In his Boston Globe column, Derrick Z. Jackson questions the value of a new recommendation from the NCAA Division I board of directors that could ban teams in about three years if they have less than a 50 percent graduation rate. He writes that the NCAA is already behind on a recommendation to ban teams that do not graduate at least 50 percent of their players.
Filling the ballroom of the Ritz-Carlton with the energy and optimism of a college booster, National Collegiate Athletic Association President Mark Emmert said on Monday that college presidents are finally serious about banning teams with poor graduation rates from postseason play. He told the Knight Commission, the nation's leading college sports reform body, that the NCAA’s Division I board of directors is finalizing recommendations for a plan that could ban teams in about three years if they have less than a 50 percent graduation rate.
"This is going to have a very, very significant impact on the way coaches recruit, on the emphasis they place on the success of their student athletes, on the entire mission of the athletic departments," Emmert said.
How much of an impact the new rule may have is highly questionable. The NCAA is already way behind the Knight Commission's recommendation to ban teams that do not graduate at least 50 percent of their players. Under the Knight Commission’s proposal, that benchmark was supposed to have been achieved by 2007.
Read Derrick Z. Jackson's entire column at the Boston Globe.