Posted by Joey Mullins on 2010-08-05

The NCAA released its Division I Head Coach Academic Progress Rates Portfolio on Thursday. This year's portfolio includes baseball, football, men's and women's basketball and women's indoor and outdoor track and field. This is the first year to release scores for individual coaches.

The portfolio includes the single-year team APR for head coaches at each institution he or she has been a head coach, along with the average single-year APR in the specific sport for comparison purposes. Interim head coaches are not included in the database.

Samford's head coaches in the six sports chosen for the portfolio each received high scores. Each Samford coach has an average score well above the national average for their respective sport.

Samford head baseball coach Casey Dunn's teams have averaged a score of 967 on the APR reports. In 2005-06 and 2007-08, Dunn's teams posted scores of 991. The national average for baseball coaches in the APR report has been 938.

Head football coach Pat Sullivan has a three-year average score of 958, compared to the national average for football coaches of 939. Sullivan's average includes the 2006-07 school year (926 score), with him taking over the program in December of 2006. In each of the next two years, Sullivan's team posted scores of 975.

Samford head men's basketball coach Jimmy Tillette, in the six years the NCAA has released APR scores, has averaged a score of 981. The national average for men's basketball coaches over that same period was 930. Tillette's six-year average includes three perfect scores of 1,000 (2004-05, 2007-08 and 2008-09).

Mike Morris, Samford's head women's basketball coach, has a six-year average score of 997. Morris' teams have posted five perfect scores of 1,000 and one score of 983. The average score for women's basketball coaches since the APR began is 961.

Rod Tiffin, Samford's head track and field coach, has a perfect score of 1,000 in both of his seasons with the women's indoor team, while the women's outdoor team has an average of 989 over those two seasons. The national average score for women's indoor teams over the last two seasons has been 966, while the outdoor teams have averaged a score of 968.  

The new Head Coach APR Portfolio highlights the critical role coaches play in the development of their student-athletes athletically and academically. It does not assess additional penalties for a team or coach. Team scores were released earlier this year.

Created by the Committee on Academic Performance at the direction of the Division I Board of Directors, the Head Coach APR Portfolio is designed to create more transparency in the Academic Performance Program and strengthen the accountability of coaches for the academic performance of their student-athletes.

 
Samford is a leading Christian university offering undergraduate programs grounded in the liberal arts with an array of nationally recognized graduate and professional schools. Founded in 1841, Samford is the 87th-oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. Samford enrolls 5,791 students from 49 states, Puerto Rico and 16 countries in its 10 academic schools: arts, arts and sciences, business, divinity, education, health professions, law, nursing, pharmacy and public health. Samford fields 17 athletic teams that compete in the tradition-rich Southern Conference and ranks 6th nationally for its Graduation Success Rate among all NCAA Division I schools.