Dr. Jeffrey Holmes of Patricia Berkly LLC: NCAA Makes Another Policy Gamble

Dr. Jeffrey Holmes of Patricia Berkly LLC offers commentary on NCAA graduation policy for Division I student athletes.

WILMINGTON, DE (I-Newswire) October 15, 2012 - This fall 2012 the NCAA enforced yet another policy in an effort to increase the Division 1 graduation number of potential student-athlete graduates and the Academic Performance Rates (APR) but directly effects access. All transfer student-athletes coming from two-year colleges will need to have a 2.50 GPA. With a 2.50 GPA, in theory the NCAA will get a more prepared transfer student-athlete regardless if the student-athlete is (like many non-athletes) splitting time working to pay for junior college, been homeless, living in poverty, been adversely affected by the “Great Recession”, or have had any other numerous life issues that limit their time to improve GPA performance. On the back end the NCAA did create a sliding scale SAT/ GPA policy that will help high school student athletes who have marginal academic achieve become eligible for athletic scholarship but not be eligible to play for their first year. In theory raising the academic expectation is a great concept but should be phased in. NCAA access policy gambles will not be the first experiment with transfer student-athletes as the last experiment in the late 1990s changed the rules for men’s basketball and football almost eliminating access to colleges and universities for an entire demographic from collegiate athletic competition.

The reality is in this round of changes the NCAA chose to merely inform a community college task force, and did not work collaboratively with the community college leaders for a viable solution to the complex problem of transferring student athletes. Hopefully the NCAA will re-activate a viable and interactive two-year college athletic committee. As the current trends demonstrate, it will be more likely that students will generally begin their quest for a higher education at the two-yea college for a variety of social and economic reason. Let us all believe that the NCAA has elected not to create a potential PR nightmare by eliminating access for many student-athletes. The US Department of Justice is currently keeping an eye on allegations of “Anti-Trust” violations, and it may not be long before the eye brows of special congressional hearing, US Department of Education and ACLU begin looking as well.
The NCAA by far is one of the most successful governing bodies and excels in fundraising, corporate partnership, and revenue generating athletic events (Bowl games, March Madness, and the College World Series). The NCAA also has created access for many historically underrepresented groups to gain access not only to post secondary education but also well paying jobs on American college campuses. Yet, with all of these great access opportunities the NCAA still has the problem of educating, and maintaining accountability for its ultimate product, the academic success of student-athletes in men’s basketball, football, and baseball. Player rosters of the top 25 teams in college athletics are riddled with JUCO outstanding transfers. Teams both in the top twenty-five and in major conference like the Texas Tech “Red Raiders”, The Kansas State “Wildcats”, Oregon State “Beavers” The LSU “Tigers” and Oklahoma “Sooners” just to name a few. These student- athletes entered into the two-year colleges with the expectation that if they could just “plug away”, like Cam Newton or Aaron Rodgers they would be afforded the opportunity to have access to reach their personal goal of competing at the highest levels both academically and athletically.


The NCAA falls short is in its execution of policy to increase the academic performance of transfer students and takes educational autonomy away from its members. It makes sense to have blanket standardizations of raising the bar for high school students and two-year college transfers to ensure that student-athletes meet the highest academic standards and eventually graduate. The NCAA has created an environment that makes a university education a hostile environment for those student athletes to compete fully academically and athletically. Many athletes in the larger athletic programs in major conferences are segregated by major and do not regularly integrate with the general student body until they are performing at the game. What it equates to is student-athletes who perform well or close to it athletically will continue to jump to a pro-sports career opportunity without completing an undergraduate degree, or “one and done”. The NCAA rule book is too thick, it has too many variables and is designed to minimize cheating of member intuitions. The rules create the façade of making a level competition field. Yet the NCAA rules actually create an unequal playing field for the neediest of student-athletes whose lives are forever changed for the better through higher education. In lieu of creating another rule that eliminates a group of students to meet a benchmark number, the NCAA could actually allow the colleges and universities to complete their mission to educate the students they admit. The NCAA could also encourage membership institutions to use sponsorship dollars to fund an effort for bridge programs that provide a first year experience at that institution for transfer student-athletes and first time freshman, and re-brand a problem into a collective solution. Another perspective is to actualize the perception that NCAA Division 1 revenue generating sport has become a pseudo professional farm system, and pay the athletes for their service to the university. In either case student-athletes who are the most vulnerable to exploitation could be educated in a mandatory curriculum that includes: English composition, critical thinking and reading, business finance, introduction to contracts and negotiations, inter personal communication, and public speaking. Well that is not going to happen because it is much easier to enact a policy that eliminates access to anyone who may fall short for a variety of reasons than it is to prepare that American citizen for a lifetime of contribution to society. As a billion dollar revenue generating juggernaut there is always room to improve social responsibility and access opportunities.