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Angeles, December 30, 1998 Vol. 10, No.5/6 Dear Reader: Bowling for scholars . . . A survey of graduation rates for those football teams playing in the Bowl Championship Series and New Year's Day bowl games suggests that the Penn State - Kentucky matchup in the Outback Bowl is the game most likely to feature football players who will actually graduate from college. According to this year's NCAA Graduation Rate Report, PSU boasts a four-year average graduation rate of 74%, while UK sports a 56% rate. At the low end is the Sugar Bowl in which Texas A&M has a 41% rate and Ohio State comes in with 39%. The most studious of the bowl-bound seem to be the feisty laddies from Notre Dame, who have a four-year average graduation rate of 80%. The Irish's graduation rate for the most recent class measured (i.e. 1991-92 entering freshmen) was an outstanding 87%. Bobby Bowden's Florida State Seminoles boasted the third-best rate at 62%. Add graduation rates . . . The NCAA figures put the Tennessee Volunteers, the nation's top-ranked team, at the bottom of the bowl-bound teams. Several media reports have mentioned the Vols 11% graduation rate for the 1991-92 entering class. Here's a good illustration of how statistics can lie. According to the formula designed by the NCAA, the Vols’ graduation rate for the 1991-92 class was an awful 11%. Indeed, of the 18 student-athletes entering Tennessee that year, only two graduated within the six-year NCAA limit. That figure doesn't tell the whole story, though. According to Carmen Tegano, Tennessee’s assistant athletic director for student life, 10 of the 18 1991-92 freshmen were on NFL rosters at the start of the season. More importantly, four of those 10 players graduated with their degrees after the NCAA’s six-year cut off. In fact, six of the 18 (33%) student-athletes in Tennessee’s entering 1991-92 football class have received their college degrees. Of the rest, six are playing in the NFL and one is playing professional baseball. So one could say that six have graduated and several others are gainfully employed. Tennessee's seemingly low graduation rate actually says more about how the NCAA measures graduation rates and the danger of relying on single year statistics than about the academic commitment of the school's football program. The NCAA graduation rates count only those student-athletes who enter as freshmen receiving athletic grants-in-aid and who graduate within six years. Athletes who transfer from the program, even if they graduate from other schools, count against the graduation rate. At the same time, athletes who transfer into the program and get their degrees do not count in favor of the graduation rate. Look at the academic performance of Tennessee's entering classes for 1992-93 and 1993-94. In the fall of 1992, according to Tegano, 22 recruited freshman joined the football team. According to NCAA criteria, 13 players (59%) graduated. That figure, however, is misleading. While those 13 students were working toward graduation, five other student-athletes transferred into the program. Four of them graduated. So, counting the 1992-93 class and transfers, 17 of 27 (63%) players finishing their athletic eligibility at UT graduated. And it gets better. For the 1993-94 freshman class, coach Phillip Fulmer's first at UT, 12 of 17 (70.5%) graduated according to NCAA measurement. Of the five players who did not graduate from UT, three had transferred to other schools where they did graduate. Also, another three players transferred into Tennessee, and they graduated. So, of the 20 student-athletes entering college in 1993-94 who either began or ended their collegiate football careers at Tennessee, 18 of 20, exactly 90%, graduated from college. And that's a long way from 11%.
Cool Runnings . . . This winter marks the inaugural season of World Cup competition in women’s bobsled. Insiders anticipate that the event will be added to the program of the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Winter Games. In the time-honored tropical bobsledding tradition, the Jamaica Bobsled Federation has announced that it will form a women’s team in preparation for Salt Lake. Hoping to avoid the hapless entrance made by the Jamaican men in their first Olympic appearance in 1988, the Jamaican women are getting a head start. Grace Jackson, the 200-meter dash silver medalist at the 1988 Seoul Games, is heading development of the women’s team. Reportedly, several of Jamaica's world-class women sprinters have expressed interest in bobsledding. Two Jamaican women also attended the International Drivers' School held this past November in Park City, Utah. According to Becky Matanic of the U.S. Bobsled and Skeleton Federation, one of the women decided, after taking her first run down the icy chute, that bobsledding wasn't the sport for her. With superb ska spirit, however, the other woman completed all five days of the school, although she was deemed as needing a bit more experience before being ready for international racing.
Curled up by the fire . . . OK, so you're a bit late with the holiday shopping. No problem, eh? Check out Gold Line Curling Supplies and Apparel (www.goldline.on.ca) for all your mid-winter stone slinging needs. Perhaps the Ferguson Whiskey Brush at $57.95 will wisk away the winter blues. How about a "Canada Rocks" T-shirt - get it? Maybe a granite stone paperweight or go digital with "ProCurl – The Computer Curling Game." Best yet, how about sliding in next to the hearth with The Complete Idiot's Guide to Curling?
Going global . . . From Finnish basketball players to Jamaican sprinters, the teams in NCAA sports have an increasingly international profile. The estimated number of athletes coming from beyond U.S. borders, according to figures published by the NCAA, grew nearly 2,000 from 6,833 in the 1991-92 school year to 8,851 in 1995-96, an increase of 30%. Surprisingly, the sport with the most international student-athletes is tennis. More than 1,300 men and 700 women NCAA tennis players come from countries other than the U.S. In NCAA Division I, foreigners comprise 26.3% of men's tennis teams and 18.3% of women's tennis teams, more than any other sport. They also account for a hefty percentage of the best players. Presently, eight of the top-15 Division I men players and 10 of the top-15 women players are internationals. Casey Angle, media director for the Intercollegiate Tennis Association, says the number of international players has been growing strong since the 1980s. He attributes the widespread recruiting of foreign athletes to the large pool of international players, the strength of development programs in other countries, and the fact that many countries, especially European ones, have no collegiate tennis. So rather than recruiting lesser-talented Americans, college coaches dip into the pool of top-level foreign athletes. Add internationals . . . International student-athletes are especially common in two NCAA Division II sports: ice hockey and skiing. Sixty-eight percent (68%) of Division II men hockey players, 45% of women skiers and 39% of men skiers come from other countries. Even in the amateur league known as Division III, 24% of men hockey players are non-citizens. Last add internationals . . . Canada is the largest supplier of foreign athletic talent to U.S. colleges. In 1995-96, Canada was the country of origin for 28.4% (or an estimated 2,514) of the NCAA’s international student-athletes. Looks like the North American Free Trade Agreement is alive and well.
For the last time . . . The December 7, 1998, special issue of Time chronicles the "Builders and Titans" of the 20th century. Included among the giants is Pete Rozelle, the late visionary of the NFL. SportsLetter has a quibble with a sidebar published with the article. The sidebar entitled "Big Moments in TV Sports" lists the 1939 NBC broadcast of a Columbia-Princeton baseball game as the first sports telecast. Not true. As the July 1998 issue of SportsLetter pointed out, the first sports event broadcast live on television was the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games. For the facts, you can read the July issue online at www.aafla.org/Publications/SportsLetter/sl798.htm.
And now from our They Still Don't Get It Department . . . Track and field's international governing body, the IAAF, has declared 1998 the Year of Women in Athletics. The November 1998 issue of IAAF News includes a story on women track and field athletes in Peru. A story about the athletic accomplishments of Peruvian women? Not exactly. Apparently what is most newsworthy about Peruvian women’s track and field is that it "has been a remarkable source of beauty queens, advertising models [and] TV presenters." Here's how it works. Women take up sport to "maintain and improve their figures." Then some of them go on to win "Beauty Titles for demonstrating a harmonic blend of physical, intellectual and moral qualities." Since the 1950s, in fact, track and field "has provided this South American country with its most beautiful women." In recent years sprinter Lucia Boggianno won the Miss Peru Beach and the Miss World titles. And, 400-meter runner Viviana Rivas Plata captured the Miss Cinnamon Skin International crown.
The straight dope . . . The Tour de France drug scandal proved that these days the performance-enhancer of choice among endurance athletes is erythropoietin, better know by its nom de guerre, EPO. EPO is a naturally occurring protein produced by the kidneys to stimulate production of oxygen-carrying red blood cells. In the late 1980s, Amgen, a biotechnology firm in Thousand Oaks, California, genetically synthesized EPO into a drug named epoetin alfa. Commercially produced under the brand name Epogen, the drug is intended to combat anemia resulting from chronic renal failure, chemotherapy and certain anti-HIV therapies. Epogen was approved for use by the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) on June 1, 1989. It now accounts for approximately 54% of Amgen's product sales with nearly $1.4 billion in annual revenue. Another $1.4 billion worth of synthetic EPO also is sold, per license from Amgen, by Johnson & Johnson subsidiaries Ortho Biotech and Jannsen-Cilag, under the brand names Procrit and Eprex. For more information, including instructions on self-administering the drug by injection, see Amgen's Web site at www.Amgen.com. Add EPO . . . The drug is difficult to police in sport for several reasons. Current testing procedures cannot detect it. EPO is readily available at most pharmacies with a prescription. And, it is relatively inexpensive. A six-week training supply, administered at a low dosage three times a week, and purchased at pharmacy prices, costs about $1,500. Last add EPO . . . In track and field, doping traditionally has had its greatest impact on the sprints and field events. In the last several years, the dramatic drop in world records in distance events has prompted speculation of EPO use. Since current drug testing cannot detect EPO, no athlete has ever tested positive for the drug. The progression of world records, however, shows a startling decrease in times since EPO hit the streets. Given that running shoes, tracks and training methods have not changed dramatically in the last decade, the sharp decrease in times suggests something else might be at work. Here is a comparison of the decrease in men’s world record times for the decades before and after the FDA’s 1989 approval of EPO.
The needle and the damage done . . . The year 1998 just might go down as the year the world awoke to the prevalence of doping in sport. Wave after wave of doping revelations left little doubt about the extent of the problem. SportsLetter discovered at least 29 sports, most of them Olympic sports, that reported doping offenses in 1998 (see below). And that excludes Major League Baseball in which "andro" is not a banned substance.
The Year in Doping January - Chinese swimmer Yuan Yuan is arrested at the Sydney, Australia airport, prior to the World Swimming Championships, carrying 13 vials of human growth hormone. Six days later four of her Chinese teammates are disqualified after testing positive for a banned diuretic. February - Canadian snowboarder Ross Rebagliati is stripped of his Olympic gold medal after testing positive for canniboids. After appeal to the International Court of Arbitration for Sport his medal is reinstated. April - Ireland's Michelle Smith DeBruin, the controversial winner of three gold medals in swimming at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, is charged by the International Swimming Federation (FINA) with manipulating a sample in an out-of-competition drug test. July - Willy Voet, the Belgian masseur for the Swiss cycling team Festina, is arrested on the French/Belgian border carrying 400 vials of banned performance-enhancing substances. The ensuing scandal rocked the Tour de France leading to multiple arrests, withdrawals and protests by riders. Only 14 of 21 teams finish the race. The International Amateur Athletic Federation announces the suspensions of American gold medalists Randy Barnes and Dennis Mitchell. Barnes, facing his second offense, receives a life ban. Mitchell later is cleared by USA Track and Field. August - After highly publicized trials, coaches from the former German Democratic Republic are convicted of systematically doping athletes, many of them minors, during the 1970s and 1980s. In the wake of the Tour de France doping scandal, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announces it will hold The World Conference on Doping in Sport with the intent of creating an anti-doping agency to regulate international sport. September - Mark McGwire, who would later break Roger Maris' major league single-season home run record, admits to taking androstenedione, a steroid hormone banned by the IOC and NCAA, but not Major League Baseball. Florence Griffith-Joyner, winner of three gold medals at the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games and the subject of persistent doping rumors, dies from a seizure at the age of 38, setting off a round of press speculation concerning the cause of her death. The coroner’s report later concludes that drug usage played no role in her death. October - Italian Olympic Committee president and IOC member, Mario Pescante, resigns his position as Italy's national Olympic committee (NOC) president after revelations of corruption at Acqua Acetosa, the national anti-doping laboratory for Italy. November - Indonesian world doubles badminton champion Sigit Budiarto is suspended for a year following a positive dope test for a banned substance December - Ten years after being stripped of the 100-meter gold medal at the 1988 Seoul Games, Ben Johnson is denied an appeal of his lifetime ban from track and field by the sport’s national federation, Athletics Canada. The IOC denies an appeal by the United States Olympic Committee to award "appropriate medal recognition" to a group of U.S. Olympians seeking to discredit the medals won by doped East German athletes during the 1976 Montreal Games.
But cheer up. This little guy just played host to over 7,000 athletes from 41 NOCs. From the "Land of Smiles," say hello to Chai-yo, the elephant mascot of the XIII Asian Games, which were held December 6-20, in Bangkok, Thailand.
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