Oct. 20, 2006

By John Heisler

You are politely excused if you’re a tiny bit overwhelmed these days with the proliferation of collegiate athletics graduation rate data – not to mention the acronyms that come along for the ride.

There’s the NCAA (you should know what that one stands for).

The GSR (Graduation Success Rate).

The APR (Academic Progress Rate).

It’s enough to make you wonder if there might not be a few final exams remaining in your future.

Earlier this month, the latest GSR numbers came from the NCAA. With 100 as a perfect score, the GSR rates each program at each institution.

The University of Notre Dame again ranked near the top of the pack, with 17 of its 22 programs recording perfect scores. No Division I-A football-playing institution produced more 100s (Boston College also had 17, though that figure came from a possible 27, compared to Notre Dame’s 22).

Even the Irish sports that didn’t hit 100 came close (men’s lacrosse at 97, football at 95, women’s soccer at 94, men’s golf at 92, men’s basketball at 91).

Compare those figures to some of the other GSR football graduation rates. Four regular members of the on-the-field top 25 poll didn’t reach 50 percent (2005 national champion Texas at 40, Georgia at 41, California at 44 and LSU at 49).

The GSR is the NCAA’s latest measurement for graduation rates – and it’s designed to account for the fact that many student-athletes attend more than one institution for a variety of reasons (so institutions are not penalized for athletes who leave in good, if not excellent, academic standing).

How did the Irish measure up against their peers? Extremely well, as usual, based on four years worth of entering classes from 1996 through 1999.

Only the Naval Academy had a better percentage of 100 scores (.842 on 16 of 19, compared to Notre Dame’s .772).

In football, Notre Dame’s 95 figure stood third overall, behind Navy’s 98, and Boston College’s 96. Of the 119 I-A schools, 18 scored 80 or better. Among ranked teams, Nebraska’s 88 and Florida’s 80 came next in line.

In men’s basketball, Notre Dame’s 91 trailed only the 100s by Navy, Wake Forest and Florida and a 97 by Army. In that sport, 20 institutions managed 80 or higher.

In women’s basketball, Notre Dame was among 16 institutions with 100 scores. In that sport, 41 schools scored 90 or better.

A year ago, when the overall GSR institutional scores first came out, Notre Dame’s 98 stood second only to Navy’s 99. The Irish figure to be somewhere in that same neighborhood when the new numbers in that category come from the NCAA next month.

The Irish also stood second among male student-athletes (at 98, behind Navy’s 99), fifth among female student-athletes (at 99, behind only Duke, Northwestern, Navy and Rice at 100), third among black student-athletes (at 93, behind only Northwestern at 98 and Wake Forest at 96) and second in football (at 96, behind Navy’s 98 – almost identical to the 2006 numbers).

The most recent federal rates issued by the United States Department of Education were no less impressive for Notre Dame:

Among those same peers (football-playing Division I-A institutions), Notre Dame had the best overall graduation rate (90.4 percent, compared to Duke’s 89.6), tied for first with Stanford among male student-athletes (both at 87 percent), led the way among female student-athletes with Duke (at 96), ranked sixth among black student-athletes (at 78, behind only Northwestern, Stanford, Rice, Vanderbilt and Wake Forest) and fourth in football (at 85, behind Stanford, Vanderbilt and Wake Forest).

What all this means is that Notre Dame student-athletes are achieving (in this case, graduating) as impressively as ever – particularly when they are compared to their peers.

It goes way back to the institutional philosophies of Fathers Ted Hesburgh and Ned Joyce, who in no uncertain terms made it clear for administrators, coaches and athletes where academics fit.

That mindset hit home in 2000 in the initial interview of athletics director Kevin White when Father Monk Malloy suggested that the academic success of student-athletes was a non-negotiable item. The same expectations are laid out for any Irish coach who is hired.

Coming off a year in which Notre Dame set records for All-Americans (44), Academic All-Americans (14) and BIG EAST Conference titles (13), an unprecedented season of athletic success sat side by side with similar successes on the academic front.

And, in the big picture of intercollegiate athletics, isn’t that the way it’s always supposed to work?