Heisman Profile / Charlie Ward -- Fsu Star Making The Grade -- He Has Success In Academics, Too

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Eight-year-old Charlie Ward was struggling in third grade. He didn't like reading. His only interest was sports.

Willard Ward was getting worried that her third child might have a learning disability.

Her fear changed the day she heard Charlie recount highlights of a pro football game to Charlie Ward Sr.

"I was about think something was wrong with Junior's brain," she said. "But the things he was telling his daddy, I couldn't believe a child that young could know.

"Then I thought, `There's nothing wrong with his brain, he just doesn't want to learn.' I got on him real hard right then and there."

The school principal brought Ward copies of Sports Illustrated to entice him to read. It worked.

"Charlie always thought somebody was smarter than him," Willard Ward said. "I noticed in high school he always hung around the smart girls."

Ward hasn't encountered any problem these days finding academic success.

The Florida State quarterback, who picked up the Heisman Trophy last night in New York, will receive his college degree in Leisure Services in a few days. His major is therapeutic recreation.

Along with being the Seminoles' most acclaimed quarterback in history, Ward has been a productive student.

"People see me all the time on TV and see how I am athletically, but rarely do people see how you are academically," he said. "Whenever you are the quote-unquote `star' of the team, people think

you're a jock. They don't have an image of you being good academically."

Ward hopes he represents a change in the stereotype. He has compiled a 3.0 or better grade-point-average for the past four semesters, said Mark Meleney, the Florida State football academic adviser.

"He's very close to graduating with honor," Meleney said. "His self-discipline and ability to remain calm and focused in times of pressure - just as he does on the football field or basketball court - are what make him a good student."

Ward completed requirements for his degree during the summer, but took extra courses to strengthen his major.

He worked 40 hours per week last summer at the Capital Rehabilitation Hospital, helping disabled patients.

"Many of them didn't have a clue he even played football," said Donna Fletcher, who is Ward's academic adviser and Florida State associate professor for Human Service and Study.

"But he had such a wonderful relationship with the patients, the way he spent time with them and helped them. Charlie is just outstanding in every respect."

Fletcher is not a football fan. She didn't know Ward was an athlete until working with him for more than a year. She only knows his classroom achievements. Last week, he was inducted into Rho Phi Lamda, a national honorary society for Leisure Service students. Only six others were awarded membership this year at Florida State.

For the past two seasons, Ward has been a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference All-Academic team. While juggling the fame and demands on his time this year in football, he still has managed to make the grade in school.

"It's amazing what he's done," Meleney said. "Especially for a young man who wasn't nearly as prepared for college when he came here as he needed to be."

He had the necessary course and grade requirements to accept Florida State's scholarship offer in 1988. But he failed to make the minimum test score on his entrance exam.

Instead of attending Florida State as a "Proposition 48 player," an NCAA rule that mandates freshmen athletes failing to meet the test requirement are ineligible to play, he opted for Tallahassee Community College.

His parents demanded he solely concentrate on school and passing the entrance test. Ward lived with an older sister, passed the ACT exam, and was re-signed by Florida State as a freshman in 1989.

Ward credits his parents for "drilling home" the importance of being a good student.

He remembers when they threatened to take away all sports from him as a youngster unless he had good grades.

"It was just a matter of me getting out on my own and experiencing the real life," he said. "I know now that I can do it, and that makes a lot of difference.