Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 9, 1992 TAG: 9201090324
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: BILL BRILL SPORTSWRITER
DATELINE: ANAHEIM, CALIF. LENGTH: Medium
NCAA SETS TOUGHER STANDARDS
Despite emotional and dramatic opposition from administrators of black colleges and Georgetown athletic director Frank Rienzo, NCAA Division I delegates overwhelmingly supported tougher academic standards Wednesday.Despite a series of complaints from the same schools who objected to Proposition 48 nine years ago, the delegates significantly stiffened initial eligibility standards.
Taking academic reform a step further, proposals to make continuing eligibility even more difficult also were easily adopted.
Beginning in the 1995-96 school year, scholarship athletes will have to score 900 on the Scholastic Aptitude Test or provide a 2.5 grade-point average in 13 core courses to be eligible.
The addition of two more core courses drew no disagreement from the floor and passed 312-6. The added two courses must be in English, math or natural science.
Proposal 16, raising the grade-point average, was a different matter. It passed 249-72, but not until it was assailed by several black-college administrators, including North Carolina A&T chancellor Edward Fort.
The rhetoric included a rendition from "Macbeth," offered by Grambling State professor E.M. Jones.
Rienzo, speaking in tones that would be approved by his basketball coach, John Thompson, said, "I think the road to academic reform is going to be covered with bodies of a lot of socioeconomic individuals."
That was the primary complaint of the critics of Proposal 16, that it would be unfair to minority students, and, as Fort said, "white kids from rural areas."
Arizona State's Jerry Kingston, chairman of the academic committee, appeared to defuse that issue by pointing out that five-year figures on Proposition 48 show that blacks have not been affected.
In 1984-85, the year before Proposition 48 started, 24 percent of scholarship athletes were black, Kingston said. After dipping to 19.2 percent in the first year of the rule, it had risen back to 23 percent by 1988.
Significantly, Kingston said, "in football and men's basketball, there are now more blacks than before Proposition 48."
Furthermore, he said, "blacks who qualify under Proposition 48 tend to graduate at a rate 10 times higher than those who don't qualify."
Kingston also insisted that "black non-qualifiers will be replaced by other black student-athletes who will be better prepared."
That assured the voters, and they backed the proposal offered by the Presidents Commission.
"This is a small but significant step to send out a message that to achieve your best demands your best, whether it's in games, school or ultimately in life," said Thomas Hearn, Wake Forest president.
As expected, Hearn was one of the ramrods for the presidents.
"What we're talking about is access to the classroom as well as access to the playing field," Hearn said. "Minorities will get scholarships. They will. These standards are minimal and achievable."
Fort, a former member of the Presidents Commission, retorted, "I totally disagree with Dr. Hearn about access [for minorities]. That's simply not true."
Two other academic issues were passed in a continued show of strength by the presidents:
College athletes will have to pass at least 75 percent of their course hours during the regular school year, ending what some perceived as an abuse created by excessive summer-school work.
High-school basketball players will have to take standardized tests earlier if they hope to take a paid recruiting trip during the early signing period.
By a vote of 249-74, the delegates decreed that a basketball player must score 700 on the SAT and have a 2.0 grade-point average in seven core courses before being permitted to take any paid campus visits.
While more than 80 percent of the top recruits signed during the November period, published reports have said more than 50 percent are not yet academically qualified.
Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.