Cal athletics was dealt a humiliating blow with last week’s report on graduation rates, in which Cal football ranked dead last among 72 major programs in the country and men’s basketball wasn’t much better. Barbour, who has been athletic director since the fall of 2004, has to own it. She can’t blame those numbers on departed coaches Jeff Tedford and Ben Braun. She was their boss. She extended their contracts during this dismal period. She is the one who has to be held accountable… The NCAA report showed that Cal football graduated just 44 percent of its athletes who entered school from 2003 through 2006 and men’s basketball graduated just 38 percent. Many would take the report as a clear sign of the difficulty and hypocrisy involved in attempting to balance big-time athletics and strong academics. Except for one thing: Stanford. Over the same period, Stanford football’s graduation rate was 93 percent and its men’s basketball’s graduation rate was 83 percent. And Stanford football paired its graduation success with a corresponding rise into the nation’s elite programs.

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by Ann Killion, The San Francisco Chronicle.

Posted: October 26th, 2013, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.