The Colleges : Lesson Learned From a Net Loss at Pierce
Sundantha Soysa came to the United States from Sri Lanka to improve as a tennis player while getting a college education.
No problem on the first count. Paul Xanthos, tennis coach at Pierce College, reports that Soysa has improved vastly since arriving at the Woodland Hills campus.
But what of his education? Well, most of it has come outside the classroom in a lesson that could be called Real Life 101.
Soysa had it good in Sri Lanka where his father, Lal, is a spice-commodities exporter. The family had drivers for its three cars and a number of servants. “I never tasted the hard life,” Soysa said.
Soysa started playing tennis when he was 8. At 10, he was playing in tournaments. Eventually, he became the youngest player to be selected for Sri Lanka’s Davis Cup team.
The easy life continued in Hawaii, where Soysa played in a series of satellite tournaments the summer before his 17th birthday. His coach paid for everything. “All I did was play tennis and run a little,” Soysa said.
The next fall he came to Pierce, where his family hoped his performance on the court and in class might earn a college scholarship.
That was almost two years ago. Two long years, according to Soysa, who estimates that he has earned only 12 units of college credit.
In the spring of 1988, Soysa enrolled at Pierce but was dropped from all of his classes because of excessive absences. This spring, he didn’t even manage to enroll. He didn’t have the money.
The family’s exporting business is going through difficult times and Soysa’s father was unable to transfer tuition money for his son. And, because of the terms of his visa, Soysa is not allowed to work.
“I socialize and pay my room rent,” Soysa said. “But that’s it.”
Soysa, now 18, has played only a handful of matches for Pierce and for that he blames himself (for at first not going to class), the administration at Pierce (for not giving him more time to come up with tuition money) and his parents.
“Their fault, not mine,” Soysa said, referring to his parents. “If I had a job or something then I could blame myself.”
Soysa’s visa is good through April, 1990, but he says that he may have to return home sooner.
“If I don’t go to school I can always go back to my dad’s business,” Soysa said. “But I would like to be richer than my dad was, to live a nice life and do it myself. If I don’t go to school, the only thing going for me is tennis. My tennis is the answer to the whole thing, so I have to keep playing and hoping something will happen.”
Although he wasn’t able to play much for Pierce, Soysa practiced with the team every day. And he considers himself a better player and person for his college experience.
“I’ve learned a lot. Much more than I ever thought I could learn. I didn’t get a classroom education, but I’ve learned to be a man the last few months. I’ve gone from a kid to an adult.”
He’s No. 1: Brad Gossen, formerly of Westlake High, has won the No. 1 quarterback job at Washington State after strong outings in four spring scrimmages, according to Coach Mike Price.
Gossen completed 56 of 74 passes (75.7%) for 773 yards and threw two interceptions in spring practice. The No. 1 job opened when Timm Rosenbach announced that he would forgo his senior year and enter the NFL’s supplemental draft.
Gossen played for Westlake in 1984-85 and holds every significant career and single-season school passing record.
Caged cats: The College of the Canyons baseball team might have been a victim of the program’s past success.
After winning the Western State Conference title outright the past eight seasons, Canyons tied Ventura for the championship this year. But the Cougars were left out in the cold when the Southern California regional of the junior college state tournament began Thursday.
Canyons was excluded because of a WSC rule that provides for only one automatic bye into the conference championship round. Because two teams are taken from the WSC, the regular-season champion is thereby guaranteed an automatic berth in the state tournament.
Ventura had beaten the Cougars in the season series, so the Pirates were given an automatic bye into the championship of the WSC playoff tournament, which they won by defeating Valley. Canyons lost in the first round, losing all chance of qualifying for the state playoffs.
On Tuesday, WSC coaches amended the conference rules for co-champions.
Co-champions will now gain automatic bids into the state tournament while teams that finish third through sixth will compete in a conference tournament to determine a potential third-place representative.
Staff writers Mike Hiserman, Gary Klein and John Lynch contributed to this notebook.
