|
Post by The Professor on May 7, 2009 8:34:17 GMT -5
www.news-record.com/content/2009/05/07/article/ncaa_punishes_ats_football_programNCAA punishes A&T's football program Thursday, May 7, 2009 By Tom Keller Staff Writer GREENSBORO -- After four years of lackluster academic report cards, the N.C. A&T football team is facing the wrath of the NCAA. The Aggies will not be able to award more than 57 of the NCAA's limit of 63 football scholarships for the 2010-11 school year after falling far short of national guidelines in the NCAA's latest Academic Progress Rate report released Wednesday. That's the maximum scholarship penalty allowed. "The bottom line is we have to start showing improvement, and I think we will starting with next year's data," Wheeler Brown, A&T's athletics director, said. "It's one of those things where slow and steady wins the race." Results were more positive across the state from the report, which measures eligibility, retention and graduation at the NCAA's Football Bowl Subdivision- and Football Championship Subdivision-level schools. Only three other programs -- one each from Campbell, Gardner-Webb and Western Carolina -- were penalized, while UNCG righted the ship after a threatened loss of scholarships last year. Three Spartans teams that came in below standards for 2006-07 -- baseball, men's basketball and men's track and field -- made satisfactory progress. "We said we would address our shortcomings and we have," UNCG athletics director Nelson Bobb said in a statement. "I will continue to say that the APR is a very complex issue. There are a number of factors that go into it and it can be a very delicate, very fragile process." The Aggies also had some good news, with three of their four at-risk teams from last year's report -- baseball and men's and women's basketball -- moving back onto safe ground. But Aggie football scored just 856 for the four-year period, far below the 925 passing mark. No other football team in the state scored lower than 919. It's the fourth consecutive year A&T football fell below the bar. The Aggies were excused from penalties in 2006 (910 APR) and 2007 (880) because of the NCAA's "squad-size" adjustment, which takes into account a cross-sample that is too small. The 2008 team scored 874, but was spared by exceptions for teams "performing better than the institution's general student body" or "due to the team's demonstrated academic improvement and favorable comparison based on other academic or institutional factors." "We've been in freefall football-wise for probably the last three years now," Brown said. Brown said the combination of an uncertain coaching situation -- Alonzo Lee was hired in January as the school's third head coach in five years -- and an influx of junior college players have contributed to the low academic marks. Brown said the Aggies have averaged three or four junior college players on the roster for the last four years, and that the retention rate for those players is "noticeably lower" than that of the rest of the team. "They start out in a hole," Brown said of junior college transfers, "and it's too deep a hole for them to get out of." Brown said the Aggies will rely less on junior college players going forward, and that all football players will be required to live on campus in Cooper Hall starting this fall, a decision the school made in January. Brown said a majority of players lived off-campus in recent years. "They're closer to the resources necessary to be successful (on campus)," Brown said. "You're just more integrated in the scheme of things, I think." Brown said it will realistically take three years for A&T football to hit 925. Lee, who succeeded Lee Fobbs in early January, said "all we can do is move the ship from where we are now and continue to move forward." He said the team's attendance at study hall the last five weeks has been 100 percent. "You have young men buying into a system and understanding that the way to the field is through the classroom," Lee said. "We've won a lot of battles this spring that indicate these things won't happen in the future."
|
|
|
Post by Bornthrilla on May 7, 2009 8:42:33 GMT -5
I am pretty confident that General Lee can fix the academic issues concerning this football program.
This article is pretty embarrassing though.
|
|
|
Post by aggiejazz on May 7, 2009 8:50:17 GMT -5
I wonder if the scholarship cuts will affect the football program at all down the line?
Thrilla, it is a losing proposition to only rely on the head coach to solve this problem. This is the University's problem. If you leave it to the football coaches to solve this problem, you will see this problem crop up again and again, like it has been doing since Hayes was coaching.
|
|
|
Post by Bigboy on May 7, 2009 8:50:21 GMT -5
The news about the baseball team and the men and women BB teams is good new. Football has some work to do.
|
|
|
Post by Aggie One on May 7, 2009 10:01:08 GMT -5
It really comes down to four basic things to get us back on track from the damage left over from the Small/Fobbs era:
(1)Re-think the type of student athlete we recruit. No more props. It is a necessity now in D-1 athletics that we must have kids who have their qualifying scores in place or on track to get them just like the initial class that coach Lee and company just brought in this past winter to avoid any drags by pulling in guys that cannot make the grade academically.
The current NCAA academic requirements will no longer support the shotgun recruiting approach of the Bill Hayes era won't fly anymore so get used to it. Sign anyone that can get an 800 and can play and hope for the best and 1,2 or , maybe if you're lucky, three years of playing time out of them before they disappear off the roster and out of school.
Those days are long gone and over with so no need in anyone to try to bring it up any comparisons or to make that argument "that we used to be be able to do it this way."
(2)What are you willing invest in time and resources helping student athletes in getting their class work done (instituting the year round/summer school funding proposal for all revenue sport athletes)?
(3) Do your best to stay clear of JUCO transfers and concentrate on in-state and eastern seaboard high school kids in your recruiting practices. It worked extremely well in this new class of 27 which we get to keep.
This also means that we can and will have entertain more preferred walk-ons to offset those six lost scholarships . Our future recruiting classes will cut off now at about 19 kids over the next three years.
4) The university's next chancellor will have to step up and make a serious decision along with the AD and the coaches to either really and truly go out and seriously fund raise for athletic support systems or seriously look to move down in classification to D-II and become a big fish in a small pond.
It is not a pretty scenario but a realistic question which I think we honestly have to ask ourselves.
A long term Commitment with an steep uphill climb versus immediate relief in a more comfortable zone; both in a unfriendly financial climate.
|
|
|
Post by Bornthrilla on May 7, 2009 10:08:14 GMT -5
That is not a totally accurate statement. We've been in a freefall football-wise for the last 5 years, dating back to the George Small era.
|
|
|
Post by Bornthrilla on May 7, 2009 10:26:25 GMT -5
If A&T moves down to D2 we will still most likely be mediocre. This athletic department just needs to get off its azz and find a way to fundraise. If they don't know how, hire a consultant or something (or listen to me, which would be a lot cheaper). For some reason the A&T athletic department operates like it is allergic to money.
I'm still waiting for .... yo, nevermind. I am tired of even complaining about that right now.
|
|
|
Post by Aggie One on May 7, 2009 17:25:21 GMT -5
Actually dropping to D-II will only save us money mostly. It wouldn't do much in the way of improving the grades of the football team because starting in 2011 everyone will have to asbide by the same NCAA academic rules no matter what level you play on.
|
|
|
Post by aggiejazz on May 8, 2009 7:53:12 GMT -5
Aggieone, great suggestions for UNC-Charlotte new football program.
|
|
|
Post by coach205 on May 8, 2009 8:04:31 GMT -5
It's really a double edge sword. The JUCO kids have the toughest time graduating because a lot of their hours don't transfer into the major they want at A&T. When their eligibility is up they sometimes still need 2 and 3 more semesters. That's tough because we as coaches are looking for that scholarship to replace them with another player but they need it to graduate. Some of them just quit school and that really kills your APR.
GOING D11 IS NOT THE ANSWER!
The answer is recruiting more high school players and just build your program from there. Sign only a limited number of JUCO players. They have to be December Juco grads so they can get in A&T in a Spring Semester and take and pass 18 hours. Then another 12 in the summer and now they are ahead of the game. But if they are May grads and don't get to A&T til Fall of their first year it's gonna be tough on them to graduate. Because you want to limit them to 12 hrs during season.
Just like winning it all will improve in the next couple of years. The APR was already under 925 when we got there. So it's gonna take a little time to get it back up. It took some years for Women's BB and BB to get where they are.
|
|
|
Post by Bornthrilla on May 8, 2009 8:12:58 GMT -5
That's what I thought. The problems didn't just start with the Fobbs regime. The wheels began to fall off when Small was here.
|
|
|
Post by aggiejazz on May 8, 2009 8:43:39 GMT -5
No, it happened before Small. Small was only able to stabilize the problem for one year and then things began to unravel again. I don't put this problem on the headcoaches.
Florida State has the where-withal to fix their problems, they just won't do it. We know that NC A&T doesn't have the money but do they have an adequate admin staff to help these football players? The University seems frozen over how to resolve problems like athletic fundraising and football players' academic failures and slow progression towards a degree. In addition to these problems, top administrators have to deal with some vocal alumni barking at them demanding a winning football team. This has caused some knee-jerk decisionmaking that lead to bigger financial disasters.
A few things about Chancellor Fort looking back, he wasn't comfortable with college sports; didn't push to have football or basketball have a higher profile over engineering or business schools; and he didn't make rash decisions on the athletic department that would lead to financial disasters but the athletic department was just as dysfunctional as in recent past.
|
|
|
Post by Bornthrilla on May 8, 2009 11:12:14 GMT -5
I wish we could house our players in a better dorm than Cooper. That place is a dump. Why not move them into one of those newer buildings over by Corbett. This might end up being a big disadvantage for us, recruiting-wise.
|
|
|
Post by captaggie on May 8, 2009 12:13:53 GMT -5
Then its a disadvantage we have to accept. I'm aganist athletes getting better facilities just because their athletes.
|
|
|
Post by Bornthrilla on May 8, 2009 12:32:23 GMT -5
Why? They are asked to do more than the average student.
Student-athletes help bring in money for the university, help market the university and they have much more demanding schedules.
A decent room should not be too much to ask for in return.
|
|