Sallie still in clearinghouse limbo
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BY CURT McKEEVER / Lincoln Journal Star
Roburt Sallie works out on his own these days, hoping for the OK to join the University of Nebraska men’s basketball team.
For the touted recruit from Sacramento, Calif., hope has essentially replaced expectation. Three times now, Sallie has failed to get a thumbs-up from the NCAA Initial-Eligibility Clearinghouse. Now, with the first official practice coming later this week, Sallie, who insists he followed all the rules required by the NCAA, is starting to wonder if his academic transcript from Laurinburg, N.C., Institute would be better off being reviewed by the folks at Publishers Clearing House.
Not that he wants to make light of the matter, because if Sallie isn’t cleared, not only will his playing career be in jeopardy, but so will his shot at receiving a mostly free college education. And without the mostly free part, there might not be college.
“I don’t understand how they can make me an example,” said Sallie, who currently is paying for his classes at NU. “Every kid I graduated with (at Laurinburg) is playing Division I basketball. That’s just mind-boggling to me.”
He’s not alone, because, while the NCAA clearly spells out the academic requirements for a prospective student-athlete, the validity of coursework being taught at nontraditional schools such as Laurinburg is being subjected to unprecedented scrutiny.
“The level of fraud is increasing,” NCAA President Myles Brand said in April when school presidents and chancellors approved several measures to strengthen the review of initial eligibility records.
Before the advent of the clearinghouse in 1993, NCAA member institutions set their own rules in regard to student-athlete eligibility. But some believed the varied standards caused inequities in readiness for a college curriculum, and when problems became rampant enough, members of Congress warned school presidents to clean up their athletic programs or risk intervention.
Thus, the NCAA adopted regulations that required prospective student-athletes to attain certain grade-point averages and scores on standardized tests. The organization decided which high school courses met its new standards and established an independent clearinghouse, housed in Iowa City, Iowa, to handle all inquiries about initial eligibility and ensure consistent analysis of academic records and
application of NCAA bylaws.
Eventually, this system, too, drew enough opposition from high school administrators concerned that not all students had sufficient training for the standardized tests that the NCAA, in January of 2000, decided to accept how the high schools viewed their courses and allowed a sliding eligibility scale.
In other words, if a student had a higher grade-point average, he or she could score lower on the standardized tests. And vice versa.
Still, it was still up to the clearinghouse to validate academic transcripts (which must be mailed directly from high schools) and give the final nod of approval. If the clearinghouse had questions about a final transcript, those would be forwarded to an NCAA group to analyze.
The major change in that process now is the level of scrutiny for the schools.
A Washington Post article last March detailed the story of Omar Williams, a coveted high school basketball player who in 2001 signed with George Washington.
Williams was cleared for initial eligibility despite having failed to graduate from his original high school in five years and receiving no grades at three other nontraditional prep schools during the next two years.
The case illustrated serious pitfalls in the NCAA’s system and subsequently, after other published reports, the organization began an investigation of more than 5,000 prep schools across the country, looking to weed out any diploma mills.
The NCAA immediately adopted measures to expand its review of these schools and the records of students who made dramatic academic improvements in a short amount of time or graduated with questionable academic profiles.
In July, the organization came out with a list of nontraditional schools that would no longer be recognized in the process of evaluating initial eligibility. One month later, after further review, 24 schools wound up on the list. Another 19 were certified, but only for prospects entering college this fall. Although those schools cooperated in the review process, the NCAA has more questions, and so their reviews will continue.
Laurinburg, from which Sallie graduated, and The Patterson School, N.C., where he attended last year to raise his standardized test score, were among the schools subject to additional NCAA questioning.
Nebraska freshman Kris Douse also attended Laurinburg, and after not ending up with a Division I scholarship, spent last year at IMG Academy in Florida.
Student-athletes with a documented learning disability are allowed to attend a secondary school after they’ve graduated for the purpose of raising their grade-point average or standardized test score. If they don’t have a learning disability, they can still keep attending in order to improve their test score.
Like Sallie, the clearinghouse asked for more information from Douse before his high school transcript was certified. Another Nebraska freshman who graduated from Patterson — Sek Henry — went through a similar process.
Common red-flag issues with the clearinghouse involve perceived irregularities in high school academics, such as students taking sequential core courses at the same time and SAT or ACT scores that dramatically improve or are much higher than overall grades.
Around 150,000 people register with the clearinghouse each year. Only 80,000 to 90,000 complete the process.
During the 2005-06 academic year, 429 initial-eligibility waivers were filed. That number included deficiencies in the areas of core courses, GPA and test scores, learning-disabled students, foreign students, transcript changes and lack of proof of graduation.
“I don’t know it’s as much communication as it is the schools have not provided us with enough information,” Gary Bargen, Nebraska assistant athletic director for compliance, said about the difficulty of making appeals. “And maybe that’s all they’ve got.”
The lawyer that Sallie’s family hired to sort through the red tape is adamant Sallie’s case is no different than the one involving Douse.
“Frankly, I’m surprised that Roburt Sallie’s family had to contact me,” said Don Jackson, whose firm in Montgomery, Ala., has been handling NCAA regulatory cases since the early 1990s. “This young man should have been cleared months ago.”
Apparently Douse, who declined to be interviewed for this story, was able to provide some proof of coursework done at Laurinburg that Sallie couldn’t.
Jackson has accused the school of being uncooperative in releasing information and has had to seek people who no longer teach or work at Laurinburg for help.
On Friday, though, he said the school came through with some material that had previously been requested, leaving him more optimistic about Sallie’s case.
But unless the clearinghouse certifies Sallie, he can’t play at Nebraska. In NCAA Division I, there’s no such thing as a partial-qualifier, where a student-athlete can become eligible after a year of productive college coursework.
So for Sallie, it’s either get cleared or go to junior college and work his way back. Or worse — not go to school at all.
“My whole deal on that is I truly believe everyone deserves an opportunity,” Nebraska coach Doc Sadler said. “If they meet the minimum requirements, whatever it may be — you don’t qualify to go to Nebraska but you can get into a junior college — I don’t think you should shut the door on an 18-year-old.
“With all the different tools of tutoring and those things, I think a young man, young lady that comes to Nebraska (is) going to be given the support staff to succeed. They have proven here that the (graduation) rate is unbelievable.”
And the NCAA has a keen interest in graduation rates, too. After all, higher rates only strengthen the organization’s credibility.
But when you’re a kid like Sallie who’s struggling to get into that pool of candidates, it’s difficult to consider the NCAA and its clearinghouse as being credible.
“If they happen to deny me after we did everything possible, there’s going to a big-time, big-time, big-time lawsuit,” said Sallie, noting that he made a normal “C average to B average” jump during his year at Laurinburg. “I did exactly what I was told to do.”
Reach Curt McKeever at 473-7441 or cmckeever@journalstar.com.
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