
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, July 2, 1994                   TAG: 9407020056
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NORFOLK                                LENGTH: Medium

GRADUATION RATES LAG AT ODU

For the second consecutive year, Old Dominion has the worst graduation rate for student-athletes among Virginia's 11 Division I schools.

Of 42 student-athletes who entered Old Dominion during the 1987-88 school year, only 16 graduated in the six years allotted by an NCAA survey on athlete graduation rates. The Old Dominion rate was 38 percent, well below the 57 percent average rate for the nation's 301 Division I schools.

William and Mary was the leader among state schools, with 87 percent.

Jim Jarrett, Old Dominion's athletic director, pointed to another NCAA statistic that made the school look better. The exhausted-eligibility graduation rate - students who used all their athletic eligibility while at Old Dominion - was 86 percent, compared to a national average of 77 percent.

"I consider the exhausted-eligibility graduation rate a much better academic barometer," Jarrett said. He said the other figure "is more a measure of attrition at your university than it is a measure of academics."

Jerry Kingston, chairman of the NCAA's Academic Requirements Committee, didn't disagree. He said the exhausted-eligibility rate is a "meaningful statistic" that is "less likely to be affected by the transfer situation."

But he said the exhausted rate would not show a student who was unable to make satisfactory academic progress and dropped out. Both figures "contain useful information and both need to be interpreted carefully for what they do mean, as well as what they do not mean," Kingston said.

Richmond had the best record in the state in the exhausted-eligibility category - 98 percent - followed closely by William and Mary at 96 percent and Virginia and VMI at 95 percent each.

The bottom Division I state schools in that category were Radford's 71 percent, Liberty's 72 percent and Virginia Tech's 76 percent.

All seven female student-athletes who entered Old Dominion in 1987-88 graduated, but only nine of 35 men finished. Jarrett said the school's baseball, men's basketball and wrestling programs brought down the university's average.

Of 26 scholarship athletes who enrolled in 1987-88 and did not graduate, Jarrett said four left early to accept pro contracts, nine transferred and 13 dropped out for other reasons. But only one was academically ineligible to stay in school, he said.

by CNB