INDIANAPOLIS – A total of 10 of Illinois State's 17 athletics teams equaled or exceeded the Division I national average in their respective sport in the latest Academic Progress Rate report released by the NCAA Wednesday. Seven of those teams earned perfect single-year APR scores (1000) for the 2017-18 season including baseball, men's cross country, women's cross country, women's tennis women's golf, softball and volleyball.
The 10 Redbird programs that equaled or exceeded Division I national average in their respective sport are: baseball, men's and women's cross country, football, women's golf, gymnastics, softball, women's track & field, soccer, and volleyball. As released last week, four of those teams – baseball, women's golf, softball and volleyball earned NCAA Public Recognition Awards for posting APR scores in the top 10 percent of the country within their sport. Additionally, those same four teams achieved perfect APR scores of 1000 for their four-year rate.
"Our coaches, faculty, advisors, support staff, and student-athletes set a high bar for academic achievement and graduation and it translates into so many of our teams earning stellar APR scores," Senior Associate Athletics Director for Compliance Cindy Harris said. "To compete in NCAA postseason, our teams must achieve a 930 four-year APR so we pay very close attention to this data throughout the year. Our latest APR scores show we are in a good place with this data release, and we will set our sights on even better scores next year."
Other Illinois State highlights from the latest NCAA report included:
• The Redbird baseball team's perfect 1000 multi-year APR score was tops in the Missouri Valley Conference, and one of only 15 squads (out of 297) in all of NCAA Division I to achieve a perfect score
• The volleyball and softball teams' perfect 1000 multi-year APR scores tied for the top spot in their respective sport within the Missouri Valley Conference
• Football's APR of 969 exceeded the national average by 8 points
• Men's cross country's APR of 995 exceeded the national average by 13 points
• All of Illinois State's teams achieved an APR score above the NCAA's threshold to avoid penalties
NCAA President Mark Emmert praised the commitment to higher education among Division I student-athletes.
"We are proud of the continued high level of academic success Division I student-athletes achieve," Emmert said. "We are seeing some flattening of the rates, which is not unusual given the large amount of data over a long period of time. But we will continue to focus on academic achievement and graduation as the ultimate goal for college athletes."
The announcement is the NCAA's latest report of APR for all Division I schools and includes single-year scores for 2017-18 and four-year multi-year scores between the 2014-15 and 2017-18 academic years. The APR tracks eligibility and retention of scholarship student-athletes each semester and annually provides a real-time picture of the performance of each team on these two measures.
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