Keeping Score of a Family’s Challenges : UCLA: James McAlister knows how son Chris feels about college entrance exam controversy.

The man who once held a school in his hands is now holding a cup of coffee. He has been holding it for an hour. Rarely does he take a sip.

The anger James McAlister thought he left behind decades ago was merely tucked away. The familiar pain that once caused him to punch the steel doors of Pauley Pavilion is now causing him to weep again. This time as a father. Always as a Bruin.

Today, McAlister will drive to UCLA to ask his longtime friend, football Coach Terry Donahue, a question whose answer he already knows, but doesn’t want to believe. Did UCLA challenge the score on his son’s college entrance examination? Donahue will tell him that UCLA did.

“This has brought back a lot of memories, a lot of pain,” McAlister said.

Near the end of his freshman year at UCLA in 1971, James McAlister boarded a bus headed to the airport for the NCAA track and field championships. Along with his talent as a running back, he had already made the cover of Sports Illustrated as a two-sport star. A twin threat, he was called.

But Jim Bush, then the track coach, summoned McAlister off the bus and took him to the office of J.D. Morgan, the athletic director. He was introduced to two NCAA representatives. The bus was held. So was the charter plane. They eventually left without McAlister.

His college entrance examination, taken a year before, had been canceled for excessive erasure marks. How many erasure marks? Nobody could tell him. Nobody would tell him anything, he says, except that he would not play any sport his sophomore year. He was given no options.

“I had missed qualifying for the SAT on my first try by 100 points, and passed it on the second time,” McAlister said. “This is the same thing they are doing now to my son.”

Chris McAlister, a highly sought football quarterback/safety from Pasadena High, was set to go to UCLA this season before he was notified in July by Educational Testing Service (ETS) that his Scholastic Assessment Test score, which had met the NCAA requirements to play freshman athletics, had been challenged. ETS said it had evidence Chris had copied from another test taker.

An SAT score of 820 is required to compete athletically as a freshman at a Division I school. Chris took the test three times, scoring a 1010 the third time. But an increase of 200 points from his second test score raised a red flag in the UCLA admissions office. ETS, which serves as the clearinghouse for SAT exams, was asked to review the score for cheating.

How much a student can improve a score legitimately through intensive preparation is a highly contested issue.

“His data was scrutinized by our admissions people just as they do with all other students if they feel there is a problem, and they consulted with the family, and then asked ETS to look at the test score,” said Marc Dellins, UCLA’s sports information director.

James McAlister believed he could clear up the situation quickly, but ETS would not change its position. Chris’ options included taking the test again or taking ETS to arbitration, which could take several months. Otherwise, the test score would be canceled.

But McAlister wouldn’t change his position either. He decided that this time around, he had some options. He decided Chris should not have to take the test again, because he passed it honestly. School was about to start, so Chris enrolled at Mt. San Antonio College so he wouldn’t lose a season of football or academics.

And instead of arbitration, McAlister chose to take ETS to court. A $5-million lawsuit was filed against ETS in U.S. District Court on Friday by attorney J. Anthony Willoughby on behalf of Chris, claiming ETS lacked evidence in not validating Chris’ test. ETS, in a letter to Willoughby dated Sept. 22, stated it did not have a copy of the seating chart for the test in question.

“How can you say somebody copied from somebody if you don’t even know where he was sitting?” said Willoughby, the attorney who successfully fought ETS in arbitration for USC football player Kenny Haslip.

An official from ETS said he could not comment on specifics, but said that Chris’ situation remains unresolved and his test score has not been canceled--but it also hasn’t been validated. For Chris to be eligible for Division I play next season--as he hopes to be--he has to come to some resolution with ETS or retake the test. Otherwise, he needs to graduate from a junior college and meet the academic transfer requirements.

Chris, who denies cheating on the test, did not want to be interviewed for this story, saying he has had a good season at Mt. San Antonio and wants to move on. But his father said this has been a difficult experience for his son, who met with a tutor twice weekly for six weeks to prepare for the test.

Chris had taken the SAT three times, falling short of the 820 point qualifying score by 140 points the first time and 10 points the second--which represents one incorrect answer, if that. He then worked with a volunteer tutor from Whittier College to easily qualify on his third try.

Donahue, who was holding a scholarship for Chris, told McAlister he would take Chris’ records to UCLA admissions but to not be surprised if the score was challenged because of the point gain, McAlister said.

“We were recruiting him when our academic people were going through certain procedures and found certain things of concern [referring to the test],” Donahue said Thursday. “They talked to McAlister’s people and that’s all I know.

“James and I talked about it. James welcomed the inquiry because he and his wife and Chris felt they would be able to win any inquiry concerning the test. He is waiting to hear and so are we.”

Colleges contact ETS frequently to investigate scores they feel may not be valid, said ETS spokesman Tom Ewing. “We have a score, but colleges have a transcript and other information,” Ewing said. “Every school has their own parameters for looking at test scores. Ours automatically flag on gains of 250 points on either the verbal or the math sections or a combined gain of 350 points.”

UCLA officials say the school has no set policy, but tries to prevent problems from occurring once a student is enrolled in classes.

“I wasn’t surprised it was challenged, but I didn’t think UCLA would do it,” McAlister said. “I just thought we would wait and see who will make this challenge. If it came from the school, I will be extremely upset after what I accomplished at that school and the revenue they got from people coming to see us [running backs McAlister and Kermit Johnson] play. This is how [the school] treats me in the end?”

Chris’ volunteer tutor, John Helgeson of Whittier College, had already warned Chris about a possible challenge. All six student athletes he has tutored have had their scores challenged. And they have all been minorities.

“Every minority athlete who has an increase of more than 100 points that I have been connected with, their scores have been challenged,” said Helgeson, who is white. “One was sick the first time he took it, and his gain was so high that it was automatically challenged by ETS, but it passed. The others were found to have some form of problem, but they retook the test and it worked out.”

“Chris is a bright kid; he’s shy, but it was clear to me right away that he was bright. Every session that we met was a marked improvement. I told him the night before the test sitting in my kitchen that he could score 1020 to a 1070, and his practice exams supported that.”

On the day Chris received the letter with his qualifying score, he raised his hands in victory, and said, “Here I come, Bruins.”

There was never a doubt as to which school Chris would choose. His father was one of the best Bruin running backs ever, still ranking 20th on the career rushing list playing only two seasons, as a junior and senior, and half of the time he was sidelined because of injuries. He is in the UCLA Sports Hall of Fame for track and football.

Chris also knew his dad would like to sit in the stands with his former teammates and watch him play. James McAlister played with Ed O’Bannon, father of Charles and Ed, and Eddie Ayers, father of junior Derek Ayers. He is still close with Mark Harmon. He is the cousin of Tracy Murray.

His license plate is framed in blue and gold.

“As a father, I would like my son to go to UCLA; the seeds have been planted,” said McAlister, who also played for the Philadelphia Eagles and New England Patriots. “But also as a father, I don’t want my son to go there if he feels resentment. He told me the other night that he doesn’t know if he could feel comfortable at UCLA after all this.”

McAlister says he has notified Pasadena High, where he coaches track and field, that he will be gone part of today. He has wanted to talk with Donahue for months, and has picked up the phone several times to call him, but says he didn’t want to bother him until the regular season was over.

“When I realized this was not going to get settled in a reasonable period of time, I told my son that he was not going to UCLA,” McAlister said. “He cried, and I was just as hurt as he was. And we went out and talked about it, and I told him that he had to make another choice, that college programs had already started and that he had to go somewhere.

“But he said he would quit sports and just go and get his education. He said he didn’t want anybody controlling his life like this. He said, ‘I did nothing wrong, dad.’

“I told him I knew that. Then I told him that sometimes in life we have to go uphill, and it’s hard getting up that hill. But when we get to the top we can rest, and then we can go downhill and reap all the benefits. Then we can look back at the hill we climbed and realize that it was worth it.”