JSU appeal denied!

[jsugrad98]

This sucks!


http://www.annistonstar.com/breaking/2009/as-localupdate-0519-amuskewitz-9e19s1900.htm

[SandMountainDemon]

Here is the article for those of you without a subscription to the Anniston "Communist" Star....and jsugrad is right, it does suck.

** UPDATE ** - View News Feeds (moderated)

[Lehigh Football Nation]

JSU was notified of the decision on May 12. It has 21 days from then to appeal the decision to a subcommittee of the Division I Board of Directors, a body JSU President Bill Meehan is slated to join in August.

This jumped out at me. I know JSU is FCS and not FBS, but would the D-I board of directors want JSU's President in the club on the wrong foot? Then again, Meehan's proposal to Perriloux on bended knee can't have gone over well with that group.

I don't think this case is closed yet - though it seems like JSU's shot at the postseason will depend on Meehan's powers of persuasion.


The Gamecocks did get some relief and agreed to accept other penalties, The Star has learned. They would not face a scholarship reduction that would prevent them playing big-money guarantee games against larger Division I programs, they agreed to use lost practice time for academics, and they would not be subject to Year Four historical penalties that would reach across the entire athletic department.

This is also interesting. Is JSU going to be asked to make a choice - money games or the playoffs? Has it come down to that already - an agreement to be ineligible for the playoffs during Perrilloux's senior year for the right to keep playing money games?


The JSU football program posted a multi-year APR score of 882 — just below the 900 required of programs that have faced previous penalties — but sources familiar with the case told The Star the committee acknowledged the loss of several points due to player dismissals for the integrity of the program. The Star also learned that five of the football program's last six semesters have produced scores well above the 925 benchmark.

"Our APR is going to be good," Meehan said. "I'm very pleased with our football APR for the fall and what appears to be our APR for the spring. Our projections look good, so our one-year contemporaneous penalties could be lifted next year. We have to keep monitoring it."

This is consistent with what I've seen - selective enforcement of the APR. Certainly the NCAA could give a waiver due to "substantial improvement over five of the last six semesters", like they did to Indiana basketball. But JSU is a small fish right now, and the NCAA seems bent of finding schools to make an example.

[jsualum97]

This is not intended to sound like "sour grapes" because I am a JSU grad, but the APR policy is not solving the problem that it was intended to fix.

JSU got bit in the but because it had some student-athletes who were not performing academically, and were dismissed from the team or wasn't recieving the playing time they felt they deserved and transferred.

You can give a student-athlete the tools and the means to perform academically, but if he is unwilling to make progress, they should be asked to move on.

That is what JSU did, and now they are being penalized for it. If a regular student was to not make progress academically, then that student would be suspended from school.

I think the intent of APR was great, but I don't think the way it was written helps the student-athlete. APR reminds me of No Child Left Behind in the sense that its intent was great, it just didn't turn out that way because of the way it is written

[Syntax Error]

This is not intended to sound like "sour grapes" because I am a JSU grad, but the APR policy is not solving the problem that it was intended to fix...Uh oh, sucking up to LFN? xlolxxsmiley_wix

[Eight Legger]

Great, now I will have to make a new pick for 2009 national champion.

[jsugrad98]

The safe bet would be to "not" pick Richmond. Also, 97...JSU does not really have the over sight in place that the players need. Most schools have someone assigned to over see this process and that is their sole responsibility. JSU does not have that. Of course Crowe will lay the blame else where. He is the master of that. And to think....Crowe said this team has "IT". The do...lol. The only problem is the stepped in it...lol

[I-AA Fan]

While I am not in agreement with the way the NCAA has implemented this rule, it is nice to see more attention being paid to academics.

That being said, certain unfairness does exist:

1. Larger schools (BCS & some larger I-AA/FCS like SIU) have the funds for more simple programs for athletes. If a school like Texas or Ohio State approaches this number, they simply adjust the curriculum ...not the caliber of recruits.

2. Many schools in I-AA/FCS or IA/FBS are liberal arts based & have many more programs w/o the mandated math/science requirements. The key word being program. While many other schools have courses and requirements containing liberal arts ...most do not have full curricula. This is extremely common in DIII, where some many players drop down to keep playing. Also, the NCAA still allows a complete curriculum in general education (GE). Which is not fair. They are almost penalizing student-athletes that choose to major in something. Yet, they feel the need to punish a team for low academic progress. Additionally, they punish JUCO's by saying they need to have majors other than GE & high-school equivalency ...then turn around and allow this in a 4-year institution.

So while I applaud the effort, and support the ruling ...I expect the NCAA to make progress in addition to the schools.

[Lehigh Football Nation]

http://www.championshipsubdivisionnews.com/index.php/2009/05/06/the-csn-way-fcs-and-the-apr?blog=5


Myles Brand’s campaign to set academic standards “with teeth” has definitely changed the collegiate athletics landscape, but not in the way that any of its architects may have imagined. Last year, its effect was seen very strongly in the cost-containment world of FCS football - and this year, we see the first FCS victim of the “teeth” given to the APR: UT-Chattanooga.

...

For the purposes of the NCAA’s APR calculation, the student who flunks out of school on a full scholarship counts against his school the same way a student on a ½ or even a 1/3rd of a scholarship who has to leave school since his family can’t afford college.

“The APR was written to apply to [full] scholarship athletes,” one athletic director told me. “We’re being asked to be held to the same standards as those [FBS] schools, but our circumstances are quite different.”

...

UT-Chattanooga appears to be the first victim of the historic penalties imposed by the NCAA. Of the three “Occasion Three” teams that face a postseason ban, two are schools playing FCS football. While Jacksonville State’s football penalties are being appealed, the Mocs are the first to suffer a post-season ban as a result. No FBS-level school had to suffer these penalties.

For UT-Chattanooga, it didn’t have to be that way either.

In 2007, UT-Chattanooga’s football team went from an 816 yearly APR in 2006 to a 928 - marked improvement by any measure. Yet the NCAA did not choose to give an exemption, even though other schools were given exemptions because they showed “marked improvement".

In that same year, according to an article in The State (SC), of the 492 teams across all sports that were penalized, 66 teams from BCS conference football schools were granted exemptions merely on the basis of their APR improvement plans. While the list of institutions given exemptions was not made public, USC, Ohio State, Maryland, Indiana and Purdue had them granted, mostly in men’s basketball.

Indiana’s basketball team also were given an adjustment since “this past year, IU improved its APR figure by 40 points and because of that improvement, the program will not be subject to scholarship penalties,” the university released in a statement. Only a month after getting the exemption, head basketball coach Kevin Sampson had to step down after facing serious recruiting violations.

I keep pointing back to the "Indiana exception" when I look at this issue. Had the NCAA not given them a free pass, it would be a lot easier to swallow what's happened to Chatty and what's likely to happen to JSU. But once you've set the precedent of "well, their improvement was good enough, so let's exempt them", you're just asking for problems. IMO, if you're going to give Indiana a pass (and Purdue football, USC basketball etc.), you can't not give Chatty a pass, too.

I believe JSU had similar APR improvements in year-to-year APR in 2007, but I don't have those numbers.

[Redbirdz]

This is indeed unfortunate for JSU which I believe was moving toward having an excellent FCS season. It will still be a force in the Ohio Valley race. A part of JSU's problem comes from a one time and you out drug policy. Ironically, making it more liberal would help its APR average. Go figure. Having said that, JSU should never had let things get this far along and with a new AD in place, the ship will be righted next year. This was one of the reasons the old AD is now gone.

An appeal is being made to the executive committee of which JSU's president will be a member August 1. There are some bright spots for JSU this year. Three of its teams made the NCAA Division l tournaments, softball, men's tennis and rifle. The girl's softball team beat James Madison, Nebraska and Tennessee to win the regionals and faces No. 6 Alabama this weekend in the super regionals.

[jsugrad98]

But the sport that drives all decisions(and our drive for FBS) in the athletic department is banned from post season. While I am proud as an alum. that my school has accomplished this, to me it is overshadowed by this this football APR mess.

[GannonFan]

While I am not in agreement with the way the NCAA has implemented this rule, it is nice to see more attention being paid to academics.

That being said, certain unfairness does exist:

1. Larger schools (BCS & some larger I-AA/FCS like SIU) have the funds for more simple programs for athletes. If a school like Texas or Ohio State approaches this number, they simply adjust the curriculum ...not the caliber of recruits.

2. Many schools in I-AA/FCS or IA/FBS are liberal arts based & have many more programs w/o the mandated math/science requirements. The key word being program. While many other schools have courses and requirements containing liberal arts ...most do not have full curricula. This is extremely common in DIII, where some many players drop down to keep playing. Also, the NCAA still allows a complete curriculum in general education (GE). Which is not fair. They are almost penalizing student-athletes that choose to major in something. Yet, they feel the need to punish a team for low academic progress. Additionally, they punish JUCO's by saying they need to have majors other than GE & high-school equivalency ...then turn around and allow this in a 4-year institution.

So while I applaud the effort, and support the ruling ...I expect the NCAA to make progress in addition to the schools.

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the NCAA to be better in applying better academic standards to the FBS schools. It ain't going to happen, and those schools, not all but many, will continue to be sports factories that pay little to no attention to the "student" part of student-athlete. Too much money involved. So the NCAA will punish who they can, and in this case, that will be the likes of TN-Chatty, and any other small-fry school they can. That's just the way the NCAA is run. It doesn't excuse Chatty from not doing what they should, but it also puts a damper on the idea that the NCAA is really improving anything on a larger scale.

[JSU02]

This is indeed unfortunate for JSU which I believe was moving toward having an excellent FCS season. It will still be a force in the Ohio Valley race. A part of JSU's problem comes from a one time and you out drug policy. Ironically, making it more liberal would help its APR average. Go figure. Having said that, JSU should never had let things get this far along and with a new AD in place, the ship will be righted next year. This was one of the reasons the old AD is now gone.

An appeal is being made to the executive committee of which JSU's president will be a member August 1. There are some bright spots for JSU this year. Three of its teams made the NCAA Division l tournaments, softball, men's tennis and rifle. The girl's softball team beat James Madison, Nebraska and Tennessee to win the regionals and faces No. 6 Alabama this weekend in the super regionals.

Redbirdz, what's your take on the role Coach Crowe played in the APR mess?

[MaroonDoom]

Will coach Crowe go down with the ship?

[jsugrad98]

we won't get that lucky! he is the master of deligation of....blame.

[Redbirdz]

I don't think Coach Crowe took it seriously enough or paid enough attention in the beginning. How do you get in the head of an 18 or 19 year old? But the blame has to be shared between him and Jim Fuller. It takes a while to dig back out of a four-year average but we have made steady progress and should be cleared for 2010. Look for the new AD to run a much tighter ship. If other schools can live with the APR, Jax State can too.

[MaroonDoom]

Being a coach in today's world would be tough. Too many outside tempations for young adults.

[JSU02]

I don't think Coach Crowe took it seriously enough or paid enough attention in the beginning. How do you get in the head of an 18 or 19 year old? But the blame has to be shared between him and Jim Fuller. It takes a while to dig back out of a four-year average but we have made steady progress and should be cleared for 2010. Look for the new AD to run a much tighter ship. If other schools can live with the APR, Jax State can too.

But as the head football coach, isn't Crowe responsible for the players he recruited and whether or not they go to class? What do you think Fuller should or should not have done that led to this?

[jsugrad98]

While I agree that Fuller should shoulder a small amount of blame for this, shouldn't Mehan share a little larger amount since they (Crowe and Fuller) both report directly to him? Crowe is the master or shifting blame, Fuller was more concerned about his Tuscaloosa address, and Mehan was/is too worried he might offend or make someone mad. Till someone holds Crowe accountable, it will be the same ole same ole.

[Cocky]

We should do like most other colleges and just give our athletes good grades. You are punished for making athletes attend class and make grades like normal students.

[JohnStOnge]

I think the whole APR thing is another example of failing to take demographics into account. See http://www.holycross.edu/departments/economics/RePEc/Matheson_GraduationRates.pdf .

A quote:

"Graduation rates for male athletes overall as well as men’s football and basketball players lag behind those of male non-athletes at Division I colleges and universities. Scholarship athletes, however, are much more likely to be drawn from racial and ethnic groups with lower average graduation rates. After accounting for differences in racial composition, graduation rates
for male athletes overall as well football players match or exceed those of their peers....

Aside from that, let's face it, there are a lot of scholarship football players who wouldn't be in college if the weren't good footbal players. Its' ridiculous for the NCAA to act like they ought to academically perform like the general student body does to start with.

[ngineer]

Ah yes, the days when the students at one school were to play the students at another school. What an unusual concept.xrolleyesx