NCAA Sorting Out Accreditation for HSs

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http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dw...st.1799b00.html

NCAA accredits Canton school; Irving academy is still on bubble

Review of credentials of nontraditional high schools is ongoing

11:11 PM CDT on Wednesday, July 5, 2006

By JEFF MILLER / The Dallas Morning News

Ranch Academy of Canton, Texas, was informed Wednesday that the NCAA has reversed a ruling made last month and now lists the small charter school among the nontraditional high schools whose transcripts are accepted for athletes seeking initial eligibility.

The NCAA also listed God's Academy of Irving among the first-year schools whose educational credentials have yet to be judged. Kevin Lennon, the NCAA vice president overseeing the review of the eligibility clearinghouse, said there's no deadline for resolving the status of God's Academy and four other schools across the country that remain in question.

The NCAA increased its academic scrutiny of nontraditional high schools last fall, and special legislation was adopted in April to aid the effort. Twenty-five schools have been deemed unacceptable in the last five weeks, none in Texas with Ranch Academy's change in status.

Ranch Academy was started in 1999 as the academic adjunct of Sundown Ranch, a recovery center for youngsters with chemical dependencies. It features no athletic programs but was brought to the NCAA's attention.

The facility was founded by Irving lawyer Robert Power. He said additional information was provided to the NCAA that changed the ruling.

"I'm very pleased and felt sure it would come out that way, but you always worry about it," Power said.

God's Academy was started last August by Tim Miller, a Grand Prairie resident who is the school's head basketball coach and president. Miller runs AAU basketball programs for boys and girls and also conducts basketball clinics around the area.

Miller coached a basketball team for home schoolers called Dallas Thunder before starting the school. He said he initially planned to put together a better home-school basketball program based at West Park Recreation Center in Irving that would enable his teenaged son to play with and against better players. That evolved into a private school that met for four hours daily, four days a week.

Miller said the school enrolled about 25 students in grades 5-12, mostly high school students, and involved another 15 or so home schoolers as part of the high school and junior high basketball programs.

Miller said he was told Wednesday by an NCAA administrator that God's Academy wasn't approved because its institutional information was submitted late.

"They just want to make sure we're doing everything according to NCAA guidelines," Miller said. "If we're not, they're going to make sure that we're going to comply.

"It's nothing negative. I've given them everything."

Lennon said questions remain regarding the five schools that were neither approved nor rejected.

Miller said he was also told by the NCAA that the status of his school won't affect this year's graduates. One of them was former Irving MacArthur star center Jeremy Mayfield. He signed with Alabama-Birmingham in May after receiving a release from Oklahoma following the departure of coach Kelvin Sampson.

An athlete's academic status can be dealt with apart from his high school's. UAB compliance director Chad Jackson said through an athletics spokesman that Mayfield hasn't been cleared. Mayfield said he plans to start summer school at UAB next week.