When Pete Garcia accepted FIU's offer to become athletic director 19 months ago, he did so knowing a big job lay ahead to bring the department up to NCAA standards.
The magnitude of that task hit home again Tuesday.
Despite academic gains nearly across the board, it wasn't enough to keep five Golden Panthers teams from being hit with penalties when results of the NCAA's annual progress report were released.
The FIU football team was stripped of three scholarships and the men's basketball team lost one. Fractional reductions also were made in two sports where scholarships can be divided -- a loss of 1.26 in men's track and 0.49 in women's swimming.
FIU's baseball team, although not losing any scholarships, saw its allowable practice/game time slashed to 16 hours per week.
Florida Atlantic was the only other state school to be penalized, losing scholarships in football and baseball. They were among 218 Division I teams -- of 6,272 tracked -- to face punishment.
Starting next year, chronic violators face a ban from postseason competition in addition to scholarship restrictions.
Only four schools in Tuesday's report had more teams face APR penalties than FIU's five. Seven Sacramento State teams are under sanction; Alabama-Birmingham, New Mexico State and San Jose State had six apiece.
The results came as no surprise to Garcia, who pointed out that the Academic Progress Rate measures four years of data and ``this would not be an overnight fix.''
''You have to put a couple of these years together,'' Garcia said.
Tuesday's results measured the 2006-07 school year. Teams scoring below 925 (of a possible 1,000) and have an athlete leave school academically ineligible are subject to penalties.
Anticipating the hit, FIU opted to take the football, swimming and track penalties during the most recent recruiting seasons. Only basketball and baseball will face sanctions in 2008-09.
THE NUMBERS
Baseball lost 1.12 scholarships last year and could have been hit again, but won an appeal to the NCAA by showing marked improvement. After a dreadful 725 score in 2005-06, the newest data showed 925.
Overall, 15 of FIU's 17 teams improved their APR numbers from a year earlier. Even so, eight programs saw their four-year averages ranked in the bottom 10 percent among all Division I teams in their sport.
Football (887), baseball (873) and men's basketball (854) have averages below the 900 mark labeled ''dire'' Tuesday by NCAA president Myles Brand.
That nugget wasn't lost on Garcia, who helped restructure UM's academic support in the mid-1990s.
When he took over, he said, FIU didn't have resources necessary to keep athletes on track. That has changed.
''We have increased the number of advisors, tutors, computers and technical support at our Student-Athlete Academic Center over the past year,'' he said.
IMPROVEMENTS
He noted that for the first time in school history, every team in 2007-08 posted a grade-point average of 2.6 or higher. In addition, the 44 FIU athletes who went through spring graduation ceremonies was an all-time high.
''Judging by our academic improvements in 2006-07 and our anticipated results in 2007-08,'' Garcia said, ``we know we are moving in the right direction.''
FAU also lost three scholarships in football and 0.532 in baseball. Like FIU and several other schools, officials chose to take the penalties ahead of the announcement.
''Our coaches were aware of the scenario going into it,'' said associate AD Michelle Brown, director of FAU's Center for Academic Excellence.
``They felt it was a good time to take it.''
Florida's ''Big Three'' schools found little problem in meeting the APR requirements, with only the UF men's basketball team falling short of the 925 mark.
The team scored 919 in its second national-title season, but was spared any sanctions. The football champion Gators came in at 962 and baseball at 967.
UM's football team scored 969, placing it in the top 20 percent of all teams. Men's basketball turned in a 948 score and baseball a 953.
''The scores are a reflection of the dedication of the student-athletes and their understanding of the importance of academics,'' outgoing UM athletic director Paul Dee said.
FSU scored 954 in football, 958 in men's basketball and 934 in baseball.
Nationally, overall scores have improved by four points since the NCAA began collecting data in 2003. Baseball players increased their average by 12 points and football by 11, showing the largest gains.
According to the report, 180 teams cited low resources as a reason for poor scores. Brand acknowledged the crunch, but called on schools to set better priorities.
''It's not as much about how many resources you have as it is about where you put it,'' he said. ``If you have a problem, you should put it more toward academic development and not as much toward suites or new facilities.''
