N.C.A.A. Takes Aim at Suspect High Schools

[Cheesesteak]

June 2, 2006

N.C.A.A. Takes Aim at Suspect High Schools

By PETE THAMEL - The New York Times

Two significant developments emerged yesterday as college presidents and officials attempt to deal with high school athletes attending so-called diploma mills.

Early next week, the National Collegiate Athletic Association is expected to release its first list of high schools lacking proper academic rigor, which means those schools' transcripts will no longer be accepted by the N.C.A.A. The Southeastern Conference is expected to pass legislation today that will give the commissioner's office final authority on questionable transcripts, Vanderbilt Chancellor Gordon Gee said.

The N.C.A.A. vice president Kevin Lennon said in a telephone interview yesterday that the N.C.A.A. had been making unannounced visits to schools to research their legitimacy.

Lennon said that the N.C.A.A. sent out a questionnaire to about 50 schools requesting more information on their academics. He said that the schools that did not respond would be removed from the N.C.A.A.'s list of approved schools, which would essentially mean that students who attend those schools could not qualify for athletic scholarships.

The N.C.A.A.'s actions come in the wake of a series of articles in The New York Times illustrating how high schools and prep schools gave students fast and easy grades so they could qualify for athletic scholarships.

"We've identified those schools that we need to make contact with immediately," Lennon said. "We know that kids are waiting for decisions, and schools are waiting for decisions. We're trying to put some priority and order to this."

The list of high schools lacking proper academic rigor is expected to affect college basketball the most, as many of the questionable schools were set up around basketball teams.

Lennon said that the N.C.A.A. was standing by its controversial stance that students who are graduating this spring and have signed with universities will be denied athletic scholarships if their high school is on the list. (Athletes already enrolled at universities will not be affected.)

Don Jackson, a lawyer based in Montgomery, Ala., who said he had handled more than 20 N.C.A.A. cases the past four years, said that he had already been contacted by 10 high schools to seek his legal advice.

"I fully expect a wave of lawsuits," Jackson said. "The N.C.A.A. is not an accrediting agency and not the state department of education. They have no legal authority to make value judgments on the quality of education in a school."

Lennon said the N.C.A.A. was not fazed. "Institutions that are not doing anything are what we're going to be concerned with," he said. "I can't say that the specter of lawsuits has increased." Lennon would not reveal what schools the N.C.A.A. has visited.

The SEC's proposal is another aggressive step for the conference, which in November wrote a strong letter to the N.C.A.A. president, Myles Brand, requesting that he take the issue of fraudulent high school credentials seriously.

"Our intent is to develop a set of rules that would flag these students coming from these schools and the school itself would take a close look at it," Gee said in a telephone interview yesterday. "The commissioner would have a final authority."

[EastStang]

The kids that would have gone through these programs will probably head for the NBA developmental league. Actually, I think this is a good thing. It hurts our competition because we wouldn't admit these kids anyway.