 6, 2012
A student’s performance on the basketball court undeniably brings money into the coffers of many schools. At the same time, too many of the athletes, particularly Black student-athletes, are underperforming academically and are at risk of losing their NCAA eligibility and, more important, failing in college overall.
When the University of Kentucky Wildcats won the NCCA Division I Basketball Championship this spring, the victory did more than put another big trophy in the showcase of the venerable intercollegiate sports powerhouse. It helped ensure the financial outlook for what has become a phenomenal, and oft-times controversial, money-making machine for all involved.
Days after the final buzzer of the NCAA championship game went silent, the entire Wildcats starting lineup—three freshmen and two sophomores—said they were entering the June draft of the National Basketball Association (NBA). So did senior Darius Miller.
In 2010, freshman John Wall left Kentucky after one season and went on to sign a three-year deal with the Washington Wizards worth $16.59 million. When asked if he thought Wall would return for his sophomore season, Wildcats Coach Calipari said, “He better not be.”
…..
While Kentucky touts that it has “consistently posted strong numbers” in the
NCAA’s APR program, that achievement is helped by the NCAA rule that excludes student-athletes who leave before graduation to go professional from being counted as dropouts for the purposes of assessing the NCAA’s other important yardstick—graduation rates. The most recent assessment by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport of NCAA data on Division I graduation rates showed that, for the 2006 through 2010 student cohort, Kentucky graduated only 60 percent of its African-American student athletes, compared to 100 percent of its non-minority, or White, student-athletes.
As for student-athletes leaving, nine Kentucky basketball players have been drafted by NBA teams in the past two years.
“If a student jumps after one year in bad academic standing, then he counts against the school’s APR and GSR rates,” said Dr. Richard Lapchick, chair of the DeVos Sport Business Management Program at the University of Central Florida and director of the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport.
David Ridpath, assistant professor of sports administration at Ohio University and a leader in The Drake Group, also voices caution about the APR standards, calling them “manufactured.”
Ridpath, whose group has been pushing the NCAA to adopt clearer steps for measuring academic performance and also better financial reporting for academic departments, calls the APR a moving target.
“Whether they are seriously educating these students is up for debate,” Ridpath says. “Whether you come to school for one day or four years, as long as they are in college they need to be students.” D
-Autumn Arnett contributed to this story.
