Bowl pick a loser at graduation

"I won't apologize," Stoops said. "Everyone knew the system going into the year, and in the end we're No. 1. There's nothing to apologize about."

In refusing to apologize, Stoops added, "Our strength of schedule, quality wins and everything they take into consideration, it's obvious that we earned our way."

In my eighth annual Graduation Gap Bowl, Oklahoma would have earned its way to a bowl ban. On weakness of academics and quality of defeats in the classroom, the Sooners are among the dregs of sports programs.

The graduation rate of Oklahoma's football team is 33 percent, third-lowest of the 56 bowl teams. Oklahoma trailed only Arkansas and Fresno State, both of which have graduation rates of 26 percent.

The team many people felt should have been in the Sugar Bowl instead of Oklahoma is Southern California. Referring to the controversy that resulted in the exclusion of his team, coach Pete Carroll said, "If it blows up the system, good. Something will be adjusted, and hopefully we've contributed to that. I like that we've been part of that."

Ironically, Carroll could have said exactly the same thing about a system which allows schools to play bowl games even if they are nowhere close to graduating most of their players. USC happens to be one of the exceptions to the rule. It has a graduation rate of 61 percent. It is one of the few programs where African-American and white players graduate at a near equal rate, 61 and 60 percent, respectively.

The overall situation remains sordid. In 2001, the Knight Commission recommended that teams should be banned from postseason play if less than 50 percent of their players graduate. In 2001, that would have meant that 22 out of 25 bowl games should have been cancelled as at least one of the teams was under 50 percent. Last year, it seemed to get slightly better as "just" 20 of 28 games should have been cancelled.

But 2003 is the worst year yet since the Knight commission's recommendations were issued. Of the 28 bowl games, 26 should be cancelled. The only two games that could be played are ones that pit Purdue vs. Georgia and Navy vs. Texas Tech. The graduation rates are based on the National Collegiate Athletic Association's 2003 report. The report includes scholarship athletes who entered school in 1993, 1994, 1995, or 1996 and graduated within six years of their entry date.

Oklahoma's opponent in the national championship game, LSU, has a mediocre 40 percent graduation average. Southern Cal's opponent in the second-most important game, Michigan, remains one of the nation's most embarrassing schools for its gap between the football players and the student body. Its overall male graduation rate is 81 percent. Its football grad rate is 46 percent. Its African-American player grad rate is 36 percent.

Of the eight schools playing in the four most financially lucrative games, worth $90 million to their conferences, six have African-American player graduation rates under 50 percent. Oklahoma and Ohio State have African-American graduation rates of 28 percent. Of the 56 teams in all the bowls, only 15 have an African-American graduation rate of at least 50 percent.

In the interest of positive publicity, those 15 schools are: Kansas State, USC, Tulsa, Mississippi, Purdue, Georgia, Boston College, Southern Mississippi, UCLA, Navy, Virginia, Northwestern, Hawaii, Boise State, and Texas Christian.

Unfortunately, there are also 15 schools with African-American grad rates of under 35 percent. The lowest were Arkansas (16 percent), Pittsburgh (23), Miami of Ohio (25), and Tennessee and Fresno State (26 percent each). The other remainders, besides Oklahoma and Ohio State, were Bowling Green, Louisville, Texas, Missouri, Minnesota, Colorado State, Oklahoma State and LSU.

Whether Stoops apologizes for his team's presence in the game is irrelevant next to the need to explain how his graduation rate is so low, especially when a quality team like USC can graduate a significant majority of its players. Last year, Oklahoma had the worst grad rate of all 56 teams. Carroll may be right about the need to blow up the system of picking teams for bowl games. A far greater need is to blow up the programs that make a farce out of the phrase "student-athlete."

Derrick Z. Jackson's e-mail address is jackson@globe.com.