Abraham Pumps Up Grades, Fits Into CSUN Plans

The fall from the top was swift.

One day, Danny Abraham was a junior linebacker on Cal State Northridge’s 1990 Western Football Conference championship team.

A few months later, he was working at a local gas station.

The slide began shortly after Abraham helped Northridge win the WFC title with 21 tackles, a sack and a fumble recovery in a reserve role.

Off the field, Abraham was equally active, particularly on the party scene. One of the few places Abraham admits he did not frequent was a Northridge classroom.

“I was hanging out with the wrong crowd,” Abraham said of a group of teammates with whom he lived. “All they wanted to do was party. Basically, I got lazy.”

Although Abraham transferred to Northridge from Orange Coast College with a 2.7 grade-point average, the Fs and the incompletes piled up and he became academically ineligible for the 1991 season. Broke, he dropped out of school and went to work.

While he pumped gas last fall, his roommates played their final season for Northridge, losing four consecutive games by an average of 27 points and ending the year with a 3-7 record.

Abraham watched the losses pile up and pined for the game. By June, he had saved enough money to pay for the 11 units of summer school he would need to regain eligibility for the ’92 season.

“I wanted to get back because I know we’re going to have a good team and because I like Coach (Bob) Burt,” Abraham said. “I kinda let him down last year.”

Burt appreciates Abraham’s efforts to make amends.

“I’d like to think he did it more for himself than anyone else because he’s the one benefiting from it,” Burt said. “The motivation doesn’t matter as long as the outcome is there--that he’s in school.”

Abraham dropped out of school but not out of sight. “He was around all the time saying, ‘Coach, I’m gonna do the right things.’ So I gave him the benefit of the doubt,” Burt said.

Abraham’s heavy summer course load, which included physiology, grammar and history, required him to spend seven hours per day in class. In need of more study time, he quit the evening shift at the gas station.

The sacrifice paid off. Abraham passed all his classes and regained his eligibility.

“It was definitely worth it,” Abraham said. “I love football. Plus, I want to graduate. That’s the main thing.”

Buoyed by his summer school success, Abraham has aspirations that know no bounds. He plans to graduate with a degree in sports medicine, play pro football for five years, get a master’s degree in sports medicine at UCLA and become an athletic trainer and a firefighter.

He took the first step toward a more disciplined life when he moved in with an area family. “It is really quiet,” he said. “I can study.”

After spending the summer catching up in the classroom, Abraham has spent the last three weeks trying to make up for lost time on the football field.

Understandably, the 6-foot-1, 225-pound senior is rusty.

Abraham is currently second string, but Burt already sees progress. “He’s coming back like a duck to water, like he’s never been away,” he said.

Or, like he was away too long.

Abraham won’t soon forget those nights at the gas station when the life of the student-athlete, not the life of the party, seemed like the life for him.