What does it mean, exactly, to be "average excellent"?

That very attitude by admins at schools like UCLA in the '80s ended up scandalizing the university into such embarrassment that an incoming president in the early ‘90s felt the need to publicly apologize for his predecessors’ allowing UCLA Div I athletes graduate as functional illiterates because they completely ignored their duties to provide even the most basic academic guidance/standards after admitting them primarily for their athletic talents.