The Quick Fix: Schools Where the
Only Real Test Is Basketball
February 25, 2006
The New York Times
By PETE THAMEL
Each day at Eldon Academy in Michigan, Dewayne Walker could sleep till
11 a.m., practice basketball for 90 minutes and never spend more than
two hours in class. He said that the only other students were his
teammates, that his only teacher was also his coach. "I'm not a
Harvard-type person," Walker said, "but I thought it would be a lot
more work."
Justin Gardenhire laughed when recalling his classes at Redemption
Christian Academy in Troy, N.Y., where many high school students are
basketball players. Gardenhire said the school was so disorganized, a
Spanish class one day would be French the next. "We had a spelling
class," Gardenhire said. "I was like, 'Come on, are you serious?' "
Phil Jones attended Lutheran Christian Academy, an unaccredited private
high school in Philadelphia where, he said, all of the students were
basketball players. In his seven months there, he said, class consisted
of the coach, Darryl Schofield, giving workbooks to the students to
fill out. "I thought prep school was supposed to be hard," Jones said.
In the past two years, these young men attended unusual institutions —
some called prep schools, some called learning centers — where all or
most of the students were highly regarded basketball players. These
athletes were trying to raise their grades to compensate for poor
College Board scores or trying to gain attention from major-college
coaches.
An investigation by The New York Times found more than a dozen of these
institutions, some of which closed soon after opening. The Times found
that at least 200 players had enrolled at such places in the past 10
years and that dozens had gone on to play at N.C.A.A. Division I
universities like Mississippi State, George Washington, Georgetown and
Texas-El Paso.
"I would say that in my 21 years, the number of those schools has
quadrupled, and I would put schools in quotation marks," Phil Martelli,
the men's basketball coach at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia,
said. "They're not all academic institutions."
The National Collegiate Athletic Association acknowledges that it has
not acted as such places have proliferated. For years, its
Clearinghouse has approved transcripts from these institutions without
questioning them.
Until revelations last year about a diploma mill in Florida and
concerns about other schools like it, the N.C.A.A. chose not to police
high schools. Although the N.C.A.A. recently commissioned a task force
charged with curbing academic abuse, it still faces the tricky task of
separating the legitimate from the nonlegitimate schools.
The Times found several schools with curious student populations.
¶Genesis One Christian Academy in Mendenhall, Miss.: Two years
ago, this kindergarten-to-Grade 8 school added a high school and a
Grade 13, for basketball players who did not graduate to raise their
grade-point averages. At least 33 of about 40 students at the
unaccredited high school play basketball, and its stars have signed
letters of intent to attend Oklahoma State, Arkansas and Alabama.
¶Boys to Men Academy in Chicago: The student body consists of 16
basketball players, who can earn credit for the equivalent of eight
high school core courses in a year by studying online through an
accredited correspondence school.
¶Rise Academy in Philadelphia: Opened last fall, it outsources
lessons to others, including Lutheran Christian and two online high
schools.
¶God's Academy in Irving, Tex.: A summer basketball coach started
with three students in August. Now 40 students in Grades 6 to 12, all
basketball players, meet with two full-time teachers four days a week
at a recreation center. The curriculum is provided and graded by an
education center 25 miles away. Its star player, Jeremy Mayfield,
signed with Oklahoma.
Some of these institutions recently joined other private schools to
form the National Elite Athletic Association. With more than two dozen
teams from Los Angeles to Toronto, this conference is seeking a shoe
contract and a television deal. Its teams sometimes travel thousands of
miles to play in tournaments that often attract more college coaches
than fans. Those coaches will pay $100 for booklets of information
about the players.
"I believe that our high school associations create mediocrity," said
Linzy Davis, a conference founder, who coaches in Stockbridge, Ga. "We
have rules in high school associations that say a coach can coach a kid
at this time and not at this time. Meanwhile, you have the Europeans
that can practice eight hours a day."
The increase in secondary-school options has forged a culture of free
agency in prep basketball. Travis George, a senior at Lutheran
Christian, left his Boston-area public high school after three-plus
years without passing a single core course. The N.C.A.A. requires high
school athletes to complete 14 core courses, including four years of
English, two years of math and two years of science.
Since the fall of 2004, George has attended six prep schools. He and
his coaches say he is on track to qualify for a scholarship at the end
of this school year.
"If a kid really wants to, he can find a place that will get him his
grades," said Steve Smith, the coach at Oak Hill Academy, a traditional
prep powerhouse in Virginia. "That's not good. I believe in kids
earning it."
Profit and Opportunity
Basketball-centered schools multiplied after Tracy McGrady leapt to the
National Basketball Association from Mount Zion Christian Academy in
North Carolina in 1997. He signed a deal with Adidas that gave $300,000
to Mount Zion, which had about 200 students and was not founded as a
basketball academy, and nearly $1 million to his coach.
The notion that top players could be a financial boon, combined with
the relaxing of N.C.A.A. rules, spawned more basketball academies. In
2000, the N.C.A.A. began allowing high school administrators to
determine the legitimacy of their own core courses. Three years later,
the N.C.A.A. began allowing students to compensate for low College
Board scores with higher grade-point averages.
"Why did these schools come about?" said Mike Byrnes, who has coached
for 10 years at 80-year-old Winchendon School in Massachusetts.
"Because these kids need to have a higher grade-point average because
you can't beat the SAT."
Under these rules, University High School in Miami, a correspondence
school with no teachers, classrooms or sports, helped 28 athletes
qualify for college. After The Times reported in November that
University High gave fast and easy grades to college football
prospects, the school shut down. It is under investigation by the
Miami-Dade County state attorney's office.
Kevin Lennon, the N.C.A.A.'s vice president for membership services,
who is in charge of the task force on secondary schools, said he could
not estimate the number of schools abusing the system.
"All we know is that we're seeing more of them," he said.
Mysteries and Discrepancies
Coach Martelli of St. Joseph's said Tommy Lloyd, an assistant at
Gonzaga, called last fall asking for directions to Lutheran. Although
Coach Schofield said Lutheran sent more than 50 players to Division I
in the past eight years, Coach Martelli could not help Mr. Lloyd.
"I have no idea," Coach Martelli, a lifelong resident of Philadelphia,
recalled saying. "I've never been there."
The red-brick community center that houses Lutheran has become a
running joke in recruiting circles. Interviews with 10 current or
former players revealed that all of Lutheran's more than 30 students
are college basketball prospects. They have classes in one community
center, a converted grocery store on North 17th Street, and practice in
another.
Three former Lutheran students — Roosevelt Lee, Jamual Warren and Bobby
Maze — echoed Phil Jones in saying that they were not required to
attend classes and that Coach Schofield was their only instructor. Maze
said he did no work when he did attend class.
Warren said his mother took him home to Springfield, Mass., after a
month because he told her there was no school building.
"I like to get by easy," Warren said, "but not that easy."
Jones, a Brooklyn native, is a senior at Laurinburg Prep in North
Carolina. He said he was glad he left Lutheran because universities
like Kansas, Virginia Tech and Kentucky indicated that they could not
recruit him there.
Lee and Warren did not qualify for Division I scholarships out of high
school; they now attend Globe Institute of Technology, a junior college
in Manhattan. Lee said that in one month at Lutheran, he received
credit for five courses, earning all B's, although he never took a
test, attended a class or received instruction.
"There were no classes," Lee said. "We went to basketball practice
every single day. What we were told when we first went there was: How
you perform on the court, that's what you do for your grades."
Coach Schofield filed paperwork listing 35 courses, which the N.C.A.A.
certified; among them are Latin 2, chemistry and physics. He said
Lutheran had four full-time and two part-time teachers, and was
accredited by the state. But a spokesman for the Pennsylvania
Department of Education said Lutheran was not accredited and had never
applied for accreditation.
Coach Schofield said that the students' improved academic performance
could be attributed to Lutheran's strict discipline and that the
students were required to retake exams until they achieved a score of
at least 80.
Some students praise Lutheran. Charles Bronson said that in two years,
he improved his grade-point average to 3.5 (on a 4-point scale) from
2.1. "Nothing was given to me," said Bronson, who attended East
Carolina before transferring to Panola College, a junior college in
Carthage, Tex., and then signing with Xavier. "I had to work."
Coach Schofield said he gave opportunity to teenagers with no hope. He
said that Lutheran's tuition was $5,000 but that he rarely charged more
than $2,000.
"If you're going to fail, you might as well go home and fail," he said.
"We don't want that. We want all success stories."
Coach Schofield has plenty. Last year, Lutheran sent at least 11
players to Division I, including two each to Mississippi State,
Texas-El Paso and Tennessee-Chattanooga. Other former Lutheran students
play for Washington State, Middle Tennessee State and Temple. Omar
Williams and Maureece Rice are key players for No. 6 George Washington.
Marc Egerson is a freshman for No. 23 Georgetown.
Don Haman, Egerson's coach at Glasgow High School in Delaware, said
Egerson earned a core-course G.P.A. under 2.0, scored in the 600's on
his combined SAT and never graduated from Glasgow before going to
Lutheran.
"I wonder about it myself," Mr. Haman said of Egerson's acceptance to
Georgetown. "But I can't say anything if he gets the score and gets
into school."
Jamont Gordon went to Lutheran after withdrawing from Oak Hill last
April. Coach Smith said Gordon would have been a borderline prospect to
qualify for college academically if he had completed the final quarter
of his senior year at Oak Hill.
Gordon now leads Mississippi State in scoring as a freshman. Bulldogs
Coach Rick Stansbury said Gordon had gone to Lutheran to "finish one
class." Told that Gordon had left Oak Hill needing to complete all his
classes, Coach Stansbury said: "He went there to finish. That's all. He
did what he had to do to finish his academics."
Coach Stansbury, who refused several requests to allow Gordon to
comment for this article, said he had no reason to check whether
Lutheran, which has been open in various forms for eight years, was
accredited. Despite Gordon's tenuous academic situation and the fact
that Mississippi State's top recruit, Vernon Goodridge, also went
there, Coach Stansbury said he neither visited Lutheran nor talked to
teachers or guidance counselors. He did, however, go to the gym.
"We don't talk to teachers when we're recruiting kids," he said.
"Everyone does it differently."
Lutheran also produced Paul Graham III, one of six players signed last
spring by Florida Atlantic. Matt Doherty, Florida Atlantic's new coach,
said he went to the gym once to watch Graham but did not visit any
teachers, as he usually does, because he was scrambling to sign
players. "The fact that the school is not accredited and I wasn't aware
of that, that's on me as a coach," Coach Doherty, who previously
coached at Notre Dame and North Carolina, said.
It is no surprise that few teams have as many players from Lutheran as
Texas-El Paso; among them are the top recruits last year, Maurice
Thomas and Stefon Jackson. David Anwar, who founded Lutheran with Coach
Schofield, is the director for basketball operations at Texas-El Paso.
Mr. Anwar said he had not been to Lutheran in six years. He said he
knew the school had teachers but did not know their names.
"He takes kids that have nothing, absolutely nothing, and gives them a
chance to go to school," Mr. Anwar said of Coach Schofield. "It's a
shame that everyone looks at that as a bad thing."
Expectations and Realities
When Ifeanyi Ehirim accepted a full scholarship to Eldon Academy for
its inaugural year in 2004, he said, he was led to believe the school
had a building, a typical student body, full-time teachers and standard
courses.
But Ehirim and, a year later, Dewayne Walker, each found little more
than a traveling basketball team. Ehirim said Eldon's classes were held
in the basement of the bookstore in Petoskey, Mich. When Walker
arrived, Eldon used a classroom at a local community college. All of
the students were high school graduates who needed higher standardized
test scores or wanted the exposure of a national schedule. Ehirim and
Walker said they learned little at Eldon. During Walker's year, he
said, the coach, Gerald E. Ernst Jr., was the only teacher, who taught
English and had students take practice standardized tests from a book.
Academically qualified for college when he went to Eldon, Walker was
hoping to earn a Division I scholarship. But in late January, Walker
saw the message "Pack your stuff" on the board in the apartment where
the students lived. Walker said they were told that some had not paid
tuition, prompting Coach Ernst to close Eldon. That cut the season
short and hurt Walker's chances.
"It was a big waste of time and money," said Judy McGee, Walker's
mother. "I didn't have $4,300 to throw away."
Eldon's official documents refer to it as a "learning center for ACT
preparation, life skills and vocabulary." But the players said Coach
Ernst portrayed it differently. Five calls to his home were not
returned.
"They told me it was prep school," Ehirim, now a freshman at Birmingham
Southern, said.
Old Order and New World
A decade ago, athletes with poor academic records often went to
traditional prep schools, many of them in New England; military
academies; or junior colleges. The elite players have since abandoned
junior colleges, and the level of play at the traditional prep schools
has dipped.
"Now, the Larry Johnsons and Nick Van Exels, they go to prep school,"
said Scott Monarch, the coach at Panola College. "I don't think junior
college is ever going to get a marquee player again. The Shawn Kemps,
the Sam Cassells and Mookie Blaylocks, I just don't think you're going
to get them anymore."
Places like Eldon clearly bother the coaches at the venerable New
England prep schools known for academic rigor. Raphael Chillious, the
coach at the South Kent School in Connecticut, said the coach at a
Florida public school sneered when they were introduced. "As soon as
people say prep school," Coach Chillious said, "there's a negative
connotation now."
Coach Byrnes of the Winchendon School said college coaches called
asking for grades for their recruits as if they were ordering takeout:
B's in seven core courses and a 900 SAT. When he tells them that cannot
be done at Winchendon, the coaches keep shopping.
"I don't know how an administration at a school can allow that," Coach
Byrnes said, referring to colleges that accept players from basketball
academies. "What if Albert Einstein wanted to go to one of these
schools? They wouldn't accept him? He could patent a cure for cancer,
and they would tell him he couldn't come to school because he couldn't
score a basket."
Catching Up and Cracking Down
Travis George is a 6-foot-7 forward, a strong rebounder who shows the
potential to play elite college basketball. But his grades got in the
way. A copy of his high school transcript shows that by the time he was
a senior, George had passed only sheet metal and health education.
Neither counts toward the 14 core courses the N.C.A.A. requires.
At Notre Dame Prep in Fitchburg, Mass., George earned credit for half a
core course before leaving in January 2005. Several coaches said he
then went to Mount Zion, Laurinburg and Patterson in North Carolina,
then to Rise Academy and Lutheran in Philadelphia.
George and his coaches say he should be eligible for college by the end
of the school year. If his high school transcript is correct, that
means he will have completed 13½ core courses in about 18 months.
"I just had to find a place where I was comfortable," said George, who
contended that Lutheran was his third prep school.
One of the ways a nomad like George can earn eligibility is to avoid
graduation. Sam Rines Jr., who opened Rise as a basketball academy,
said a student could get credit for as many as eight core courses in a
year. He said that if students finished their senior year and did not
meet the N.C.A.A.'s eligibility standards, he encouraged them not to
graduate, then to retake classes to raise their averages.
"Graduation," Mr. Rines said, " is a horrible thing."
Rise and Eldon are relatively new, but Redemption Christian has existed
since 1979. The N.B.A. star Lamar Odom attended Redemption, known in
recruiting circles for its work-study program. Students work shifts in
a bakery and sell cake and cookies door to door. Redemption's founder
and head administrator, the Rev. John Massey Jr., said, "Kids come here
as a last resort."
Many of its basketball stars are postgraduates in need of higher
standardized test scores, but it also has high school students. Yet
Redemption is not registered with the New York State Department of
Education, so it cannot award diplomas.
"Is the college not asking them for a bona fide high school diploma?"
said Thomas Hogan, the supervisor for the office of nonpublic school
services in the education department. "Because they can't legally give
one."
When Laura Holmes, a vice principal at Redemption, was asked about its
accreditation, its diploma policy and the percentage of the students
who play basketball, she sent a 15-page fax that included positive
articles about Redemption, awards given to Mr. Massey and an anonymous
post defending him taken from a George Washington fan Web site,
gwhoops.com.
But Lorenzo Keeler said there was no comparison between Redemption and
his current school, South Kent. "We were literally doing fractions in
math class," he said of Redemption. "Stuff I did years and years ago."
Mr. Lennon, the head of the N.C.A.A task force, said it would focus
first on schools like Redemption that are not under state regulation.
"We're committed to flushing out those high schools abusing the system
and putting a stop to it," he said.
One question the task force must answer: What is the maximum course
load? For now, there is no rule against taking the required 14 core
courses in a year. It is essentially impossible for a student at
Winchendon or South Kent to take more than five core courses in a
school year, the coaches there said. (Intense summer school could add
one or two more.)
"If they set the limit at five, I'd be in favor of that," Coach
Chillious of South Kent said.
With the task force recommendations due June 1, Mr. Lennon issued a
warning: "Any student contemplating leaving their high school right now
to pick up additional courses needs to be aware the N.C.A.A. will be
implementing policies. They need to make sure they are taking real
courses, academic courses, and not simply trying to buy eligibility."
But after years of not policing secondary schools, the biggest
challenge for the N.C.A.A. will be determining which of the nation's
5,000 private schools that do not fall under state regulation are
exploiting the system.
Thayer Evans contributed reporting from Carthage, Tex., for this
article. Jack Begg and Sandra Jamison contributed research.