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VIDEO PHOTOGRAPHY

by DAM WHIN
•
• .,, eddings • bor/bot mitzvahs • sweet los

471-1235

88

FRIDAY, JANUARY 31, 1992

Fast Break

Continued from preceding page

of academics to his team.
"He yelled at them a lot, he
preached at them, he cajoled
them," the Adlers write.
"He required them to go to
study hall nightly, and he
put the assistant coaches in
charge of monitoring these.
He had high goals for his
players, and he knew that
the system could easily take
advantage of them. As he
often said, 'I don't want to go
to Kentucky Fried Chicken,
and see my former basketball
players in there working.' "
Indeed, few of Richard-
son's players went on to pro-
fessional basketball careers.
Of the 39 players studied,
two made it to the NBA,
while 12 others played in
other professional leagues in
this country and abroad.
"Some are on crack, other
finished their degrees and
others are just floundering
around," Peter Adler said.
The presence of girlfriends
and wives often helps the
athletes stay afloat in school
and avoid "role engulf-
ment." "The ones who knew
them before help them main-
tain a sense of identity,"
said Patricia Adler, 40, who
spent a great deal of time
socializing with the players'
wives and girlfriends.
Still, the innocence of the
players — many of whom are
young and unsophisticated
— is often lost in the hype
that surrounds elite college
sports. Patricia Adler
blames the media in part.
"The media is all over them
like flies," she said. "These
are young kids and it's hard
for them to relate to the im-
portance and the attention."
At the University of Mar-
yland, College Park, for ex-

ample, proximity to Wash-
ington, D.C., makes the
players even more suscepti-
ble to the influence of the
media. "They're in the spot-
light, representing the whole
state," Peter Adler said.
"The pressures to be suc-
cessful are tremendous."
Still, he noted, the Univer-
sity of Maryland, which has
a "checkered program" —
the Len Bias, Lefty Driesell
and Bob Wade controversies
attest to that — is trying to
make changes. "They've
been in the forefront of try-
ing to find coaches who will
find a better fit between
sports and academics," he
said. (The current coach is
Gary Williams.) "The presi-

"There is a steady
progression from
idealism to
disillusionment."

—Peter Adler

dent of the university and
the administration are sen-
sitive to developing a pro-
gram that won't exploit the
players and be one-sided."
But the Adlers don't be-
lieve the necessary changes
will ever be made on any
campus. The NCAA has a
monopoly on amateur
sports, Peter Adler said, and
there is no other option for
these players. Baseball has
the minor leagues, but in
basketball and football,
there is no pre-professional
training program, he said.
"There are big structural
problems, but I don't believe
the NCAA will give up that
kind of power and financial
reward."

❑

NEWS I

Israel To Treat
Olim's Spiritual Needs

Tel Aviv (JTA) — Israel's
Ministry of Religious Affairs
is making a major effort to
instruct new immigrants in
the ritual and spiritual
aspects of Judaism.
It has spent nearly
$700,000 on religious books
and articles distributed free
to immigrants in the last 18
months, according to the Na-
tional Religious Party's
newspaper, Hatzofeh.
The Bibles, prayerbooks
and booklets explaining the
Jewish holidays have been
printed in Russian and
Amharic, the language
spoken by Ethiopians.
The ministry also provides
tefillin, tallesim (prayer
shawls), wine goblets and

candlesticks to the
newcomers for what the
ministry is calling their
"spiritual absorption."
While most olim from the
former Soviet Union have
little or no knowledge of re-
ligious Judaism, the Ethio-
pians are devout, though
many of their practices differ
from those prevalent in
Israel.
The ministry has begun
classes in Judaism, con-
ducted in the two languages,
to prepare teen-age immi-
grants for bar and bat mitz-
vah ceremonies. It also holds
seminars on religious sub-
jects at religious schools on
Shabbat and preceding Jew-
ish holidays.

K