April 22, 2009

OXFORD, Ohio -- The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) announced today that three Miami University athletic teams--men's cross country, women's field hockey and men's golf--are among 767 Division I sports teams that earned multi-year Academic Progress Rate (APR) scores in the top 10 percent of all squads in their respective sports.

These RedHawk teams are among the Division I sports teams being recognized for top academic performance as part of the NCAA's academic reform program. These awards are given each year to teams scoring in the top 10 percent in each sport with their APRs. The APR provides a real-time look at a team's academic success each semester or quarter by tracking the academic progress of each student-athlete. The APR includes eligibility, retention, and graduation in the calculation and provides a clear picture of the academic culture in each sport.

High-performing teams receiving public recognition awards this year posted APR scores ranging from 976 to a perfect 1,000. Coach Warren Mandrell's Miami cross country team (39 of 39 student-athletes), Coach Jill Reeve's RedHawk field hockey squad (73 of 73) and Coach Casey Lubanh's men's golf team (38 of 38) all registered perfect 1,000 scores.

The 767 teams publicly recognized this year for high achievement represent 11.9 percent of the approximately 6,484 Division I teams. The list includes 448 women's teams and 319 men's or mixed squads. A total of 205 institutions, out of 331 Division I colleges and universities, placed at least one team on the top APR list. Miami joined Western Michigan and Toledo as the only Mid-American Conference schools to have as many as three of its teams honored.

Last year, a total of 712 teams were recognized. The number of teams in some sports may exceed 10 percent depending on how many achieved perfect 1,000 APR scores.

Multi-year APR scores for all Division I sports teams, including the teams receiving public recognition awards, will be announced May 6. The announcement also will include immediate and historical penalties for low-performing teams. The most recent APRs are multi-year rates based on scores from the 2004-05, 2005-06, 2006-07 and 2007-08 academic years.

The public recognition awards are part of the broad Division I academic reform effort. APR scores per institution, along with penalties per school and teams receiving public recognition, are available online at www.ncaa.org.

--MURedHawks.com--

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