Illini, Hawks make grade
College athletic programs at Iowa, Iowa State and Illinois received passing grades when the NCAA issued its annual Academic Progress Rate report Tuesday.
No program at any of the three schools was among the more than 200 that were hit with scholarship reductions or other sanctions because of academic shortcomings.
“Our goal, as always, is for all of our student-athletes to leave here with a degree, but we feel very pleased with this year’s report. There is progress, and that is what this measurement is designed to detect,” Iowa director of athletics Gary Barta said.
The NCAA considers a 925 multi-year rate — a score that measures retention and academic progress and essentially equates to a 50 percent graduation rate — as acceptable.
A year ago, two programs at Iowa did not reach that 925 standard.
The men’s swimming and women’s tennis programs were placed on public notice, meaning that a lack of progress in this year’s report would have led to penalties beginning with scholarship reductions. Chronic offenders are subjected to penalties including practice-time limitations and bans on postseason competition.
Iowa’s four-year scores this year ranged from 933 in wrestling to a perfect 1,000 in men’s cross country. The men’s swimming program posted a 935 score this year while women’s tennis had a 940. No other program at Iowa posted a rate below 950.
“While I suspect we will always find areas where we
GRADE
Continued from Page C1
can improve, when you have fewer sports fall below the standard that demonstrates the student-athletes and coaches are working toward meeting the measures we attempt to comply with,” Barta said.
“We’re excited about the progress that our programs are making.”
The only program at any of the three schools to post a score below 925 was the men’s basketball program at Iowa State.
ISU lost two scholarships a year ago as a result of unacceptable scores, largely related to the departure of six players following the dismissal of former coach Wayne Morgan.
Iowa State’s rate in men’s basketball remained below the 925 benchmark this year, but rose from 852 a year ago to 869 in this report. That improvement, the result of not having any players declared academically ineligible, allowed ISU to avoid additional penalties.
Iowa State’s football program had a 927 score this year, the closest any other ISU program came to failing to meet the NCAA-designated benchmark. Women’s swimming, with a 992 score, posted the highest rate among Cyclones athletic programs.
Football was the lowest-scoring sport at Illinois, where attrition after a coaching change created a 930 score in this year’s report. Only one other sport, men’s tennis at 947, posted a score below a 959 at Illinois, where men’s golf recorded a 1,000.
Elsewhere in Iowa and Illinois, the men’s basketball program at Western Illinois was put on public notice because of its 874 score. If that number was to remain below 925 next year, the Leathernecks could face scholarship reductions.
“We saw four-plus years without a successful retention rate or graduation rate, so we had already begun taking the necessary steps to reverse that trend,’’ Western Illinois director of athletics Tim Van Alstine said.
Those steps include the hiring of an additional full-time athletics academic advisor, creating additional space for academic services and increasing the emphasis on roster retention and transfer student-athlete success.
The men’s cross country program at Northern Iowa also had an 889, but was not placed on notice because mathematical squad-sized adjustments created a “upper confidence boundary” that the number would have reached 925 with a larger group of athletes.
Steve Batterson can be contacted at (563) 383-2290 or sbatterson@qctimes.com.