NCAA Standards Push Athletes

The high school athletic experience sometimes comes down to a tug-of-war contest.

On one side are parents, coaches and teachers who stress the importance of academics. On the other are teenagers convinced that only total devotion to practice and games will lead to a college scholarship or professional career.

The NCAA intervenes every few years by increasing academic standards for college eligibility. Now come its toughest requirements yet.

Effective with the graduating class of 2008, every incoming college freshman will need to have passed 16 NCAA core classes instead of 14 to gain athletic eligibility.

That means passing four years of high school English, three years of math, two years of science, plus an additional English, math or science class. Add two years of social science and four additional classes in foreign language or social science. And students still have to earn a qualifying score on their SAT or ACT standardized tests.

Students interested in playing sports in college had better be focused on academics from the moment they step onto their high school campuses because any Ds or Fs early in their careers would force them to play catch-up, and some won’t be able to recover.

“It’s going to be a wake-up call for a lot of kids,” said Larry Drew Jr., a junior guard for the Woodland Hills Taft basketball team. “It’s a make-or-break situation. No more coasting. Some get the concept, others don’t. You have to do well in school.”

One consequence of raising academic standards will be the need for athletes to take summer school courses to make up poor grades, forcing them to cut back on participating in the widely embraced summer circuit of tournaments, camps and combines.

“Athletes that might not do well in certain core classes have to understand the importance of going to summer school or taking adult classes to bring them up, or they’re going to be left out,” said Harvey Kitani, boys’ basketball coach at Los Angeles Fairfax.

There are probably high school athletes unaware of what classes they should be taking, but blaming others isn’t an acceptable excuse.

“Parents need to educate themselves on the rules,” Los Angeles Crenshaw football Coach Robert Garrett said. “Go out and research and find out what the rules are before their kids get into high school.”

Garrett is not particularly enthusiastic about the new rules, wondering why athletes “are not measured by the same stick” as other students.

“There’s no big problem, just another rule,” he said. “The only thing kids have to do is follow that rule. It’s just another rule to keep kids out of the system.”

And there will be students who fail to meet the new NCAA rules, particularly the requirement that forces students to take either a fourth year of math, a third year of science or a fifth year of English.

“We have a couple graduates who wouldn’t have made it,” Lake Balboa Birmingham football Coach Ed Croson said. “There’s more guys who won’t qualify. There’s guys who will make it by the skin of their teeth.”

Last May, junior running back Johnathan Franklin of Los Angeles Dorsey said he wasn’t aware of the coming NCAA core standards. He has good grades and shouldn’t be adversely affected, but he expressed feelings of exhaustion at the changing academic requirements.

“They put a lot on us for high school,” he said. “I do the best I can. It’s crazy. School always comes first in my house. My mom is always on me.”

More moms and dads had better start pushing harder to get their sons and daughters to work as hard in the classroom as they do when wearing an athletic uniform, because their future college opportunities will depend on it. For many, a change in focus must take place.

As Taft’s Drew put it, “School is a place to learn and love to learn. Books, paper and pencils are what you’re there for.”