Aug. 5, 2010

Center Valley, Pa. - The NCAA released single-year Academic Progress Rates for Division I head coaches in six sports on Thursday, and not surprisingly Patriot League coaches fared very well across the board in the data for football, men and women's basketball, baseball and women's indoor and outdoor track and field.

The data included single-year APR scores for each season from 2003-04 to 2008-09, which covered at least one full season for 33 active Patriot League head coaches. Of that group, 24 have led their student-athletes to at least one season with a perfect APR score of 1000, and the remaining nine have all topped the 980 mark in APR at least once.

The results were especially strong in men's basketball, where all six Patriot League head coaches that were included in the data have directed their team to a perfect APR score at least once in the past four years. Six of the seven Patriot League women's basketball coaches included in the data also led their squad to a perfect score in the six-year time frame.

A pair of head coaches from Holy Cross led their teams to perfect APR scores in five of the six seasons, with women's indoor and outdoor track and field head coach Egetta Alfonso doing so from 2004-2008 and women's basketball head coach Bill Gibbons completing the feat in the past five years. Six additional Patriot League head coaches directed their squads to perfect APR marks in four of the past six years.

Created by the Committee on Academic Performance at the direction of the Division I Board of Directors, the Head Coach APR Portfolio is designed to create more transparency in the Academic Performance Program and strengthen the accountability of coaches for the academic performance of their student-athletes.

The new Head Coach APR Portfolio highlights the critical role coaches play in the development of their student-athletes athletically and academically. It does not assess additional penalties for a team or coach.

The six sports for which data are available were chosen based on the national APR profile for that sport, the opportunity to test technical issues within the system and a diverse mix of large and small teams, as well as team and individual sports. The system will be expanded to all Division I sports after the 2010-11 academic year.