The NCAA released their Annual Progress Ratings (APRs) on Wednesday, giving marks to 20 UNH teams. Six of those teams, including football, men's and women's cross country, men's soccer, and women's indoor and outdoor track received recognition for going above and beyond the NCAA standard.
"It should be additionally noted that the recognition of New Hampshire football is truly exceptional," said Athletic Director Marty Scarano in an e-mail, "as most of the D-1 football teams recognized were members of the Ivy League and schools such as Duke, Stanford, etc…UNH was one of a very select group of state school programs which had significant on field success"
The ratings, which were created in 2004, measure a program's success in progressing student-athletes towards graduation and reflect the school's success for the 2005-2006 school year. They are used to impose fines on those universities that do not meet the academic standard of the NCAA.
Teams that score below a 925 in their APRs received a letter of warning from the NCAA. Teams that score below 900 are put on probation for a year, and given the opportunity to raise their scores. If a school does not rise above the 900-point mark after the year is over, the NCAA will penalize schools by reducing the number of athletic scholarships they are allowed to award.
Every Division I sports team calculates its APR each academic year, based on the eligibility, retention and graduation of each scholarship student-athlete. A score of 925 in the APRs is roughly equivalent to a 60 percent graduation rate, while teams with a perfect graduation rate are awarded 1000 points. In this year's report men's and women's cross country, as well as women's indoor and outdoor track were all given perfect scores. Men's soccer and football also finished in the top 90th percentile of their sports, with scores of 995 and 977 respectively. To put those scores into perspective, the average score of the 201 NCAA men's soccer teams was 952, while the average score of the 239 football teams was a mere 931.
While no UNH sports fell into the unacceptable range, several teams did end up in the lower percentile of their sports. With a score of 956, the women's lacrosse had one of the lowest scores of the 81 lacrosse teams in the NCAA. Women's basketball (938) and women's hockey (958) also fell in the bottom 30 percent of their sports.
Men's basketball turned in the lowest score of all UNH teams, with a score of 934. This score however, put them the in top 50 percent of team's nationally, as the average NCAA men's basketball program earned a score of 927, which is, by far, the worst average of any Division 1 sport.
Of the 6,110 college sports teams nationally, 112 will be sanctioned for not meeting the 925 point standard while 839 teams will be recognized nationally for their superior academic performances.
"As each year goes by, I am more and more encouraged by how seriously our student-athletes are taking their academic responsibility," said NCAA President Myles Brand in a statement. "But more work is needed."
The APRs were instituted in order to curb the number of student-athletes failing to graduate from their universities after their athletic eligibility has ended, particularly in the "money" sports of football and basketball. This year's report showed national improvement by almost all Division 1 teams, particularly football where the national APR raised 3.9 points, from 929.3 to 933.2.
Men's basketball was one of the few sports to decrease in APR this year, falling 3.3 points from last year's report to 925.6, dangerously close to the NCAA's success threshold.
"The goal of academic reform is to improve classroom performance and graduate all of our student-athletes," Brand said. "Teams not doing well academically need to begin devising strategies for improvement now."
It is unclear how the new NBA rule requiring athletes to be one year removed from high school and at least 19 years old will affect future APRs, as athletes that would normally go directly from high school to the pros, are now choosing to spend a year playing for college teams and then leave without graduating.
Jim Haney, executive director of the National Association of Basketball Coaches, agreed that reform is needed in college basketball programs.
"The NABC and its members are strongly committed to the academic success of every basketball student-athlete," Haney said. "It is very important to the health of the game and our student-athletes that coaches improve the performance of our basketball players in the classroom."
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