While basketball fans love stats, none really want to hear about boring numbers like graduation rates, grade-point averages and surveys.College coaches care about those things, which is why they have the Knight Commission meetings. The Knight Commission has been striving for academic reform in college athletics for decades and, over the past four year, punishing programs who fail to meet certain academic and graduation requirements.
Well, as he was sitting and listening to these numbers flow ... Georgia Tech head basketball Paul Hewitt coach got tired of it. He flipped on his mic and had at it:
"While I like to see everyone who reaches college earn a degree," Hewitt said, "we need to find more effective ways to achieve our goals. I do have a problem with putting numbers out there, saying 'Meet these numbers or else. You're turning education into a race."
"I'm getting tired of coaches getting beat up," Hewitt said, "when I think we are doing a very responsible job."
He kind of has a point. Hewitt also said that these pressures on coaches to keep their athletes' grades up may/has forced some of them to steer those students to easier courses. The ACC has discussed this issue in their conference meetings.
Hewitt also had a heated debate with Len Elmore -- the former Maryland star (and lawyer) who is an ESPN analyst and member of the Knight Commission. Hewitt, like Elmore, hates the one-and-done rule. However, Hewitt wants to see the baseball rules adopted ... either go to the draft after high school or stay at least three years of college. Elmore wanted to see no players draft-eligible until at least three years of college (they even used this opportunity to dump on LeBron James and why he has no mid-range game).
Hewitt went off on the NBA, saying the agents are turning college campuses into "the wild west". He even mentioned how the NFL manages to punish agents who engage in questionable behavior with college kids.
Oh, and it wasn't as if Hewitt wasn't prepared for this meeting. He pulled out his own statistics for everyone to hear:
Hewitt then pulled out his own set of statistics, based on federal graduation rates and supplied by the NCAA. His chart noted that white male basketball and football players -- despite scholarships and access to tutors and other perks received as athletes -- have a graduation rate lower than that of the white male general student body. Conversely, black football and basketball players and women's basketball players graduate at a pace ahead of the general student body for their respective groups.
My favorite suggestion (by "favorite" I mean "one that made me laugh the hardest") was to make basketball a one semester sport and have a shorter season. Even he admitted that would never, ever happen.
Still, Hewitt brings up some valid points. I think the NBA's one-and-done deal is bad for both parties (I support the idea, but agree that athletes should stay in school longer than just one season) and I do think that pressuring for grade-point averages or sanctions are levied is a slippery slope. Not to say that it isn't important to keep up with the grades, but the fact that a school and a coach faces discipline will certainly mean that they could steer a kid to an easier course-load.
Like Hewitt, I don't see the Academic Performance Review to be a bad thing ... but it isn't the only tool out there to do, what they say, is their goal. Make sure these kids get the most from their academics while in college and to keep coaches from shoving guys through the system. Maybe Hewitt has lit a fire.
