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Sports Briefs: Graduation rates up for NCAA athletes
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Published: November 19, 2009
Updated: 11/19/2009 12:15 am
INDIANAPOLIS -- College athletes are still setting records and dispelling myths -- in the classrooms.
Just as Myles Brand, the late NCAA president, believed they could.
The NCAA's latest graduation numbers show that nearly four out of five student-athletes get their diplomas on time, an all-time high, and federal statistics show that athletes are still more likely to graduate on time than other students.
NCAA statistics show that 79 percent of all freshmen entering school in 2002-03 graduated in six years or less, matching last year's record high. The four-class average, for students entering college between the fall of 1999 and the fall of 2002, also was 79 percent, a 1 percentage point increase over last year's record.
The federal numbers are lower, 64 percent for athletes, but still 2 percentage points higher than the general student body that does not have access to all the assistance provided to student-athletes.
NCAA officials believe that the improving numbers can be attributed to stronger eligibility standards for incoming freshmen and a greater emphasis on academics during Brand's tenure as president.
Basketball
■ The University of Memphis is refusing to release the NCAA's response to its appeal of a ruling that vacated the 2007-08 men's season.
The university yesterday denied a request filed by the The Associated Press under Tennessee's Open Records Act.
Memphis's legal counsel said that the school can't produce the document because it didn't receive a copy, and instead read a version of it through the NCAA's Web site.
The university said that NCAA rules prohibit the university from printing the document for the media off the association's Web site.
In a similar public records case, a Florida court ruled last month that the NCAA must release documents on Florida State University's appeal of an academic cheating penalty. The NCAA tried to keep them secret on a read-only, secure Web site.
■ The woman accused of trying to extort money from Louisville coach Rick Pitino was charged yesterday with retaliating against Pitino by falsely saying that he raped her. A federal grand jury in Louisville brought four new criminal charges against Karen Cunagin Sypher, including retaliation against a witness.
The FBI, Louisville police and prosecutors have said there was no basis for her rape allegations. She said Pitino raped her in a criminal complaint filed after she was indicted in May on charges of trying to extort money from Pitino. The grand jury also added two intent-to-extort charges and a second charge of lying to the FBI.
Golf
■ Kim Mansfield of High Point is the champion of the Harris Teeter Senior Amateur Tour at Southern Pines.
Mansfield shot a two-day total of even-par 143 to win the championship yesterday. Mansfield, the 2002 champ, held off a charge from four players who finished a stroke back. He credited his opening round of 68 at National Golf Club for giving him the cushion needed in the final round at Pine Needles.
Four golfers finished a shot back of Mansfield in the Championship Flight. Rick Luzar of Pinehurst took second on a scorecard playoff, while Brad Kroll of Charlotte finished third after shooting the low round of the tournament, a 67. Fourth-place Denny Adkins of Myrtle Beach also closed with a 67.
■ The LPGA Tour has announced a 2010 schedule of 24 tournaments -- its smallest schedule in nearly 40 years.
The LPGA Championship, the oldest among the four majors, will be merged with an existing tournament near Rochester, N.Y., with grocery chain Wegmans serving as a presenting sponsor. The newly named LPGA Championship Presented by Wegmans, a $2.25 million tournament, will be June 24 to June 27 at Locust Hill in Pittsford, N.Y.
The LPGA Tour will end its season this week with its 27th tournament, after starting 2009 with a 31-tournament schedule.
Miscellaneous
■ Fifteen months after the Beijing Olympics, Bahraini middle-distance runner Rashid Ramzi was stripped of his 1,500-meter gold medal yesterday and four other athletes were disqualified because of doping at the games.
The International Olympic Committee took action against the five athletes who tested positive in April in retroactive tests for CERA, an advanced version of the blood-boosting drug EPO. Ramzi was the only gold medalist from Beijing caught using performance-enhancing drugs.
The athletes' samples were collected and tested at the Beijing Games in August 2008. They tested negative at the time, but the IOC reanalyzed the samples this year when a fully validated test for CERA became available.
■ The United States wasted an early goal by Jeff Cunningham and lost a World Cup warm-up 3-1 to Denmark last night, the final match of 2009 for the Americans.
Substitutes Johan Absalonsen, Soren Rieks and Martin Bernburg beat goalkeeper Brad Guzan during the first 10 minutes of the second half as the Danes took advantage of a porous U.S. defense.
■ Erin West of North Davidson signed a letter of intent to swim for Pfeiffer. West, a senior, also swims for the Gateway YWCA Sea Dragons, based in Winston-Salem. The signing was announced in a release from Heather West, the aquatics director at the Gateway YWCA.
■ Top-ranked Roger Federer was drawn yesterday to play Juan Martin del Potro, the U.S. Open champion, and Andy Murray in the round-robin phase of the ATP World Tour Finals. Federer, who lost to Del Potro in the U.S. Open final, will also face Fernando Verdasco in Group A.
Second-ranked Rafael Nadal was drawn into Group B with Novak Djokovic, Nikolay Davydenko and Robin Soderling. The top two players in each group will advance to the semifinals of the tournament, which could give an undefeated champion $1.63 million. .
■ Formula One champion Jenson Button has signed a multi-year deal with McLaren to form an all-British lineup with Lewis Hamilton. Button's contract with Brawn GP had ended, and talks about a new deal had stalled.
He won his first F1 driver's title in Brawn's first year. Hamilton won the 2008 championship.
■ The International Association of Athletics Federations said that gender tests on South African world champion Caster Semenya haven't been completed. The IAAF, the governing body of track and field, had been expected to announce its findings Friday but said that it "will not comment upon the medical aspects of Caster Semenya's case. The medical testing of the athlete is still to be completed."
Semenya, 18, won the women's 800-meter world title in August but her accomplishment was overshadowed when the IAAF said before the final that it had ordered gender tests because of Semenya's muscular build and recent rapid improvement in times.
■ Cycling's governing body confirmed yesterday that it will deliver proposals to the IOC for a track-race program at the 2012 London Olympics that offers equal gold-medal opportunities for men and women, and likely would deny American phenom Taylor Phinney a chance to compete in his specialty race.
Last year's Beijing Games had seven track races for men and three for women -- a bias the UCI acknowledged is "out of line" with other Olympics sports.
Phinney is among those already speaking out -- he's the reigning world champion in the individual pursuit, one of five endurance races targeted for elimination.
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