BRENTWOOD, Tenn. - The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) released Academic Progress Rate (APR) data for the 2009-10 academic year on Tuesday.

Austin Peay had seven programs earn perfect 1.000 APR scores for the 2009-10 academic year: men's cross country, women's basketball, women's cross country, women's golf, women's tennis, women's indoor track & field, women's outdoor track & field.

The APR provides a real-time look at a team's academic success each semester or quarter by tracking the academic progress of each student-athlete. The APR includes eligibility and retention in the calculation and provides a clear picture of the academic culture in each sport. The APR awards are based on a two-point system - one point for academic eligibility and one point for academic retention. A team's APR is the total points earned by the team at a given time divided by the total points possible, multiplied by 1,000. Multi-year APR includes four years of data (this year's numbers included the academic years of 2006-07, 2007-08, 2008-09 and 2009-10).

Every Division I sports team calculates its APR each academic year, based on the eligibility and retention of each scholarship student-athlete. Teams that score below 925 on their four-year rate and have a student leave school academically ineligible can lose up to 10 percent of their scholarships through contemporaneous penalties. Teams can also face historically based penalties for poor academic performance over time.

Overall Ohio Valley Conference programs combined for a 964 multi-year APR score, down slightly from a score of 966 a year ago, but remaining steady with the improvement the league has shown overall since 2005-06.

"While the league's overall APR score has stabilized, we are always looking for areas in which we can improve," said OVC Commissioner Beth DeBauche. "Improving APR scores is part of our strategic vision and it is my hope that every OVC member institution will continue to devote the necessary resources needed to increase scores."

The league also held steady in terms of eligibility trends, remaining at 965 for the second year in a row, which is tied for the highest score the league has had over the past five years.

Looking at APR data specifically from the 2009-10 academic year, there were 72 OVC sport programs which received a perfect 1,000 score for that academic year. That is up from a total of 57 sport programs who achieved perfect scores a season ago. Eastern Kentucky had the most sport programs with perfect scores from 2009-10 (10).

Previously (on May 17) 13 Ohio Valley Conference teams were among those who received public recognition for multi-year APR scores from the years 2006-07 through 2009-10. The 13 OVC teams honored include five from SIU Edwardsville (men's cross country, women's golf, women's soccer, softball and women's tennis), four from Eastern Illinois (men's golf, women's golf, women's soccer and softball), two from Murray State (men's tennis and women's tennis), one from Eastern Kentucky (men's cross country) and one from Morehead State (mixed rifle). Those programs were among the top 10 percent of all schools within its sport for the four-year period.