Judge: NCAA can’t use SATs for eligibility

Tuesday, March 9, 1999 | 10:58 a.m.

line SUN STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

PHILADELPHIA -- The NCAA's 302 Division I schools are on their own now in determining which freshmen are academically eligible to play college sports.

District Judge Ronald Buckwalter ruled Monday that the NCAA may not use a minimum test score to eliminate student-athletes from eligibility because the practice is unfair to blacks.

The policy, known as Proposition 16, required freshmen athletes to have a minimum score of 820 on the Scholastic Assessment Test regardless of their high school grades.

The judge cited the NCAA's own research showing that the practice harmed black students' chances of being declared academically eligible. He said there were other methods available to reach the goal of higher graduation rates that would be fairer to blacks -- such as a system that uses SAT scores together with grade-point averages in core subjects.

The ruling caught UNLV athletic director Charlie Cavagnaro by surprise.

"If the national test is invalid, you still have to come up with a new national standard," Cavagnaro said. "Otherwise, we will revert back to the 1970s where all the schools had their own standards and caused Proposition 16 in the first place.

"No doubt there is a problem with the SAT and the ACT. At the same time, we need to have a level playing field for academic standards."

Former Georgetown basketball coach John Thompson, who boycotted two games in 1989 over a forerunner of Proposition 16 called Proposition 48, said he had mixed emotions about the ruling.

"I feel more upset than anything. Being right doesn't mean anything to me," he said. "What do you do for the kids who have been deprived, who needed athletics to be able to get out of their situations?"

Las Vegas Sun staff writer Steve Carp contributed to this story.