NCAA going ahead with coaches' academic progress scorecard

OXON HILL, Md. — Hours before NCAA delegates were stunned by the news that Myles Brand has cancer, the organization moved ahead Saturday with the type of academics-first plan that has been his legacy as president.

The NCAA said it plans to create an Academic Progress Report for coaches, one that could be posted on the Internet by the summer of 2010.

"The point is to shine some light on coaches' performances and to bring some accountability to it," said Hartford University president Walt Harrison, chairman of the NCAA's Committee on Academic Performance. "They're not the only people who should be held accountable, but they are a very key part of the chain."

The move was overshadowed by Brand's written statement saying he was being treated for pancreatic cancer and that the long-term prognosis is "not good."

Brand, the NCAA's president since 2003, will remain in charge as he undergoes chemotherapy. He was not able to attend the convention, but much of the work done during the week bore his stamp, including the APR for coaches.

The NCAA already has an APR for schools, which was introduced four years ago and is used to penalize teams whose athletes consistently perform poorly in the classroom. The same formula would be used for the coaches' APR, although coaches with low scores would be faced with stigma instead of sanctions: Schools looking for a new head coach might be more reluctant to hire someone near the bottom of the rankings.

"It could have a modest influence," Penn State president Graham Spanier said. "Realistically, wins and losses weigh most heavily on a coach's reputation."

For coaches who have been in one place for a long time, the APR will be simple to calculate. Mike Krzyzewski's APR, for example, will be the same as the one for the Duke men's basketball team. The math will be trickier for those who have bounced from school to school.

Another time-consuming part of the planning process will be compiling a list of all coaches in all sports — something the NCAA doesn't have. Harrison's committee hopes to present a prototype version of the coaches' APR Web page to the NCAA later this year.

"It's kind of like a lifetime batting average," Harrison said. "It doesn't tell you everything about how a hitter's done, but it gives you a rough guide to their success. ... We think of it as a general guideline that would be helpful to the public and to the presidents when they're looking at coaches."

In other news on the final day of the NCAA Convention: