Northern Illinois athletics surpass standards

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According to a report released Tuesday by the NCAA, Northern Illinois exceeded all of the NCAA's academic standards for 2008 as measured by the Academic Progress Rate in all 17 sports. The NIU women's golf team scored a perfect 1,000 score for the fourth straight year and every NIU team scored above a 930. Teams are awarded two points each term for each athlete who meets academic eligibility standards and who remains at the school. A team's APR is calculated by taking the total points earned by a team at a given time, dividing that by the total points possible and multiplying by 1,000. The NCAA has established that 925 is the score teams need to be at or above in order to avoid penalties. “Today's report shows that across the board, our programs in great shape,” NIU interim athletic director Robert Collins said in a release. “The APR goes hand-in-hand with the five consecutive 3.0 semesters that our student-athletes have posted and is bourne out by the number of student-athletes who graduate from NIU each year.” Other Mid-American Conference schools did not fare as well as NIU. Temple fell under the “historical penalties” category for continued falling numbers in APR reports. Temple will be limited to 81 total scholarships and 22 initial scholarships. Temple was also hit with a practice time limitation of 16 hours per week. If scores fall again next year, Temple football could be ruled inelgible for a bowl game and possible loss of Division-I membership. Central Michigan football also lost two scholarships, but because the Chippewas had two scholarships open last season, they were able to apply it for this year. Toldeo football lost six scholarships after an APR score of 892. Akron football (920 APR) lost five and Buffalo football (893) lost two.