He Helps With Degrees of Difficulty : Academics: Charles White has a new role for USC as colleges bring athletes back to complete their educations.

During almost any interview with a professional athlete, the dialogue can be expected to include:

Reporter: When you finished school, did you have your degree?

Athlete: No, I’ve got one semester left.

The reality is that the world of sports is a world of dropouts.

The NFL could just as well be the National Dropout League. And the NBA is truly the National Dropout Assn. In most sports, athletes have lately been leaving college earlier than ever--and USC has decided to do something about it.

It has hired Charles White as an assistant to the athletic director with a mandate to reach out and haul back as many former Trojan athletes as he can get to complete their education.

Charles White? Isn’t he the 1979 Heisman Trophy winner, the former Trojan, the former Ram?

Isn’t he a college dropout himself?

Well, yes.

It may be, as they say, that it takes one to know one. In any event, White, who returned to the Trojan classroom this winter, is already dickering with Vince Evans, Anthony Davis, Bill Bain, Kevin Williams, Steve Obradovich and other former Trojan stars to come back, too.

White’s job is to identify those interested, encourage them to return and find a place for them in communications classes, business school or wherever they hung out long ago, between practices and games.

“We used to think we were too busy to get a degree,” White said the other day at his campus office in Heritage Hall. “Most of us aren’t that busy now, and we’ve learned that hardly any honor is more worthwhile.

“A college degree isn’t everything, of course, but it leads most guys to a lot of good things, and it’s never too late to go after one. You’re never too old.”

White, a 1976-79 Trojan tailback who finished his Ram career in 1988, heads a newly organized USC venture that the university has spun off its Degree Achievement Program (DAP), which has been in place for five years under Athletic Director Mike McGee.

The DAP is a scholarship-continuation project.

“Suppose you used up your football or tennis eligibility--your scholarship--last year,” McGee said. “But you still lack a few units for graduation. The Degree Achievement Program is for you. It takes care of things like tuition and books while you finish school this semester.

“So far, we’ve had 89 men and women in the program, at a cost to the athletic department of a half million dollars. That’s $500,000 for a project that has nothing to do with winning and losing, but we’re glad to do it.”

White’s program, on the other hand--the Former Students Degree Achievement Program (FSDAP)--kicks in when a player returns after, typically, a career in pro sports.

“The (FSDAP) program isn’t free,” McGee said. “In return for tuition and so on, you’ll have to contribute some of your time to the athletic department or in community relations.”

DAP students work a flat 10 hours a week for the department.

“We comply with the NCAA on all this,” McGee said. “We do as much as they allow.”

For reluctant dropouts, that can often be just enough.

THE PROBLEM

Across the nation, only one thing is really wrong with college football, some critics contend. The problem, they say, is that the universities don’t educate their athletes.

In the view of such critics, the game is flawed in the following respects:

--The schools and the NCAA waste too much time monitoring presumed financial indiscretions. Though some student-alumni actions may break NCAA rules, they don’t break U.S. laws. It is legal in this country to get paid for playing games.

--In big-time college sports, the real sin is the widespread failure of the nation’s major universities to cut their athletes in on the benefits of higher education. At the least, every varsity athlete, in return for helping an academic institution win football or basketball games, should be taught to read, write, speak properly, add little sums and discuss the main events in the history of the world he was born into.

To make sense out of that world, a minimum essential for most young people is a college education.

But as recently as five or six years ago, there still wasn’t much evidence that many colleges cared about the academic well-being of any athlete after he had completed his eligibility.

The change began in the mid-’80s, when some college sports administrators began cooperating actively with former student-athletes in degree-attainment.

The athletic department’s helpful projects at USC are one indication of the change.

Another indicator is at UCLA, where a similar program--called Final Score--is administered by Fred Stroock, the school’s associate athletic director in charge of academic and student services.

“Our special interest is the former student-athlete whose eligibility is used up but who still wants his degree,” Stroock said. “Regardless of whether it takes one (academic) quarter or several years, our office assists them until they graduate, keeping each one in touch with counselors, tutors, and others.

“Of the 120 former athletes in Final Score since 1985, 75 have received their degrees--including (offensive linemen) Duval Love and Robert Cox of the Rams, (Indianapolis quarterback) Tom Ramsey and (Seattle kicker) Norm Johnson.”

Although the Bruins have yet to recruit a celebrity as widely known as USC’s Charles White to corral former athletes, they aggressively seek candidates.

“Each year we go after the new (crop) of former student-athletes,” Stroock said. “When necessary, we call their families to let them know we’re here to help. A player who doesn’t make it in pro ball is often too discouraged and embarrassed to come back on his own. We try to smooth the way.”

The nation’s oldest assistance program for aspiring athletes is probably at Notre Dame, which since shortly after World War II has long been pushing graduation as the preferred option for all.

Still in charge is the Irish fencing coach, Mike De Cicco, who doubles as academic counselor, and who this year has brought back, among others, Charger linebacker Cedric Figaro.

Nationally, the NCAA has been slower to act. It was only in 1988 that it began funding grants to former student-athletes around the country who had exhausted their schools’ aid opportunities.

“These are full-ride (scholarships) worth from $3,000 to $12,000, depending on institutional costs,” Ronda Dakan said from the NCAA’s disbursement office.

“They go out strictly on merit--grade point average, honors, and so forth. Some schools haven’t had any grants. Arizona State has had 12, Kansas 10, UCLA one.”

The former Bruin football player who got his, Fritz Jordan, is a sixth-year engineering student.

In Boston five years ago, under the auspices of Northeastern University, Dr. Robert Lapchick organized a consortium of 55 schools--among them Nebraska, Florida, St. John’s and Sacramento State--to promote degree achievement by former student-athletes.

Said coordinator Charles Farrell: “The consortium is an information-sharing think tank that has already brought 471 athletes back to finish school.”

In a land with 600 football-playing colleges and a multitude of dropouts, it can be said that Northeastern, Notre Dame, UCLA, USC, and others in the NCAA have only made a start. But it’s a nice start.

THE JOB

The walls of Charles White’s new office at USC have been decorated with reminders of his storied career, mostly pictures and other mementoes, the largest of which is an enormous reproduction of the Trojans’ 1979 football schedule.

That was White’s big year on campus. He won the Heisman Trophy that year. An oil painting of White the athlete, commissioned by the Heisman committee, hangs on the wall behind his desk.

The game he remembers most vividly, however, was his first as a freshman, the day that Missouri routed the Trojans in the 1976 opener, 46-25. It was the only time they lost that season.

“It was Ricky Bell’s last year,” he said. “When practice began that fall, I was the fifth-string tailback. After I had a long gain of 79 yards (against Missouri) the first time they put me in, I knew I could play.”

Eleven years after his 2,000-yard Heisman season, White seems wholly comfortable at his new desk--looking as if he belongs there, too.

“I’m in the second-chance business now,” he said between phone calls from prospects. “Most people don’t get a second chance to come back for their diploma, but that’s what we’re offering here.”

Since spending the 1980s in the NFL--five years at Cleveland before joining the Rams--he is his own best customer on campus, taking the first of the four classes he needs to graduate. He is a speech major.

At 32, White can look back on ample servings of both great problems and great distinction as a young adult. To begin with, he had come from a broken home in the San Fernando Valley, where, living with grandparents, he was eventually to count two sisters and six stepbrothers.

After throwing away his first chance at a college degree, White, as a pro athlete, was caught up in the drug labyrinth that has ravaged so many in his generation. The NFL once suspended him for 30 days for substance abuse.

He has rebounded to wear a third hat at USC as drug counselor as well as student and assistant to the athletic director.

He commutes from Mission Viejo, where he lives with his wife, Judi, and five children ranging in age from 9 to 3.

“One of my goals is to put all five through SC,” he said.

In the meantime, most of his energy is going into his new job.

“The thing I enjoy most is interacting with the people who make the university what it is,” he said. “The first time around, I missed all that.”