Rick Hart

The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga athletic department got mixed news Tuesday from the release of the latest NCAA Academic Progress Rate data.

The Mocs football and wrestling programs made dramatic academic progress, but each will continue to be punished for poor APR scores in the past.

“(The progress) was exactly what we needed to have happen, exactly what we were striving for,” athletic director Rick Hart said. “So there was good news, yes, but I temper it because ... we’ve had no opportunity to dig ourselves out of the hole we were in.

“We’ve still got a lot of work to do, and we can’t have (the improved scores) be a temporary, one-year deal.”

The football and wrestling teams raised their year-to-year APR more than 100 points during 2006-07 and are not subject to any new contemporaneous penalties.

Wrestling made the biggest jump, going from 824 in 2005-06 to 969, while football went from 816 to 928. Each program’s score for 2006-07 was above the NCAA’s benchmark of 925 — the equivalent of about a 60 percent graduation success rate, according to the NCAA.

As expected, the football and wrestling teams were given historical penalties for their past inadequecies in the multiyear APR, which is comprised of the past four year’s scores. A team’s APR score is comprised of a mathematical formula that gives two points per semester for every scholarship athlete on a roster — one for athlete retention and one for eligibility.

Even had the two teams posted perfect scores of 1,000 in 2006-07, they still would have moved to what the NCAA calls “occasion two” of historical penalties because their multiyear numbers are below the benchmark. Next year, the fifth for the APR, teams’ numbers for 2007-08 will replace those from 2003-04.

UTC wrestling has a multiyear APR of 883, and football’s is 855. The UTC football team was docked nearly two scholarships, which will leave it with about 57 next season, Hart said, and lost two hours of practice time per week, limiting it to 18.

The wrestling team lost nearly a full scholarship for the second year in a row, a streak wrestling coach Chris Bono is adamant about ending next year.

“We’re on top of it, and we’re doing a great job,” Bono said. “Next year at this time it’s going to be almost the same thing (in terms of a high APR). ... Over the next (four) years, when we get that new average, we’re going to be back on top of things.”

The football team was penalized 6.3 scholarships (10 percent of the Football Championship Subdivision’s maximum of 63 per team) each of the past two years because its APR number was well below the 925 benchmark.

The only other UTC team with a multiyear APR below the benchmark was women’s tennis, which came in at 896. However, it did not receive any penalties.

Of UTC’s 14 sports programs (women’s golf is in its first season and wasn’t included in the data), 11 had APRs of 900 or better in 2006-07. The women’s track team had the highest APR at 979, followed closely by men’s golf (974). The women’s tennis team, which had some turnover following a coaching change, had the lowest APR (857).

Overall, seven of the teams raised their APR, and seven had a drop-off; wrestling’s 145-point gain was the largest, and the softball team’s drop of 75 points to 891 was the steepest.

Chancellor Roger Brown said he was pleased with the progress UTC’s programs have made since the APR was initiated four years ago. However, he said he expects that progress to continue to the point where all the programs are penalty-free.

“We know what we must do and we’re making the right steps to do the right thing,” Brown said. “It’s for the student-athletes’ good that we’re doing this. We owe it to the student-athletes to have as many of them succeed in the classroom and to graduate as we possibly can.”