Cal's rigid academic standards pose tough challenge for athletics - Contra Costa Times
BERKELEY -- To build a football contender in the Pac-12 Conference, Cal coach Sonny Dykes will need to deal with more than Oregon, Stanford and the Los Angeles schools. He also must contend with a new admission policy, implemented by the school. That's substantially lower than the general student body at Cal, but it's higher than any Pac-12 school except Stanford. That number climbs to 60 percent next year and to 80 percent in 2017. Can Cal thrive on the sports field -- particularly in football and men's basketball -- facing those demands in the classroom in the ferocious modern landscape of intercollegiate... "I believe that more strongly today than I did when I took the job," said Dykes, who was hired in December 2012. Basketball coach Cuonzo Martin, coming off his first season at Cal, is just as optimistic as Dykes that the higher academic standards... The new admission policy was the school's response to the 2012 report that ranked Cal among the nation's worst in academic performance and graduation rates for football and men's basketball. The news did not go down easily at a university that has been ranked the nation's No. 1 public institution for 17 straight years by U. S. News and World Report. Football coach Jeff Tedford was fired after the 2012 season for the Bears' poor performance in the classroom and on the field. Source: www.contracostatimes.com
