Graduation rates and football
(Written by kencraw)
Down in the USC loss good for Cal post a new commentor asks about the LA Times article about Stanford’s excellence in academics for their football players that has been generating a lot of discussion lately.
I’ve got a bigger point to make but first the important qualifier about Cal: The 52% number is not reflective of what Tedford is doing today and has nothing to do with the recruits that Tedford brought in. Basically, the graduation rate measures the percentage of a 5 year window of recruits that should have graduated by now. This year’s number grades whether those who were recruited in the 1997-2001 years have a degree at this point. In other words, every recruit from that time period that dropped out of school before Tedford took over in 2002 is counted against this year’s number despite the fact that the current staff has never known them and they may not have been involved with the program for a full decade. Metrics that measure the current status show Tedford’s staff is doing an excellent job both recruiting smart, high academic achieving kids (GPA of this year’s recruits was around 3.50) and ensuring that these kids are graduating. In fact he’s doing so well that there’s reason to believe that Cal will have a better number than Stanford when the official numbers finally get around to measuring the current batch of players in a decade or so.
I have a lot more details about that if people are interested but that’s not what I wanted to comment on so I’ll leave it at that.
My point is why should we care about the graduation rate in the first place? Before everyone gasps, let me explain. I’m a huge pronent of the NCAA’s century old position that college sports are about college students who happen to play sports instead of sports players who happen to go to college. I think that’s exactly how it should be. However, despite my understanding that there has to be some quantitative metric to determine whether schools are following through on the NCAA’s mission, I’m completely unconvinced that graduation rate is the right metric.
When I went to college as a regular (albeit nerdy) student, did the University or the Engineering department care if I couldn’t cut it at school and had to drop out? Not really. In fact, many schools pride themselves in their relatively high drop out rate because it is a “badge of honor” for those who graduated that they accomplished something special. Something most other people couldn’t. Something that even a majority of those who were admitted to the University, much less the general population, couldn’t accomplish. So on principle alone, why is it a bad thing if football players are similarly as unsuccessful at graduating from the University as their general population peers?
Going back to the University lauded in the article, Stanford, their graduation rate for their football team was 93%. That’s pretty good by any measure. But it loses some of its meaning without a comparison to the general student body. I tried to find numbers for that for a similar time frame at Stanford and had very little luck finding something about the general student population amongst the sea of athletic links and the fact that Stanford as a private University is not required to report these things like Cal a public University does. I did find one number that might prove helpful: Black students at Stanford have a 90% graduation rate in a study concluded in late 2006 (what years the study measured was not mentioned in the article). Seeing as how that same article points to black students doing extremely poorly at other Universities and generally speaking the percentage of black students on a football team is dramatically higher than that of the general student population it seems a safe, albeit long reach, assumption to suggest that Stanford has a very low drop out rate across the board and it has nothing to do with the football program that their number in above 90%.
Looking at Cal’s lowly 52% for their football players (see above caveat), when one finds that general graduation rates are far lower (I found numbers all over the map depending on what they were trying to meaures from the low 40’s to around 75%), all of a sudden the 52% doesn’t seem as horrific as it would otherwise.
The point of all of this is that I think the NCAA needs to find a different way to judge athletic programs and their academics. I think the NCAA should be trying to ensure three things:
- Entrance requirements for athletes are acceptably proportionate to the general student body
- Student Athlete success rates during their playing years are close to that of the general student body
- Graduation rates are similar to that of the general student body
While the NCAA makes no attempt at regulating #1 on this list, and I personally find that to be deplorable, they do at least make an attempt at #2 with their academic eligibility rules that require students be passing a reasonable load of classes each semester (or whatever) to be able to play sports. Nevertheless that’s a very low bar to clear and is not really a measure of the program but instead a restriction on individual player. #3 is the lone area where percentages are actually measured and they are done in such a way that they do not accurately reflect the current status of the program and do not take into account the rigors, or lack thereof, of each University.
I’ve been glad to hear that changes are being made to how the NCAA measures student-athlete academic performance and I want to make sure I give the NCAA full credit for it’s goals and the effort it is making to improve in these areas. That said, I think the current system and even the future system that is in the process of being implemented are using the wrong metrics to measure each University’s performance.
October 10th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
Maybe the number of arrests the team has over a one year period would be more beneficial than the graduation rate.
October 10th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
That’s a good addtional metric to be grading against bar20. I don’t know that Cal would come out well with some of the stupid stuff that’s gone on in the last year or two, but definitely criminal behavior should be more than just “frowned upon”.
October 10th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
Ken: Can you help get the word out?
http://www.coachoftheyear.com/
Tedford for Coach of the Year
October 10th, 2007 at 6:21 pm
Before I disagree with everything you said Ken, because I didn’t read the article, does it take into account the percentage of kids who left the university on their own accord. IE, while you’d want to hurt the university’s grad rate for a case like Marshawn Lynch, ya know leaving early for the NFL as opposed to staying for his degree, you wouldn’t want to hurt the university for a case like Kyle Reed who left because Cal wasn’t the right place for them.
I know that for apprenticeship programs, we have two graduation rates, one for the number of apprentices indentured total, and one for the number of apprentices who make it past the first year (it’s a big difference, mostly because of kids who think they’d like to be a roofer or plumber or whatever, then realize that it’s not for them).
October 10th, 2007 at 10:29 pm
Ken,
Thanks very much for the thoughts. I generally agree. However, it seems to me that the University does and should make an extra effort (just as these STUDENT athletes do and should make the extra effort) to ensure that these STUDENT athletes are given the best opportunity to succeed. I am sure that the boys down on the Farm are given plenty of help to get to a graduation rate that high. Perhaps your entry should be a letter to the editor of the LA Times…
Regards,
Evan
October 10th, 2007 at 11:03 pm
A helpful post on this topic from the Cal Community:
Subject: LA Time Article on Present Cal Graduation Rate is Inaccurate
From: Quentin Cole
Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2007 19:13:44 -0700 (PDT)
X-Message-Number: 10
The stats Mr. Streeter used in the LA Times article
are so flawed, that the NCAA created a new tracking
system. It is called the APR. It tracks the current
players and how they are currently progressing toward graduation.
In the last APR released, Tedford’s players had a
perfect APR. Cal was the only school among the BCS
conferences to do so. So when you ask, “at what
cost?†It is really frustrating to people who follow
the program closely. We are # 2 is Football and we
have improved our kid’s performance in the classroom tremendously.
Moreover, the 52% is the grad rate for the
student-athletes who have entered starting all the way
back in 1997. Those players were part of the Tom
Holmoe years. I venture to say that no one can accuse
Coach Holmoe of selling his soul for football
superiority.
For more information about this issue please read the
article at:
http://california.scout.com/2/650159.html
October 11th, 2007 at 5:55 am
If there is a course at CAL on ethics it should be taught by Jeff Tedford.
Unfortunately coaches from other teams will have that LA Times article in their hands showing the parents how terrible the graduation rate is at CAL.
Holmoe sold his soul for football inferiority!
October 11th, 2007 at 8:51 am
bar20, while there is no doubt that Holmoe failed as a coach both athletically and academically, I’m pretty confident that it wasn’t a matter of selling his soul. Holmoe is a great guy, he’s just not a very good mentor of young men. He was too soft. When articles came out on his relationship with the players the words used were “kind”, “empathetic”, “caring”. While those are all great qualities and make me respect Holmoe as a person, being a good coach/mentor is more about teaching discipline, precision, integrity and the value of hard work despite the obsticles that may get in one’s way. Holmoe’s demeanor hurt his ability to both coach and help them succeed academically, but they are in no way related to whether he is a good person. It sounds like he’s doing a great job as the BYU athletic director and I’m glad to hear he found a job that better matched his strengths.
October 11th, 2007 at 8:59 am
As to the question of the new and old systems and what they do about kids who leave for the NFL or transfer schools, I purposely didn’t address thos issues, despite their importance, because I was trying to make a bigger point about what the goals of the NCAA’s metric system should be, not how to handle the exceptions.
Nevertheless:
My understanding is that the old system doesn’t care why or whether you left the program, only that the player get a degree SOMEWHERE. So in the case of Lynch, yeah, he’ll count against Cal’s graduation rate. Riley however, because he may graduate from San Jose State, could still help Cal’s numbers not hurt them. The complaint about this is that, particularly for transfers, is that the recruiting school gets credit/blame for the success/failure of the new school. I think this is solved under the new yet to be implemented system and the “responsibility” transfers when the student transfers.
I don’t know as much about the “going early to the NFL” scenario but my understanding is that the new system handles this as well, but I’m not sure how.
October 11th, 2007 at 11:09 am
Ken, I know you are correct. However whatever his faults he just couldn’t get it done. I go back to Pete Elliot and I can’t remember a poorer performance. Didn’t Bill Walsh recomend him? Even Joe Kapp had a better record. As I recall he was on Mariucci’s staff when he left? I always thought he was the wrong fit. Anyway we have one of the best coaches in the country now.
October 11th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
My understanding is that the reason they track these numbers is because of athlete’s leaving early to go pro. From my recollection, this discussion started happening not around football, but around basketball where the number of student athlete’s who graduate is in a trickle compared to football, particularly because of “student” athlete’s like Jason Kidd.
With that being said, I’m assuming one of the reason the rate goes back to 1997 is for situations like Vince Carter. Left school in 1998 to go to the NBA, and graduated from UNC in 2001.
October 11th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
Great piece, Ken. I think a longer piece on the topic with more data would be great — if I were your editor at your paying gig I’d think it was a great topic for a pitch.
KenBro, the number of football players who leave college early for the NFL is so small that I doubt it has a major impact on the numbers. Basketball, sure, but a single Marshawn Lynch isn’t going to really have much of an impact.
October 12th, 2007 at 12:02 pm
Jason,
I concur regarding the percentages of people who leave NCAAF versus NCAAB is small, but because so few kids graduate within a 4 year span these days, the NCAA is probably just giving a longer time frame to improve the numbers period in any way period. While I’m sure the numbers are only posted for NCAAF in articles, I wouldn’t be surprised if the NCAA collects the numbers for all student athletes in all programs (thereby continuing the believe that it’s not just about football and basketball)… there just won’t be too many articles written about how Stanford’s grad rates for Men’s tennis are on the decline.
All this gets me to another point which hasn’t been talked about, maybe since such a small percentage of student athlete’s go pro, maybe what they’re referring to is how the school treats them as students once they’re no longer eligible to be an athlete? Does the program do a good job of making sure Joe Ayoob graduates?
October 12th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
Ya know, that’s assuming Joe Ayoob needed a fifth or sixth year…
October 12th, 2007 at 12:48 pm
Bro, I think that is one area where the programs are given a HUGE incentive to make sure they look after the students. Since these kids will count against their graduation rate, the athletic department has an incentive to ensure they graduate even after their eligibility is used up.
In fact, the “ideal” (meaning for the meeting the metrics without giving a crud about the student) football situation is, 12 units in the fall (the minimum allowed for eligibility), 18 in the spring/summer for 5 years taking as many meaningless BS classes as possible and then 1 year of taking the remaining harder classes to get a degree in underwater basket weaving.
One question mark with that “plan” is scholarships. A lot of these kids can’t afford college but the football team wants to make sure their 85 scholarships are used on eligible kids so we’ve got an extra year we don’t know where the kid/university can come up with the money to get them through.
Which brings up a question I’ve had in the past and never looked into: How do the scholarship rules work to make sure the University only gets 85 scholarships? What prevents the University from giving academic or secondary sport scholarships to football players to get beyond the 85? (Perhaps the answer is that a student who is getting a scholarship from the school is only eligible for a sport if the scholarship comes from that sport)
October 12th, 2007 at 3:35 pm
I know that in situations where there is a two sport athlete at the school, the athlete takes their scholarship from the one where the season starts first. IE Tony Gonzalez was a football scholarship because the football season came first.
October 15th, 2007 at 11:07 am
“In the last APR released, Tedford’s players had a
perfect APR. Cal was the only school among the BCS
conferences to do so.”
I’m in the middle of a heated debate with an op-ed writer who wants to slam Cal football’s graduation rates.
Can someone tell me how to find Cal’s perfect APR rating?
The only data I found on the NCAA website said that Cal was in the 80th-90th percentile within football.