News & Notes
Graduation Rates Improve, but Racial Disparity Grows
Tuesday, December 5, 2006; Page E02
College football teams headed for the five major bowls this year performed better academically on the whole than the national average, according to a study released yesterday.
At these top programs, however, the disparity between graduation rates of black and white players increased by nearly double.
  Rutgers Coach Greg Schiano will not leave for Miami, where he was defensive coordinator in 1999-2000. "This is where I want to be," he said. (By Mel Evans -- Associated Press) |
The nation's best football teams are generally improving in the classroom, according to an analysis by Richard Lapchick, director of the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida.
Of the 64 teams invited to bowls this year, 86 percent graduated at least half their players. And 40 of this year's top programs -- 62 percent -- matched or beat the NCAA's new academic progress rate standard, which is intended to more accurately gauge grades and graduation rates.
The statistics Lapchick used are preliminary and don't include the most recent school year.
Perhaps most strikingly, white athletes in the Bowl Championship Series -- the top five bowls, including the BCS title game -- beat their counterparts among the 119 NCAA Division I-A schools by graduating 81 percent of the time, compared with 62 percent division-wide. The black athlete graduation rate was 56 percent among those schools, also better than the 49 percent overall rate.
But the discrepancy between white and black players' graduation rates for top bowl teams -- a 25 percentage-point difference -- was nearly twice the 13-point divide within the NCAA average.
Boston College and Navy, which are meeting in the Meineke Car Care Bowl, had the best academic progress rates of any bowl-bound programs (Navy with 986, BC with 982).
Seven of the eight ACC teams in bowls made Lapchick's top 25 academically: Boston College, Clemson, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Maryland, Miami and Wake Forest. . . .
Ohio State middle linebacker James Laurinaitis won the Bronko Nagurski Trophy, awarded to the nation's best defensive player by the Charlotte Touchdown Club.
The sophomore leads the top-ranked Buckeyes with 100 tackles and five interceptions. He also has four sacks. . . .
Rutgers Coach Greg Schiano will stay with the school he led to national prominence this season, rather than pursue taking over the troubled Miami program.
