SANTA PAULA : Motivational Speaker Faces Tough Crowd

It was a tough crowd.

The 60 students who attended Frank Johnson’s motivational speech at Santa Paula Union High School on Thursday were invited because of poor attendance records and behavioral problems.

But Johnson, a former professional football player, alternately joked with the students and scolded them when they became boisterous.

Johnson told the students how he overcame the pressures of a tough neighborhood and a reading disorder to eventually learn the value of education.

Speaking on behalf of the state Employment Development Department, Johnson emphasized the difficulty of competing in the workplace without a diploma.

After a dismal high school career, Johnson said he went to community college to play football and eventually learned to take school seriously.

“I worked hard and made the team,” Johnson said. “The first time I got all Cs on my report card, you would have thought I got on the Dean’s List I was so happy.” His message to the sometimes-skeptical audience was simple. “When you ditch a class or get an F, all you’re doing is taking yourself out of the game,” Johnson said.

Johnson attended the assembly with Ignacio Abeyta, an EDD youth specialist from Ventura, who described the rough road he traveled growing up in Oxnard’s La Colonia barrio. Johnson and Abeyta’s warnings prompted some students to challenge the premise that dropping out of school is a handicap.

One senior who battled to become a C student after two years of receiving Fs, defended his friends who had fallen by the wayside. As for his own turnaround, the student nearly repeated what Johnson said about his own determination: “I wanted to prove to myself I could do it.”

After the talk, Johnson stressed that his background in athletics was irrelevant to the message he hoped the kids heard. “I’m sort of angry the way athletics is glorified,” Johnson said. “There are more African-American doctors and lawyers than professional athletes.”

Johnson’s message is one that needs to be heard by students at risk of dropping out, Assistant Principal Beth Hopp said.

“Santa Paula is so isolated,” she said. “Some of these kids never leave the area. This helps open up the world for them.”