0O L0
C S
SPORTS books rather than blockers. "I think it
would be a good idea for all freshmen to sit
out," he says. "With leaving home and ad-
justing to all this work, I don't know what
I'd do if I was playing football right now."
G r a d e s Others, however, say their .dreams of
gridiron glory have been unjustly derailed
Proposition 48, the latest effort to make sure that by the new standards. Schools that offered
players are 'student-athletes,' takes its first toll scholarships can withdraw the financial
aid if a student fails to qualify, forcing some
to settle for junior colleges or give up col-
lege altogether. Adrian Simmons of Pensa-
or Notre Dame freshman John Foley, his fall off the football field for the first time cola, Fla., lost his basketball scholarship at
autumn has always been synonymous since grade school. "It's really just like it's Missouri because of a 570 SAT score and
with football. The 6-foot-4, 250-pound off season," he says. "A very long off sea- settled for Pensacola Junior College. If he
linebacker has been playing the game son." He is just one of hundreds of "red- does well, in two years he'll be recruited all
since he was six, and playing it well. Last shirts"-students who received athletic over again. "The school gives the players a
year at Chicago's St. Rita High School, his scholarships from Division I colleges but lot of help," says a hopeful Simmons.
speed and power ("I used to push cars were ruled ineligible under the new stand- The no pass, no play requirements are
around to work up strength") won Foley ards, which were approved by the NCAA in far from rigorous, requiring only a grade-
Player of the Year and All-American hon- 1983 to go into effect this year. Freshmen point average of 1.8 in 11 basic high-school
ors from several major newspapers. "I who fail to make a minimum grade average classes and combined SAT scores of 740.
don't want to sound cocky, but everyone on a core of high-school courses as well as But application of the rules can sometimes
recruited me," says Foley. "I could have meet minimum test scores on the SAT's or seem arbitrary. All-American football
gone anywhere." Foley chose Notre Dame, the American College Test (ACT) must sit player Paul Glonek, 18, scored 840 on the
and nothing seemed to stand between him out their first year-unable to compete or SAT and had a 2.4 GPA at St. Laurence
and four years of glory with the Fight- even practice with their team. High School in suburban Chicago. Notre
ing Irish. For some, the failure to meet the require- Dame withdrew its scholarship offer, how-
Nothing, that is, but Proposition 48-the ments amounts to little more than an un- ever, after discovering Glonek had not tak-
NCAA's new set of academic requirements scheduled, but hardly devastating, time- en a required chemistry course. Eventually
for freshmen athletes. Now, because his out. After the initial shock, Foley was able Iowa gave him a scholarship, but he still
SAT scores were too low, Foley is spending to see the benefits of concentrating on has to sit out a year-and he's still bitter.
One of the est-selling
books of all.time,
strengths and the weaknesses of his ap-
proach. They cover children from South
Africa, Northern Ireland, Poland, Brazil,
Nicaragua and French-speaking Canada,
as well as from immigrant Asian communi-
ties in the United States. His aim is to
absorb and reproduce the process through
which children, divided by race, class, lan-
guage and competing political ideologies,
develop moral character and acquire a
sense of national identity. At his best Coles
dramatically renders the malleability and
resiliency of children trying to survive both
physically and spiritually in highly con-
flictedcircumstances. Ineachcasehetraces
the impact of significant adults-ideo-
logues and police as well as parents and
teachers-on his subjects; during a church
service in Belfast, for example, Coles even C
stepped forward to be "saved" by the Rev.
Ian Paisley to better understand the power
of theProtestants' most volublespokesman
on childrenwhoaccepthisword asgospel. c
Unfortunately, Coles needs a firm edi- s
tor. In telling his stories, he sometimes n
wraps his children in distracting asides p
and details, thus blurring the uniqueness r.
of individuals, which he prizes so much. li
Often his children sound too much alike- ti
a risk Coles necessarily takes in compress- d
ing hours of conversation into straight s
dialogue, albeit in long stretches. i
hildren as a primary source: Coles listens to a young subject in Washington, D.C.
Now that politicians and educators are most of her money to the church, who is
ailing for the teaching of values in going to help me?" he asks. "Freud-no.
chools, Coles's maverick methods seem But Jesus and George Eliot can. They show
nore appropriate than ever. He ap- us how to look at people, not for their pa-
roaches literature as a moralist and mo- thology but for the possibilities that existin
ality as a healer. He dares to argue that the lowest among us." That outlook will be
terature and religion are more useful severely tested in Coles's next project: a
han psychiatry and social science in un- study of the significance of religion in the
erstanding complex moral and social is- lives of children in the United States, in the
ues. "When I try to understand the behav- Middle East and in Latin America.
or of a teenage prostitute in Rio who gives K EN N E T H L. Wasu0 D W A R D s , Cambridge, Mass.
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