Test Is Ultimate Challenge to Some Athletes : Entrance exams: Critics say some aren’t prepared for their SATs or ACTs. But teachers counter that programs are there if the students just get involved.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of high school seniors go through a rite of passage by taking the Scholastic Aptitude Test or the American College Test exams to gain admission into the college or university of their choice.

The vast majority of students pass without a hitch and go on to collegiate life. But two groups seem to come to the public’s attention: the students who ace the tests and the athletes who fail to meet minimum requirements. For the high-profile, heavily recruited athletes, the entrance exam results often are the deciding factor between a ticket to Big Time U. or a junior college campus.

Sometimes it’s no contest. With a minimum score of 700 out of a possible 1,600 required on the SAT and 15 out of 36 on the ACT, the exams are a knockout punch for many student-athletes, particularly those who, for whatever reasons, have struggled to maintain the 2.0 grade-point average required for high school athletic eligibility by the California Interscholastic Federation.

All of which raises the question: Are high schools doing their duty in not only keeping student-athletes eligible for sports, but also in preparing them for the rigors of college, which include the entrance exams?

Many coaches and educators from Orange County replied with an unequivocal “yes.” The methodology might be different, they said, but the programs are in place. They said that all the students have to do is get involved.

At Kennedy High School, for instance, sophomores and juniors can attend a before-school, twice-weekly SAT preparation class conducted by one of the school’s English teachers.

“It’s open to all students, but it’s something we push athletes to do,” Kennedy basketball Coach John Mayberry said. “Some are very receptive and some you have to push. The borderline cases I tell them, ‘You don’t have a choice. You have to go.”’

Mayberry said all students with academic problems can get tutoring from California Scholastic Federation honor students on campus and in a study hall run by football Coach Mitch Olson.

“If their (athletes’) grades are below C, they are required (to attend) tutoring services twice a week,” Mayberry said.

Greg Coombs, the basketball coach at Century, said students are being served well overall.

“I think the schools do a lot as a whole for the kids,” said Coombs, who runs an academic incentive program.

The program, called Renaissance, motivates students with positive reinforcement. Coombs said the program offers tangible rewards for students with good grades, ranging from discount coupons to local eateries to reimbursement of SAT fees for scores of 1,000 or better on the test. Sometimes it’s as simple as sending letters of praise about students to their parents.

Century also offers Accelerated Learning Program Services, which provide tutoring by teachers, instructional assistants and students and computer-assisted help for students after school.

Other schools feature their own versions of motivational programs. At Kennedy, student-athletes receive academic awards at sports banquets. At La Quinta, football Coach Roger Takahashi said 20 of the 33 players on last season’s varsity roster received academic awards for having GPAs of 3.0 or higher.

“It’s recognition for doing well (in the classroom) and it gives other kids something to strive for,” Takahashi said. “It seems to be effective with the marginal kid who doesn’t apply himself but who has the ability.”

Attempting to keep some student-athletes interested in more than just sports is a demanding proposition, the coaches agreed. Many times, a negative approach has to be taken to get positive results. Coombs and Chris Burton, the former Fullerton High basketball coach, have taken that route.

“One thing that really sent a message to the kids in the program was two years ago when our best player, who would have played varsity as a sophomore, was ineligible when the season started,” said Burton, who will coach at Villa Park next season. “He had been cutting classes and lied about it. We told him he had to stay eligible every quarter (from then on) and he didn’t do it.

“I gave up my lunch periods to help the kid, but he decided not to show up most of the time. So we made sure basketball was no longer important to him and dropped him.”

Burton said the student started doing better with his schoolwork, but was never reinstated on the team.

Said Coombs, who coached at Santa Ana High before beginning the program at Century: “I started a rule there that if you cut a class, you don’t play in the next game. We haven’t had a problem in our school (Century). That’s not only in basketball, but our entire athletic program.”

Other difficulties faced by the coaches is that their duties have been expanded beyond X’s and O’s. They said they have become policemen and psychologists by necessity while trying to stay on top of how their players are doing in the classroom. And then there are the sheer numbers. Football coaches, for instance, have to deal with more players than their counterparts in other sports.

“The nature of basketball makes it easier because of the smaller roster,” Burton said. “Pat (Ward, Fullerton football coach) probably has a more difficult job.”

Burton and Ward are involved in an after-school study hall for freshmen student-athletes three times a week and, like most coaches, run periodic grade checks on their players. Even though Burton’s team had a combined GPA of 3.52, the highest among Southern Section boys’ basketball teams, he refused to take credit for its success, pointing instead to the school’s overall educational standards.

“We emphasize academics all the time,” said Burton, who teaches U.S. History and an elective Global Studies honors class. “We never discourage our kids (players) from studying. If they feel they have to study during the JV games or bus rides, we let them.”

Those sentiments are echoed by Coombs. “In our school we stress the academic aspects,” he said. “If a kid is having trouble with a course, he might have to miss part of practice to meet with a teacher or get tutoring help.”

However, coaches agree that their efforts are doomed without parental involvement.

“During practices in August, we had a mandatory meeting with players and parents and talked about academics. We talked about grade-point average, scholarship requirements. . . . We wanted parents to be aware of what was needed,” said former Fountain Valley football Coach Mike Milner, who will take over at El Toro next season. “I think it’s got to come from home, from mom and dad. They have to put a priority to get the kids to do the best they can. . . . It’s a two-edged sword. Many parents think it’s the teacher’s job to motivate kids in class and make them excel. An educator likes to think that a student is getting support at home and that the parents are aware of what grades their kids are getting.”

According to Jack Davis, a counselor and sophomore football coach at Servite, a parochial school in Anaheim, officials there generally don’t face much apathy from parents.

“The parents are putting out money for tuition, so we call home and get some action,” Davis said. “They (parents) expect the teachers and administrators to do their jobs, but they also expect their kids to be responsible.”

Said Burton: “We’re in constant contact with the parents. I think it’s crucial. If the parents aren’t stressing the academics, it makes our jobs tougher.”

Public perceptions of coaches can also make their task more complex. Coombs said people tend to see only the facade, drawing conclusions from the displays of intensity at practices and in games. It’s not a characterization he appreciates.

“I don’t buy that thing that coaches are just jocks who care about nothing more than athletics,” Coombs said. “The ones I know, I’m very impressed with the emphasis they place on academics.”

Even with the most committed of coaches and teachers in their corner, there still are and probably will continue to be kids who can’t pass the entrance exams, sometimes no matter how hard they try. Critics of the SAT, for instance, point out that the test is not as well-calibrated in predicting the potential academic success of a student-athlete as its supporters like to believe.

Alison Cone, athletic-academic coordinator at Cal State Fullerton, and Jill Leslie Rosenbaum, of the university’s criminal justice department, studied more than 100 cases involving Titan student-athletes. They concluded in their co-authored master’s thesis that SAT and ACT scores were not certain indicators of the academic achievement of student-athletes in college.

Cone and Rosenbaum noted that the most significant variable related to graduation were GPAs and the number of college preparatory math and English classes. Perhaps that’s why a revamping of the SAT exam is under way.

“They’re working on it (SAT) right now to produce a more reliable test as far as a predictor of college success,” said Patrick Donovan, Servite’s principal. “They want to emphasize the writing and (students’) comprehension of questions more.

“The SAT is a good indicator, but it’s not the only answer. Some kids freeze up on tests and can’t finish in time. But they still may be great thinkers. They may be able to write a good expository essay. On the other hand, some students may be good at test-taking but not as good at writing an essay.”

True as that may be, Coombs looks at it from a slightly different perspective. He figures students can avoid the entrance exam hassles by being more responsible in their early days of high school.

“You can’t tell me a guy is going to be all-county in one thing (sport), which means putting in a lot of hours, and not be able to find help with his schooling,” Coombs said. “I say, ‘Hey, if you were getting poor grades in all those classes, why didn’t you look for help?’ ”

So how does the message get through to student-athletes? Fountain Valley’s Milner, who said the key to solving anything that’s a prevalent problem in our society is education, thinks the issue has to be addressed from the first day a student sets foot in high school.

“You have to begin to motivate from when they are freshmen by putting a potential scholarship as a carrot in front of them,” Milner said. “We are trying to make the kids and parents understand. The common mistake most kids make is assuming that their overall grade-point average can be affected by having one good semester. Ask any kid and invariably he’s going to tell you what he got last semester.

“We feel that by monitoring their grades, assignments and attendance (from the beginning), we can stop problems before they surface . . . It’s a big job.”