UT dead last in athlete graduation......

[Drbio]

NCAA survey: Sooners lead Big 12 in athlete graduation
OU's number: 74 percent; UT football rate is league's worst


01:28 AM CDT on Wednesday, September 3, 2003

By BRIAN DAVIS / The Dallas Morning News


Oklahoma and Texas have hoisted several championship trophies since 1996. But there is little doubt the Sooners have taken a commanding lead in the classroom, according to the NCAA's annual report on graduation rates.

Tuesday's report showed OU graduating 74 percent of its athletes who entered school during the 1996-97 academic year and earned diplomas within the six-year window mandated by the U.S. Department of Education. That was easily the best in the Big 12.

UT's athlete graduation rate was 56 percent, which ranked eighth. However, the Texas football team rate plummeted to 19 percent, last in the Big 12 and down from the 50 percent in last year's report.

Oklahoma's graduation rate was a 40 percentage-point increase from the previous year, and the Sooners' football team graduated 65 percent of its athletes, a tie for second best in the league. Baylor's football team was No. 1 (75 percent).

Overall, Kansas (68 percent), Nebraska (68 percent), Baylor (66 percent) and Texas A&M (65 percent) made up the rest of the top five in the Big 12.

"We're not beating our chests," OU athletic director Joe Castiglione said. "Seventy-four percent is a great rate, but we all aspire to have a 100 percent rate as tough as that is to achieve in today's environment."

Division I athletes had a 62 percent graduation rate for the reporting period, an all-time high.

Football and men's basketball rates made small increases as well. It's also the first time in more than a decade the gulf between athletes and the general student body (59 percent) has been this wide.

Last year, the NCAA reported that 60 percent of athletes graduated in the mandatory six-year window.

The NCAA's figures are subject to wild fluctuations because the figures include athletes who transfer out. NCAA president Myles Brand has pushed for new accounting measures that would not penalize universities who lose transfers.

But it won't be until the end of 2004 when any new methods are used.

So for now, the Longhorns' football team is left with that glaring figure – 19 percent.

Former Texas coach John Mackovic signed the 1996 recruiting class, which featured 21 players and earned a No. 11 national ranking. Mackovic was fired after the 1997 season. Current coach Mack Brown's first season was 1998, when the group would have been sophomores that redshirted or juniors.

Texas athletic officials said they knew the numbers would be down for this class.

"We lost kids in the transition of football coaches from John Mackovic to Mack Brown, and you hate to have that," UT athletic director DeLoss Dodds said. "I think eight of these kids transferred. But Mack's doing a good job, and the graduation rates are going to come up after next year.

"The NCAA system is flawed. [Football player] Cole Pittman, who died in a car wreck [in 2001], will count against our graduation rate."

The Sooners and Longhorns split their annual Red River football rivalry, three games apiece, during the six-year span the current NCAA report covers. UT won the Big 12 championship in 1996. OU won the national title in 2000.

Brand says another disturbing issue confronts him. The data shows a drop in the number of black athletes competing in football and men's basketball. Football lost 279 black athletes during the reporting period, basketball 13.Brand offered that one potential reason for the decline was tougher initial eligibility requirements put into effect before the 1995-96 school year. The NCAA now requires 13 core curriculum courses in high school. Brand would like to see that number eventually reach 16.

"As we increased the requirement in previous cases, we saw a brief decline in numbers and they popped back up," Brand said. "The black student athletes, like other student athletes, have risen to the occasion and have graduated with higher rates when stronger requirements were placed on them."

Graduation rates for black male athletes rose to 48 percent, a 5 percentage-point gain. The graduation rate for black football players was 49 percent, up from 46 percent from last year. Black female athletes graduated at a 62 percent rate, compared with 46 percent for women in the student body.

Blacks make up a large portion of Oklahoma's strong graduation rate. OU's football team graduated 71 percent of its black players and 60 percent of its white players for the 65 percent total.