NCAA Strong academic reform pact is approved

Graduation rates will be one factor used in measuring progress.
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- The NCAA's clock is ticking.
Proposals approved by the association's board of directors were the final pieces of an academic reform package designed to ensure athletes are better prepared when they enter college, better able to stay in school, and more likely to graduate.
Some of the measures will go into effect this year. Some won't be felt for another four years or more. All of them, when they are fully implemented, will hold the athletes and the colleges themselves more accountable for their academic progress.
Penalties
Those that don't measure up will be penalized. Those that continue to fall below the standard will be penalized even more.
"This is landmark legislation," NCAA president Myles Brand said Thursday. "With this, the academic reform movement has now come to fruition. This is the beginning of a sea of change in college sports."
At the heart of the new package is a series of increasingly harsher penalties that may be imposed against schools that continue to fall below an academic "cut" line. Graduation rates will be one of many factors the NCAA uses in measuring progress.
That line, which has not been determined, will be the same in all sports.
"This is a critically important set of legislative measures, the strongest ever passed by the NCAA, and different in kind because it holds teams, as well as institutions, accountable," Brand said.
Brand added graduation targets for each school are being calculated. This fall each school will be notified "how much at risk it would have been" had the new standards already been in place.
Schools that fall below that line will receive warning letters beginning in 2006-07. Consistently poor performing teams could begin losing scholarships in 2007-08 and postseason eligibility and money from NCAA tournaments starting in 2008-09.
Also, if a scholarship athlete leaves school while not academically eligible, that scholarship may not be replaced for one year, as of this fall.
No waiting
"We're starting immediately to make these reforms real," said Robert Hemenway, chancellor of the University of Kansas and chairman of the Division I board.
The Division I Management Council originally proposed waiting an extra year before putting the reforms in place, but the board decided to push it up to 2006 because it felt data wouldn't change much by waiting.