Athletes Struggling To Make The Grade

ATHLETES from Seattle public schools find it harder to qualify academically for major colleges than those from private or suburban schools, statistics show. Parents and officials say the problem has no easy solutions. -----------------------------------------------------------------

Jason Terry needed only to look at those close to him to spot a few of the potholes and detours of being a heavily recruited athlete.

Friends such as Antwine Williams, a former Franklin High basketball teammate with tremendous skills. He failed his Scholastic Aptitude Test.

Corey Dillon, another former classmate, who possessed immense football talent. He flunked out of Walla Walla Community College.

And ex-teammate Derrick Elliott, cousin of San Antonio Spur Sean Elliott. He failed a chemistry test, dropping his grade-point average under the league-required 2.0, causing him to miss most of his senior season.

Each seemed to have the talent and drive to excel at the major-college level. Yet academic problems did what no defense could - shut them down.

The problem extends beyond Franklin to other Metro League schools:

-- Marvin Kasim, who could be catching touchdowns for the Washington Huskies, instead awaits results of his seventh SAT test nearly six months after graduating from Chief Sealth.

-- Rosell Ellis, the best high-school basketball player in Seattle two years ago at Rainier Beach, had hoped to play for Washington State but settled for the College of Eastern Utah, a community college.

-- And Lovell Brown, a former Garfield star, who is the latest high-profile inner-city prep basketball player to have academic problems. He now plays alongside Ellis.

Terry had his friends on his mind when he accepted a basketball scholarship to the University of Arizona last month.

"They had just as much talent as I did, but . . ." said Terry, his voice trailing off. "It should have happened for them."

But it didn't.

When Terry, 17, a senior at Franklin, signed with Arizona, he became only the fifth Seattle public-school male student in the past three years to sign a football or basketball scholarship with a major Division I-A college.

Comparatively, the KingCo Conference, which consists schools in the suburbs east of Lake Washington, has sent at least 15 players to the Division I-A level during the same period. And O'Dea, a private Metro League school, had four members of its 1992 football team sign with major colleges.

The Seattle numbers seem discouragingly low considering nearly 2,000 students graduate from Seattle high schools each year. Many coaches, administrators and players believe it's not a lack of talent that's keeping them out.

"For most of them it's their grades, but others just get caught up in all the mess that surrounds inner-city kids," said Terry, who nearly became a casualty of the recruiting war between Arizona and the University of Washington. He orally committed to the UW, then changed his mind to Arizona.

Published reports said he was recruited by Wildcat basketball players, which is a violation of NCAA rules and would have made him ineligible at Arizona. For a few days, Terry worried that he would become just another can't-miss high-school star who missed.

"I didn't want to be like all the rest," Terry said. "There's too many of them. They could all play D-1 (NCAA Division I) ball."

The obstacles in the path of Seattle athletes stem largely from a public-education system that graduated just 65.7 percent of last year's seniors through June.

Athletics are a luxury

Athletics are considered a luxury in a school system that has failed to pass a bond proposal in the past two years.

Inside the school doors, athletes are neither coddled nor given preferential treatment.

Despite their bulging physiques or towering frames, many say they get lost in classrooms where the students outnumber the teachers 30 to 1.

And too often the problem is worsened by the attitude of some athletes, who focus more on sports than on academics.

"I went to school to play sports, and many of these kids are doing the same thing," said Greg Gill, a 1987 Garfield graduate who helped the Bulldogs to two state boys basketball titles. "In four years of high school, I missed one practice and one game . . . I can't count how much school I missed."

Gill said he "floated through high school" only to drop out of South Carolina State with a 0.69 GPA. He joined the Navy, played a season at Seattle University and finally earned a degree in criminal justice.

"Looking back, I didn't see how important school was," Gill said. "It was basketball, basketball, basketball. I didn't think about the pros, not seriously at least . . . I just didn't think past the next day. Or the next week."

Even if Metro athletes earn good grades and pass entrance tests, they must overcome other barriers.

College coaches are biased against inner-city student-athletes, too often assuming such athletes become poor college students, said Ralph Bayard, an administrator for the University of Washington athletic department.

"There's a lot of factors to consider. Each case is not the same . . . but on whole, Seattle kids deal with a stigma that says they can't make the grades and that's not true," said Bayard, a former official with the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association. "This is not just an inner-city problem. Kids across the country are not meeting the academic standards.

"The question should be asked: `Why aren't they prepared?' "

Francis Williams, a former boys basketball coach at Rainier Beach, has sent a player to the NBA. He has also watched many players with Division I potential falter. The difference is razor thin, he said.

"Rosell (Ellis) was good enough to play Division I out of high school," Williams said. "He's a perfect example of a kid that's bright, articulate, but that SAT test was a detour for him. We don't call it a roadblock, it's a detour."

Ellis' sister Kireen also took a detour after high school. Like her brother, she failed the SAT and spent two years at Grayson Community College in Texas before playing two seasons at Washington State.

"Rosell's grades were good, about a 2.8 student, and I asked him one time to take a look at his report card," Ellis said. "He had 4 As and 2 Ds. He struggled in classes that taught in a lecture style. That was in the 10th grade."

Dillon, who like Ellis still hopes to play at the Division I level, recalls his senior year at Franklin. He said he was unprepared for the college exams. To study for the SAT, he attended two hours of night school.

"People don't know that I really tried. I did everything people told me to," said Dillon, who plays at Garden City Community College in Kansas. "I couldn't get into a D-1 school. OK. So I was going to a JC (junior college) and then go to a D-1."

Michelle Kasim hired a tutor to help her son Marvin with college entrance exams. She is discouraged with the Seattle public-school system and is considering private schools for her 13-year-old daughter and younger sons.

"As soon as we can move them out of public school, we will," said Kasim, a teacher at South Seattle Community College. "I used to believe in all the teachers and counselor and everything they said. I don't anymore."

Teachers told her things were OK and Kasim said she believed them.

"We put our own microscope on Marvin in his freshmen year," Michelle Kasim said. "We asked for written weekly progress reports. They said he was participating in class, doing his work and passing his tests.

"He graduates with a C average and yet he can't pass a standard college exam. Something is wrong . . . it's not just my son.

"I'm looking at a generation of students. You see all those blue-chip (athletes) at Walla Walla, and as a parent the only reason you can think of is they didn't reach one of two requirements: core GPA or minimal score on SAT. Any way you look at it, it says academics are poor."

Scholarships aren't No. 1 aim

Ray Jones, an administrator with the Metro League, often listens to similar complaints. He knows there are no simple answers.

"We're not here to get kids scholarships . . . That's not what we're about," Jones said. "There may be a problem. It's not something you can throw money at or assign a committee to.

"The parents must take a larger role and teachers must be aware of it also . . . but ultimately it's up to the athlete. It's his or her life."

Bayard agrees. "I'd have to say the problem is three-fold . . . The blame needs to be shared by the student-athletes, parents and the teaching staff and school administration."