N.C.A.A. Cracks Down on Prep Schools and Angers Some
New York Times 5/1/07
The decision will shut down a glaring N.C.A.A. loophole, one exploited by diploma mills: students avoided graduating high school to pad their grade point average in a fifth year. The N.C.A.A. also hopes the new policy will help eliminate schools that exist solely to qualify players for college scholarships.
“If you’ve been a prep school focused on simply getting kids eligible that are not high school graduates, this is going to be problematic for you,” the N.C.A.A. vice president Kevin Lennon said.
College and prep school coaches, however, say the N.C.A.A.’s decision is an overreaction, especially because the number of core courses required by the N.C.A.A. will increase to 16 from 14 in 2008. They say the legislation is detrimental to legitimate prep schools and will limit opportunities to those from poor backgrounds.
“It’s a shame to see what we’re doing to young people, and a lot of the young people don’t have the resources,” the Georgia Tech basketball coach Paul Hewitt said. “We’re slowly but surely taking away the opportunity to overcome a bad start.”
Memphis Coach John Calipari, whose team may be ranked No. 1 in the preseason next season, has a significant number of players on his roster who went to prep schools. He said that the N.C.A.A. should focus on shutting down illegitimate prep schools and not hurt those attending others. “If you have a problem with some of the prep schools, shut them down, do what you’ve got to do,” Calipari said. “Why blow the whole thing up with a bazooka? I understand what their concern is, but I know that they’ve never discussed it with any of us.”
Lennon said that coaches were informed of the potential of the new policy at a national coaches meeting and that the issue had been on the N.C.A.A.’s agenda for the past six months. The policy follows new rules that will allow the N.C.A.A. to review individual transcripts with academic anomalies and visit questionable schools to determine their legitimacy.
But coaches at accredited prep schools who have strong academic traditions expressed concern.
Raphael Chillious, the basketball coach at the South Kent School in Connecticut, predicted that there would be a flood of lawsuits on behalf of students who he said would be “caught in the blender.” Chillious said that it was common for traditional New England prep schools to “reclassify” students, meaning that they would repeat a year of high school to better prepare themselves for college.
By doing so, those students do not graduate until a fifth year. Lennon said there was a waiver process to handle situations in which students were trying to improve themselves at legitimate schools; the rule was designed to limit schools and athletes from abusing the system. (Learning disabled students are not affected by the new legislation.)
“We’re not shutting out opportunity, we’re encouraging better behavior,” Lennon said. He added that “legitimate prep schools in the business of preparing students for college and wanting to improve their academic portfolio” would continue to be able to do so.
Mike Byrnes, the basketball coach at the Winchendon School, a prep school in Massachusetts, said he understood the intent, but was worried about youngsters caught in the middle.
“With this and the 16 core courses, you have kids shooting with their left hand instead of right hand, and now they’re supposed to make the basket,” Byrnes said. “There’s no time for adjustment.”
Byrnes also said those benefiting the most from this rule were junior colleges.
“They went from eating Caesar salad to prime rib,” Byrnes said.
Junior college basketball programs were virtually gutted in the past decade as students took fifth, sixth and sometimes even seventh years of prep school as alternatives to using two years of eligibility at a junior college. The last star players to go through junior college and play at four-year colleges were Steve Francis and Shawn Marion.
“This puts the focus back on junior college again, where our people are prepared to help these kids,” said Steve Green, the head coach at South Plains College, a junior college in Texas.
As both college and prep school coaches become aware of the legislation, the N.C.A.A. could be faced with a backlash.
“In theory, this thing is probably the right idea,” said Bill Barton, the coach at Notre Dame Prep in Fitchburg, Mass. “But the reality is that you’re hurting a wide spectrum of kids that come from different backgrounds, but most are minority kids from the inner city. There has to be a lawsuit in here somewhere.”