When it came to classroom performance, female athletes at the University of Kentucky routed their male counterparts during the fall semester of 2009.

Of the 20 athletic teams representing UK, the top seven grade-point averages were posted in women's sports. And the five worst grade-point averages were in men's sports.

Murray Sperber, a professor and longtime critic of college athletics, sees the influence of professional sports in that disparity. He cited higher graduation rates for women, but noted that changed as the number of professional teams in women's basketball grew.

"As pro leagues developed in America and overseas, women's graduation rates declined," he said. "And women's college basketball became more of a professionalized game like men's college basketball."

Of the seven worst grade-point averages posted by UK teams last fall, six were in men's sports. Perhaps proving Sperber's point, the seventh was women's basketball.

Sperber also suggested that college athletic administrators belatedly came to appreciate what women could do for their department's academic record.

"For a long time, the NCAA didn't like women's sports," he said. "In fact, they fought Title IX for about 15 years."

Title IX is a federal law banning discrimination in college athletics based on gender.

"They had to accept it," Sperber said. "Then they realized that women had a much higher graduation rate than men mainly because they don't have the fantasy of pro sports."