Friday, October 10, 2008

last updated: November 28, 2007 02:49:29 AM

There are three seconds left, and West Virginia has the ball at the Missouri 5-yard line, trailing the Tigers by four points.

Mountaineers quarterback Pat White rolls left and, not seeing an open receiver, tucks the ball and heads toward the goal line. As the clock ticks to zeros, he dives into the end zone, giving West Virginia the national championship.

But first, he must answer the question.

The sideline academic official strolls onto the field wearing his cap, gown and gold stole.

"Student-athlete White," he starts, "amplifier is to ear as telescope is to ... what?"

White shuffles his feet, pawing at the Louisiana Superdome turf.

"Damn," White says. "I remember this question from my SATs.

"Uh, I know ... Outer space."

"Wrong," the official says as he flips his yellow No. 2 pencil to the turf. "The touchdown is disallowed!"

Since coming into existence in 1906, the NCAA has struggled with its basic charter -- identifying and maintaining the correct balance between athletics and academics.

In recent years, the NCAA has established the Academic Progress Rate (APR), which creates a baseline measurement of retention and graduation rates its member schools must meet or risk the forfeiture of scholarships.

One might question the logic of taking away scholarships from underachieving athletic programs, but that's another matter.

And obviously, we'll never see a scenario in which an academic test becomes a part of an athletic event -- such as the hypothetical case above -- but at least one Washington think tank would like to see classroom performance have a bearing on which schools are in line to receive multi-million dollar Bowl Championship Series payoffs.

"In general, athletes graduate at a higher rate than the general student population," said Lindsey Luebchow, a policy analyst at the non-profit New America Foundation. "In general, student-athletes are doing a good job, but football and basketball are different stories."

Luebchow also is the author of Higher Ed Watch, a respected blog. Recently, she was asked by ESPN.com to develop a way to measure the academic performance of BCS teams and came up with a system that goes well beyond the NCAA's APR.

She chose to add or subtract points based on the team's graduation rate when compared to that of the school, and rewarded or penalized a team for a high disparity between graduation rates of black and white athletes, again measured against the school's general population.

Yes, the race issue.

"A lot of students are being recruited for athletics that are not prepared for college, having come from places that do not put a priority on education," Luebchow said. "But once these students are admitted, the schools have the responsibility to make sure these students have access to the tools necessary to leave with a degree."

Luebchow applied her math and on Tuesday released her re-ranking of the 25 teams listed in the most recent BCS standings, throwing out on-field performance. Her academic national championship game?

Let us all yawn in unison. It's No. 1 Boston College against No. 2 Cincinnati.

Boston College always ranks near the top of most academic surveys, so there's no great surprise there. But Cincinnati? The same Cincinnati where former basketball coach Bob Huggins went two consecutive seasons with a graduation rate of zero?

Football Bearcats must be a different breed. Of the players entering the program between 1997-2000, 71 percent earned degrees. That not only is 22 percent higher than Cincy's general student population, but the graduation rate difference between black and white football players is a statistically insignificant 3 percent compared to 19 percent for the rest of the school.

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