Maryland approves policy to connect coach bonuses to player academics
Maryland's Board of Regents voted Friday to tie performance bonuses of coaches at the school to its teams Academic Progress Rate, or APR.
APR is the annual NCAA measurement of academics. While the NCAA uses both single-year and multi-year APR scores -- and can penalize teams for failing to meet certain thresholds -- only the one-year scores are expected to count towards bonuses, per the Baltimore Sun.
Under the new policy, if Maryland teams don't have sufficient APR scores, the coaches can be denied their bonuses.
"I think this is another step for Maryland to be in the vanguard on issues of intercollegiate athletics," Board of Regents member and former U.S. Rep. Tom McMillen told the Sun. "They were a leader on guaranteed scholarships and now they are a leader in academic accountability."
While the policy is set to take effect immediately, it won't apply to coaches like football coach Randy Edsall or men's basketball coach Mark Turgeon. It's only for new coaches. The policy is for all of the state schools in the Maryland system, though Maryland women's basketball coach Brenda Frese said before the vote that she thought the policy was asking a lot.
In August, Maryland announced it would provide lifetime scholarships for athletes. The Big Ten followed suit earlier in October and said the conference had approved multi-year scholarships for all of its member schools.
Will this Maryland move mean other conference teams will follow suit?
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Nick Bromberg is the assistant editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
