Three Sacramento State teams could face multiple penalties after their graduation rates fell under the NCAA’s new academic requirements.

New guidelines in the NCAA’s Academic Performance Program indicate that the Graduation Success Rate of the Sac State’s football, men’s basketball and men’s golf teams fall under the minimum of 50 percent.

With over 30 percent of Division I football programs failing to graduate at least half of their student-athletes over the past six years, Sac State is not alone.

Last month the NCAA sent out Academic Progress Rate reports to each one of its member institutions. The report included a listing of every sport on campus and its individual Graduation Success Rate. The NCAA made their report public last week.

Teams could face penalties beginning as early as next year.

The first penalties for teams that do not make the cut could come as early as next year, and will come in the form of lost scholarships. For every student-athlete that leaves the university in bad academic standing, the team loses that scholarship for one year. Teams that fail to improve after losing scholarships could be faced with recruiting restrictions and eventually would be subject to banishment from preseason or postseason games.

Last semester Sac State’s football team had six players on the Big Sky Conference All-Academic team, and 25 players with a 3.0 GPA or better.

“I am assigning one of our coaches as the academic coordinator and he will be the point person setting up tutors, study halls and lab hours,” coach Steve Mooshagian said. “Football needs, and will take, a proactive position on the success of our student-athletes and our staff is fully committed to getting the funding necessary to see it through.”

Mooshagian anticipates his team’s current academic numbers to increase. A computer lab/study center is currently being set up for the football team from private funding.

“I’m not concerned that we’re all of a sudden going to lose scholarships in the program,” Athletic Director Terry Wanless said. “We have to continue to work hard and to make sure that we’re doing things the right way and recruiting the right type of athletes that are going to keep us out of those difficult situations.”

The Graduation Success Rate is a new way for the NCAA to obtain accurate graduation rates from all schools. The federal method of obtaining graduation rates will still be used, but in addition to the more precise Graduation Success Rate.

The report also explains what contemporaneous penalties would have been applied to the teams had the new standards been implemented immediately and will serve as a catalyst for schools to improve student-athlete graduation rates on individual teams.

On the other end of the spectrum are the teams that are already succeeding in graduating athletes and retaining them. The men’s soccer team has continually ranked high among Hornet teams in GPA, graduation rates and now the APR. Coach Michael Linenberger brings players to his program that he feels are academically capable and can have academic success.

“We really stress the academic side of things. The student-athletes aren’t here just to be soccer players. They are here to be students as well,” Linenberger said. “We sit down with each student a minimum of three times per semester to go over their academic situations and make sure they are on top of things.”

———————————————————————————-

Armando Botello II can be reached at [email protected]