NCAA debunks "scholar athlete" hype at some top schools

CBS Sportsline.com's Dennis Dodd didn't mince words Monday when the NCAA released its listing of how colleges and university athletic teams faired under academic scrutiny: "NCAA's new scarlet letters are APR" -- APR being "Academic Performance Rate."

It's something that most know about and have closed their eyes to -- a lot of top players at top schools were graced by the creator with prowess on the playing field but not too much in the cranium department. Prior to this point, it wasn't quantified on a national scale.

Now that it has been quantified, some 400 schools face penalties if they don't start getting the academic standards of their players up. The penalties range from loss of scholarships, to post season ban to possible expulsion from the NCAA. The actual penalties would hurt the smaller schools worse I would think but the public humiliation of being named as "Forrest Gump U." might convince the administrators of top sports colleges with a poor academic showing to get on the stick.

In my opinion, there are some people who just shouldn't be in college. But professional football and basketball teams don't recruit athletes from trade schools or community colleges. Only in recent memory has a professional basketball team recruited an athlete directly from high school.

So colleges recruit the players, despite their low intellectual level, and the relationship is symbiotic. The players get national exposure for that very rare chance of being picked for professional fame. They may even pick up a few college credits along the way. And the colleges get strong players, strong teams that draw crowds and lots of money.

The scholar athletes, according to NCAA, aren't legally eligible to be paid. And some may actually end up sustaining an injury that follows them their entire life. So the benefits of the symbiosis is heavily weighted in favor of the colleges. It's a business and business is very, very good.

The administrators of the NCAA deserve a kick in the pants for blindly looking the other way for so many years but deserve at least a pat on the back for finally admitting to the world many of its schools have a problem.

(Thanks to Dave Leather for the head's-up on this story.)