Three SDSU Basketball Recruits Are Admitted as Special Admissions

Although a university press release did not specify names or numbers, three freshmen basketball recruits were admitted to San Diego State as special admissions Friday and one of two junior college transfers probably will be admitted as a special admissions, according to a university source.

SDSU issued a press release stating that the “process of considering students under the special admissions category for the fall 1985 semester at San Diego State has been completed.”

Nancy Sprotte, SDSU director of admissions and records, went on to say that the students admitted would not be named.

“A number of additional freshmen and junior college transfers will be joining the previously admitted student-athletes at San Diego State,” Sprotte said in the release.

“This is very private information and should remain a private sort of thing between those student-athletes and the university,” interim Athletic Director Robert Rinehart said Friday afternoon.

“It’s difficult to defend a university unless you violate the right and privacy act. Information concerning special admissions could be potentially damaging to those students.”

But a university source said that Tracy Dildy of Chicago, Josh Lowery of Oakland and Johnny Scruggs of Silver Springs, Md., were the players admitted. All retook their college entrance exams recently, and were accepted as special admissions.

They will join Kevin Brown of Grand Rapids, Mich., Jeff Bobin of Seattle and Darryl Gaines (Coach Smokey Gaines’ son) of Patrick Henry High in San Diego. Those three freshmen had already been accepted as special admissions.

Wilbert Frazier, a recruit from Hartford, Conn., was recently told that his academic record would not qualify him as a special admission.

The admission files of junior college transfers Steffond Johnson (Mesa College and Louisiana State University) and Curtis Gates (Colby Community College in Kansas) are still technically open.

However, The Times has learned that Johnson probably will be admitted as a special admission and Gates most likely will not be admitted.

Thus, Gaines will have seven of his nine recruits at the university.

“Time to get ready for the upcoming season,” is about all Gaines would say Friday.

Nobody is still quite sure what criteria is used to determine which students become special admissions.

A freshman with a grade-point average below 2.0 cannot be admitted to SDSU regardless of SAT or ACT scores. Students with GPAs above 2.0 are admitted according to a sliding scale of test scores.

However, any student can be admitted under special programs if they do not meet the school’s minimum admissions requirements.

According to Sprotte, the personal information involved in the recent review process includes reevaluation of the student’s GPA, the type of courses completed prior to application and scores from national predictor tests.