Sunday, June 27, 2004

Quoting Coach Hewitt

Looks like the graduation rate thing won't die - at least until they lay out the details of the new plan. Story here.

Abysmal graduation rates received more publicity than shooting percentages during this year's NCAA Tournament. At the men's Final Four, where UConn's Emeka Okafor was celebrated as a role model for other student athletes, coaches Jim Calhoun and Paul Hewitt of Georgia Tech faced questions about graduating just 27 percent of the players in their programs. Coaches have long said the method for figuring graduation rates was problematic, and that will be addressed.

The problems aren't new. But the NCAA, led by president Myles Brand, has had enough.

Hewitt expressed his concern for scholarship athletes who change their majors, lose credits and then cannot meet the new NCAA standards for progression. "Instead of improving the opportunity for a kid to get an education, we are going to absolutely dumb down college athletics," Hewitt told The Washington Post.