Myles Brand , President of the NCAA died yesterday.  I'm going to try not to personalize criticize the guy.  I never met him, never knew him, and the only thing he did that I personally didn't care for was his firing of Bobby Knight when some punk provoked him.

But on the NCAA's webpage today, there is a memorial to everything he accomplished in seven years as Executive Director of the NCAA.  One of those is "having an unofficial goal of having 80% of all student-athletes graduate."  Furthermore, it goes on to say that "Division I student-athletes have stepped closer to that goal every year, with the most recent data showing 79 percent graduating within six years." 


Doesn't that seem grossly underachieving?  4/5 of all student-athletes in Division I graduating in SIX years?  Shouldn't the goal be four years?  And 100%?  Maybe if the number of travel trips were restricted - ie - for football, traveling outside your conference no more than once every two years, or for basketball, no more than two a year.  Maybe set milage limitations.  Or restrict travel for basketball during holiday periods only.  Maybe then we'd go alot further to improve that graduation rate.