And in sports: UConn’s waiver application to the NCAA made news today. If you don’t know what this is, here’s the briefest explanation possible: the NCAA recently decided that they were going to punish programs that had less-than-great academic records by possibly banning them from post-season play in 2013.

But here’s the catch: they made it retroactive. So the UConn men’s basketball team academic records they could look at to decide this are now a few years old, meaning most of the players have since graduated or otherwise departed and the academic record of the current team and any progress the university has made in recent years doesn’t matter. This could mean that next year’s men’s basketball team could be banned from post-season play based on an academic record that isn’t theirs. UConn applied to the NCAA to have this rule waived. Here’s a story in the Courant about it.

Here’s the full statement from Susan Herbst, UConn’s president, on the subject:

“We believe that we have made a very compelling case to the NCAA and will be deeply disappointed if our request for a waiver, from the 2013 men’s basketball postseason ban, is denied. Our team’s academic performance improved tremendously in 2010-11, and in the fall 2011 semester. We developed a new long-term academic plan for our team, and it has already shown positive results.

“It is unfortunate that our current men’s basketball student-athletes could be punished for the problematic academic performance of other students — students who have not been enrolled at UConn for over two years. That decision would be unfair to innocent young people, which is baffling to us. Regulatory bodies should not change rules retroactively. The NCAA should focus on the future, so that people have the chance to work toward positive change. They should not dredge up the past, and then hurt innocent parties of the present.

“On a personal level, and as an educator, I would be very sorry to see such harsh punishment of the outstanding young men on our current basketball team. I believe that it would be wrong to punish these students, caught in the fallout from a sudden passage of new rules — rules that did not exist when they enrolled at UConn. That would be a fundamental injustice to our team and to our university.

“My thanks go out to so many wonderful professionals at UConn who have made great strides in our academic approach over the past few years, as well as to our students, whom we treasure, along with our dedicated faculty and coaches. And I cannot think of many people in this world who have improved the lives of young men more profoundly than Jim Calhoun, our Hall of Fame coach, and highly-valued member of this university community.”