Classroom champions: LSU’s overall student-athlete graduation rate reached an all-time high last year, and LSU’s football players posted the second highest graduation rate in the SEC for the second year in a row, according to NCAA’s Graduation Success Rate data released today. The women’s basketball program at LSU scored a perfect 100 in the GSR, the highest graduation rate among the university’s athletic programs, putting it in a tie with six other schools’ women’s basketball programs for the highest rate in the SEC. LSU football’s GSR of 77 trails only Vanderbilt’s mark of 85 in the SEC. The only other SEC football programs with GSR scores above 70 are Alabama and Florida at 75 each. LSU’s overall student-athlete GSR mark is 80, the highest mark for LSU since the GSR was introduced in 2005. LSUsports.net has the full story here.
Get it in writing: The legal team for New Orleans Saints linebacker Jonathan Vilma submitted declarations from 12 current Saints players denying the existence of the bounty program as part of new evidence sent to former NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue to bolster its case in next week’s appeal hearing, The Times-Picayune reports. The declarations, which were dated Oct. 19, came from Roman Harper, Tom Johnson, Malcolm Jenkins, Cam Jordan, Jabari Greer, Patrick Robinson, Martez Wilson, Scott Shanle, Junior Galette, Ramon Humber, Johnny Patrick and Isa Abdul-Quddus. The declarations will be received by Tagliabue and can be used as evidence in the appeal hearing, scheduled for Tuesday.
Off the dribble: NBA Commissioner David Stern announced today that he will retire on Feb. 1, 2014, 30 years to the day he began. Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver was unanimously chosen to succeed him. The NBA has grown into a multibillion-dollar business under Stern, who is the longest-tenured commissioner in all of professional sports and is widely considered to be among the best. Stern turned basketball into a multibillion-dollar global business after the NBA had struggled to find its place on the sports landscape more than three decades ago. “It’s been a great run,” Stern says. “It’ll continue for another 15 months. The league is in terrific condition.” USA Today has the full story here.
Editor’s note: Daily Report is compiling a list of endorsements for candidates in the East Baton Rouge Parish mayoral, Public Service Commission District 2 and Louisiana Supreme Court 5th District races. You can check it out here; and if your association or organization has an endorsement in one of these races you’d like to share, please email it to ssanoski@businessreport.com.
