Titan Plan Focuses on Assimilation : Academics: Making black athletes feel at home in college community is key to success in the classroom, directors say.
Cal State Fullerton’s most recent NCAA graduation-rates report confirmed John Reid’s belief that many African American male athletes are not performing well academically--of the 34 who enrolled and received financial aid in 1985-86, only five (15%) graduated within six years.
But Reid, a 51-year-old Fullerton graduate student who played football and ran track at Norfolk (Va.) State University, didn’t need any official statistics to grasp the severity of the problem. He got a first-hand look at it in the fall of 1992 when he was asked by a Titan assistant basketball coach to tutor a few black players.
“One kid was borderline illiterate, but he was classified as a senior because his basketball eligibility had taken him to that level,” said Reid, who declined to name the player. “I worked with the kid, but when he ran out of eligibility, he dropped out of school.”
From his experiences as a black athlete and through discussions with others, Reid formed several opinions as to why many don’t succeed in college.
Among them: Too many consider sports, not academics, their only vehicle to success. Too many neglect school, believing a lucrative professional career awaits after college. Too many colleges exploit them, generating enormous sums of money off sporting events without doing enough to ensure student-athletes’ academic success.
But rather than harping on the problem, Reid spent months devising what he hopes is part of a solution. The result is the Black Ombudsman Program (BOP), a comprehensive academic, cultural, family and community outreach plan designed to improve the overall quality of college life for black athletes at Fullerton and increase their chances for success both during and after school.
The pilot program, funded by Fullerton’s Educational Equity office, began Feb. 1 and includes 10 Titan basketball players. It does not focus primarily on academics. Rather, it strives to foster black athletes’ assimilation into their campus and community during a time when many feel isolated. Better grades, program supporters believe, will be a byproduct.
“We want to create an environment where kids are excited about going to school, or if not excited, at least not hating it,” said Christine McCarthy, Fullerton’s director of athletic academic services. “I don’t want them going to school just to maintain their eligibility. Then, they’re losing the best part of the university experience.”
Spring semester grades aren’t issued until the end of May, but both Reid, who coordinates the program, and Al Whitten, a former Titan football player who is the BOP assistant coordinator, said several players have shown progress through mid-term reports.
Fullerton junior point guard James French, a BOP participant who began the semester with a 2.3 grade-point average, said he’s on course for a 2.8 or 3.0 this spring.
“By improving yourself, your grades are going to improve,” French said. “Part of the program is self-love--you learn who you are, where you came from. You develop confidence in yourself, and like in sports, the more confident you are, the better you’ll play.”
Fullerton basketball Coach Brad Holland said it’s too early to determine the effects of the program.
“But we have high hopes for it,” he said. “There are some good ideas, and we’re hoping by the end of next spring the program will be in full bloom, and we’ll bear its fruits.”
Reid, plucking ideas from various research studies and articles about black student-athletes, modeled the program in a five-point star system--the student in center, surrounded by five BOP components--family, Afrocentricity, peer outreach, faculty and BOP administration/counseling.
BOP administrators and counselors coordinate the program, recruit students for it, provide motivation and support, track students’ academic progress, and provide academic counseling or referrals to specific departments for such services. A look at the other four BOP components:
* Family: The BOP strives to strengthen the link between participants, their families and the university by sending families periodic newsletters updating them about their sons’ school activities, maintaining phone contact with them and facilitating contact between participants and various faculty members, counselors and administrators.
BOP participants are also serving as Big Brothers to 10 young black boys, all but one from single-parent households, from Walter Knott Elementary School in Buena Park. The program aims to provide youngsters with positive black male role models and teach participants about self-responsibility.
“One player, Darren Little, even spent a weekend with the boy’s family, so he’s taken it beyond what we hoped,” Whitten said. “He’s trying to make a difference in a boy’s life, but at the same time it gives him something. Darren’s family is in Georgia, so the boy’s family has become part of Darren’s extended family.”
Added Reid, who is working toward a master’s degree in counseling: “It forces guys to right their ships, because now these little boys are looking up to them.”
* Afrocentricity: Every Friday, BOP coordinators hold two-hour sessions, in which they hope to build self-esteem, dignity and pride in participants through cultural awareness. The group, which also meets informally several times a week, also focuses on specific issues--one recent subject, for instance, was how black males cope with anger.
* Peer outreach: BOP counselors want the players to adopt a code for black male behavioral conduct, which calls for them to, among other things, stop name-calling one another, cursing one another, being discourteous toward one another, stealing from one another, fighting one another, killing one another and using and selling drugs to one another.
“These things are contrary to the goals most of us in society are trying to accomplish,” said Whitten, who hopes BOP can expand to include males and females, athletes and non-athletes. “We’re trying to reverse the behavior we’ve seen for so many years.”
* Faculty: Select Fullerton faculty members are working with players to identify academic deficiencies and correct them. BOP coordinators are encouraging players to develop relationships with their professors, visit them during office hours, sit in the front row of the classroom and, most important, go to class.
“A lot of athletes cut class,” said Whitten, a senior kinesiology major with a 3.2 GPA. “I’ve been in classes with a few athletes who you’d see at the beginning of the semester and then the end. What happened in between?
“They don’t go to class because they think it’s not important. They think they’re going to the pros. But the chances of making the pros are slim and none, so let’s deal with reality.”
Reality for many black college athletes is being at a large, predominantly white university far away from home, with few black coaches or faculty members to serve as positive role models.
It’s spending so much time in sports that there’s not enough energy to devote to other school activities. It’s being intimidated by the vast academic bureaucracy, not knowing where to turn for help.
It’s isolation.
“Without this program, you’d go on feeling isolated,” French said. “A lot of times you’ll feel uncomfortable trying to get into different study groups, different things on campus, because you’re like an outsider.
“But this is like an extended family. I feel comfortable getting help, and I feel I have more resources available to me to do well. I don’t feel so alone, like I’m doing everything myself. A lot of guys try, but you can’t make it in college by yourself.”
Graduating From Cal State Fullerton
Figures reflect number of freshmen and community college transfers who entered school in 1985-86 and then those who graduated within six years. Student-athletes defined as those receiving financial aid upon initial enrollment.
MEN
All Students Student-Athletes Group No. Grad. No. Grad. Native American 22 5 3 0 Asian/Pacific Islander 436 152 1 1 Black 95 14 34 5 Latino 274 65 12 1 White 1747 646 47 24 Other 140 46 3 0 Total 2714 928 100 31
Graduation rate:
All Students: 34%
Student-Athletes: 31%
*
WOMEN
All Students Student-Athletes Group No. Grad. No. Grad. Native American 21 10 1 1 Asian/Pacific Islander 486 224 0 Black 125 28 4 2 Latino 353 141 2 2 White 2107 1011 19 16 Other 162 79 3 2 Total 3254 1493 29 23
Graduation rate:
All Students: 46%
Student-Athletes: 79%
*
TOTALS
All Students Student-Athletes Group No. Grad. No. Grad. Native American 43 15 4 1 Asian/Pacific Islander 922 376 1 1 Black 220 42 38 7 Latino 627 206 14 3 White 3854 1657 66 40 Other 302 125 6 2 Total 5968 2421 129 54
Graduation rate:
All Students: 41%
Student-Athletes: 42%
Source: Cal State Fullerton’s 1992-93 NCAA Graduation Rates Report.
