School’s Best, and Worst

The first thing you see is the football field.

Turn left past the sagging homes and liquor stores with barred windows and there it is, wide and gleaming, spotless red bricks and deep green grass, a sentry to this week’s most popular high school in America.

“That field is special,” says Ben Simmons, the coach.

The next thing you see is the Super Bowl banner.

It flaps above the office entrance, signifying the game down the road and the two alumni playing in it, a beacon for this week’s most accomplished high school in America.

“We can turn out players,” the coach says.

What you don’t see so easily at Raines High is the plaque.

Walk down two halls, through a door, past a security guard, down a couple of more halls, and there it hangs, amazing and alone.

It honors a woman named Delores Pass Kessler, who donated $1 million for Raines High students to attend the University of North Florida.

As hope goes, it beats the pigskin out of trying to win an athletic scholarship.

As exposure goes, it is virtually nonexistent.

“Those kinds of things just aren’t sexy,” says Keith Zent, a longtime history teacher.

So goes another example of the reverse that football consistently runs on American schools, fooling them into thinking that a quality program can somehow masquerade as quality education.

This week, the pompoms are aimed toward Raines, one of the greatest high school football programs in the country.

And one of the worst academic schools in its state.

The imposing brick structure in the middle of a depressed north Jacksonville neighborhood has produced half of the starting defensive backfield for the Philadelphia Eagles in Sunday’s Super Bowl, Brian Dawkins and Lito Sheppard.

Harold Carmichael, the former Eagle star who directs their player programs, is also a Raines alumnus.

But in the last three years, the school has received grades of F, D and F from the Florida Department of Education.

One more F this year and it could be in danger of intervention by the state.

“Yeah, it’s a little embarrassing,” Zent says.

Some of the bookshelves in the library are empty, but the trophy cases are full.

Of five celebratory photo montages at the end of the main hallway, four involve sports.

The varsity football team has nine coaches and dresses as many as 60 players a game ... while the school’s enrollment dwindles as many of its potentially good students attend the magnet programs in other schools.

Dawkins gave $100,000 to build a new weight room with nine huge machines and a padded floor.

Enough to pay the yearly salary of two teachers.

“To me, this was a way to reach the most kids, to have the biggest effect,” Dawkins says. “Things have changed since I was there. The kids aren’t the same. They need more direction.”

Sheppard, who graduated several years after Dawkins, also offers much football encouragement, visiting a little brother at the school and speaking to the team.

Even after his cousin was shot in an apparent botched robbery near here three weeks ago, Sheppard is a believer in the neighborhood.

“It’s a crazy place,” Sheppard says. “But I believe I can be a motivational tool for the kids.”

Certainly, Dawkins’ money and Sheppard’s preaching are important.

But where is the celebration of the students who have achieved the more realistic goals of college graduation and consistent employment?

“I know there’s lots of good guys out there,” Zent says. “We just don’t hear much about them....

“Many of our best students have gone to other academic schools, so it’s like taking away the first string and bringing up the second string ... and asking us to compete against the first string. We’ve lost a lot of our leadership.”

Not in football.

The Raines folks are throwing a huge Jacksonville player dinner Saturday, celebrating the 14 local players on NFL rosters, four from Raines.

“You do any sport here, you understand,” says Shawn Jefferson, a retired NFL receiver and Raines alumnus. “Mediocrity doesn’t play here.”

The school has won only one state football championship but more than 100 boys among the 1,575-student enrollment annually compete to get into the program.

Their football field is called the Graveyard.

Their motto is “Ichiban,” No. 1 in Japanese.

“We never say die around here,” Jefferson says.

The academics don’t quite have that luxury, as they battle a decaying neighborhood and lack of parental involvement.

“”It’s just the socioeconomic situation around here,” Zent says.

“Athletics seems to be the best way out. They think it’s easier.”

It’s not only on the outside where the thinking seems programmed in that direction.

Calling the school this week, I asked to speak to a principal who could direct me to a veteran teacher who had nothing to do with athletics.

I was transferred to vice principal Linda Lisella.

“I can’t help you,” she said. “I gave your message to our athletic director, who teaches AP math.”

Then I spoke to Douglas White, the athletic director, and made the same request for a bookworm.

He transferred me to the football coach.

Only when Coach Simmons walked me to the teachers’ lounge was I finally able to make contact with a real full-time teacher.

“You have to understand, it’s hard for all of us here,” Zent says. “Some of these kids, the only book in their house is the phone book.”

Yet this week, there were footballs everywhere, signs and fliers and best wishes for their greatest success stories.

A Super Bowl game that, incidentally, nobody interviewed at Raines will be attending.

“I haven’t heard of anybody who is going,” said Aldrick George, a senior football player. “Who can afford it?”

Who can afford this, indeed?

*

Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.