When it comes to a team’s performance on the field, the records speak for themselves. The performance of MSU’s student-athletes in the classroom, however, are far less heralded and, at times, more difficult to quantify.
MSU passed the NCAA’s exam with flying colors last week when it released the latest Academic Progress Rate, or APR, scores and revealed that all Spartan athletics programs earned passing scores.
APR is a scale used by the NCAA to monitor student-athletes’ paths to graduation. NCAA athletics programs earn one point for a student-athlete who remains in the program, and another point if the athlete stays academically eligible at the beginning and end of each semester.
The scores are recorded over a four-year period, with the latest batch of numbers coming from the 2007-08 to 2010-11 period. A perfect score is 1,000, while sports need to score above 925 to avoid NCAA penalties.
Most commonly, points are taken away for athletes who transfer or leave the program for other reasons.
“It’s a team effort — it’s the student-athletes, it’s the coaches bringing quality kids in here (and) creating expectations of our student-athletes academically,” Deputy Athletic Director Greg Ianni said.
Men’s basketball coach Tom Izzo, who has two previous perfect scores in the last three years under his belt, notched the lowest single-season score of his career with a score of 902, while head football coach Mark Dantonio’s score of 956 marked his highest single-season score since coming to East Lansing in 2006. Two sports, men’s tennis and women’s basketball, earned perfect APR scores.
Ianni gave much of the credit for the positive scores to Associate Athletic Director for Student Services Jim Pignataro and his staff at the Clara Bell Smith Student-Athlete Academic Center. Pignataro could not be reached for comment.
“That academic center is second to none, and I think the support services that they provide … allow our student-athletes to really be the best students they can and manage the rigors of a very busy schedule,” men’s soccer head coach Damon Rensing said.
Rensing’s program earned a mark of 978, and he said the results come from a commitment to academic success from the coaching staff as well as a culture of scholastic honor within the program that precedes himself.
Baseball head coach Jake Boss Jr. said it can be difficult at times to retain players, considering they can be selected as both juniors and seniors in the MLB Draft. The Spartans lost four players to the draft this year, and Boss said each of them talked with him about finishing their degrees at some point prior to signing their contracts.
“I think that speaks to what our overall mission is as far as our student-athlete experience, so we’re very proud of that,” Boss said.
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