Tackling The Textbook Universities Struggle To Blend Academic Achievement With Winning Football Teams

Editors’ note: The football powerhouses of Florida, Florida State and Miami produced two national champions and 17 NFL draft choices in five seasons. But how successful were the schools in graduating those players? This first of a five-part series examines the successes and failures of college football players from the recruiting class of 1990.

Florida State linebacker Marvin Jones went to the NFL two years shy of a degree. Miami offensive lineman Anthony Lewis went to graduate school without ever playing a down.

Florida defensive back Michael Gilmore became a Rhodes scholarship finalist. And Miami defensive back Adrian Ellis became a five-time felony suspect.

With stories both inspiring and troubling, the 1990 football recruits at Florida, Florida State and Miami illustrate the struggle of universities nationwide to blend academic achievement with winning teams.

In five seasons, the three schools - among the nation’s most successful college football programs - won two national championships and produced 17 NFL draft choices.

But an examination by The Associated Press also found that only 27 players there had earned their college degrees by this spring’s commencement ceremonies. That’s a graduation rate of just 48 percent for the 56 players who enrolled as freshmen in 1990.

“Not good enough,” said State University System Chancellor Charles Reed. “Our target is graduation. That’s what the universities are all about. That’s the only reason we exist.”

Just five of 17 players in coach Steve Spurrier’s first recruiting class have graduated from Florida. At Florida State, 11 of the 21 who enrolled in 1990 have earned a degree.

Miami, a private school, boasts the best recent academic completion percentage even though the Hurricanes have been dogged by troubles ranging from a Pell Grant scandal to a play-for-pay scheme and new allegations of a drug-testing coverup.

Eleven of the 18 players from Miami’s 1990 recruiting class - coach Dennis Erickson’s first - have earned a degree. Among the three perennial top-10 teams, only Miami’s graduation rate rose with every freshman class from 1985 to 1989, when it reached 73 percent.

“I am pleased with the progress we’ve made, but I will never be satisfied until we’re graduating 100 percent of our studentathletes,” said UM president Edward Foote.

“That should be our goal, and it is our goal. We’re in the business of education. That’s what we’re here for. Football is a sport and an exciting one, but it’s not why universities are created,” Foote said.

Graduation rates for the 1990 recruits likely will improve, because some players are still in school. Florida, for example, says six may graduate this summer. And some players already have earned degrees in such demanding areas as zoology and chemistry.

All three schools can point to dramatic growth in the past five years in spending to help athletes with their studies. The Gators’ academic support program, for example, includes nine employees and a $670,000 budget for all sports.

But many players punt, pass and then fail to get a degree. Results on the field receive more cheers than results in the classroom.

“Being in a school like the U of M, they tell you if you want a degree, you should have went to Yale,” said C.J. Richardson, an AllAmerican safety at Miami who earned a criminal justice degree in December.

“I never had too much trouble with my classes, but football is where most of your time goes. When there’s a big game coming up, you work out and watch film in the morning. In the afternoon you meet with coaches, and practice is at 3. You practice for 2 1/2 hours, take a shower and eat with your teammates. Sometimes after practice, you watch film.

“By the time you get home and it’s study time, you’re exhausted.”

A former teammate, quarterback Frank Costa, estimated that football took 40 hours a week of his time during the season. Players accept the demanding schedule; many hope to play in the NFL, and they think of career development in terms of playbooks, not schoolbooks.

“They tell you that you’re going to college No. 1 for an education,” former Miami lineman Lewis said. “But you say, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. Give me the football.”’

On the field, the 1990 freshmen attained success of unprecedented scope in this football-mad state.

The Gators won three Southeastern Conference titles in four years. Florida State won its first national championship in 1993. Miami won the most recent of its four national championships in 1991.

Their talent naturally attracted the NFL’s attention, tempting many of the best players to leave college early. Marvin Jones spent three years at Florida State, then dropped out halfway to his degree after the New York Jets made him the fourth pick in the 1993 draft.

Who can blame him? He signed a five-year, $7 million contract that included a $3.25 million signing bonus.

“There are a lot of guys with diplomas who don’t have jobs,” Florida State coach Bobby Bowden said. “Those guys in the pros, they got jobs. They’re making a lot of money.”

From Bowden’s recruiting class of 1990, among 11 players drafted by the NFL, only two have earned diplomas. Jones has moved closer to graduation by taking correspondence courses since joining the Jets, and former teammate William Floyd, who left early to play for the San Francisco 49ers, is also trying to finish school.

Nationally, football graduation figures have improved in recent years.

But at the University of Florida for the recruiting classes of 1987 and 1988, the Gators’ graduation rates were 37 percent and 33 percent. That compares with 63 percent and 61 percent for all students enrolling at Gainesville in those years.

The NCAA’s method of tabulation allows a student six years to graduate from the time of enrollment. Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley said more Gators have earned diplomas than NCAA figures would suggest.

“The issue is to graduate players, whether it’s in four years, five years, six years or whatever,” Foley said. “Obviously, not all of our athletes have done well in school, but those rates don’t tell the whole story.”

Running back Emmitt Smith enrolled at Florida in 1987, left and became the Dallas Cowboys’ first-round pick in 1990. He returned to school this past off-season, and hopes to earn a degree in public recreation next year.

What’s an acceptable graduation rate? Chancellor Reed disputes the notion that football and scholastics don’t mix. A rate of more than 80 percent should be the standard for college athletes, he said.

“They don’t like me to say this, but the athletes are a privileged group,” he said. “You put a lot of resources behind them to make them successful…If they need help, they get it.”

For freshmen enrolling in 1987 - the most recent year for which NCAA figures are available - the graduation rate at all Division I schools was 53 percent for football players and 56 percent for all students. That compared with 46 percent for football players and 53 percent for all students three years earlier.

The rising overall rates in football are partly a result of the NCAA’s Proposition 48, which mandated in 1986 that athletes maintain a C average in 11 college preparatory courses and have a combined SAT score of 700 to be eligible to play as freshmen. The effect of the rule was to discourage coaches from recruiting marginal students.

At Miami, improved academic achievement reflects the national trend. The same Hurricanes known for taunting and trashtalking often earn diplomas.

“When you see them on TV making fools of themselves, people say, ‘What are these guys about?”’ Miami’s Lewis said. “But if you sit down and talk with them, you find out they’re serious about school.”

Lewis, a heavily recruited 275-pound offensive lineman from Massachusetts, turned out to be a scholar, not a blocker. He never played in a game but received a master’s degree in psychology recently at Boston University.

Florida’s Gilmore, meanwhile, did well both on the field and in class. The native of Chipley, Fla., was a two-year starter at free safety and the state’s lone finalist for a Rhodes scholarship in 1993.

Florida State middle linebacker Ken Alexander, the leading tackler for the 1993 national champions, needed just three years to graduate cum laude in communications. He earned a master’s degree a year ago and will begin law school at Florida State in August with $31,000 in scholarship aid.

While Alexander, Gilmore and Lewis took advantage of a free education, some 1990 recruits fumbled their chances.

Three members of Bowden’s 1990 recruiting class - Corey Sawyer, Patrick McNeil and Tiger McMillon - were involved in the nowfamous Foot Locker shopping spree, paid for by would-be sports agents, that tarnished Florida State’s 1993 championship season. McNeil was suspended for four games and McMillon for two.

Most disturbing was the case of Miami’s Ellis, who grew up in a housing project less than a mile from the campus and decorated his bedroom in Hurricane orange and green after signing a national letter of intent.

“It was my lifelong dream to play for Miami,” he said.

But Ellis repeatedly ran into trouble and faced charges ranging from grand theft and false imprisonment to armed robbery. He dropped out of school in 1991 and spent nearly two years in jail, but was never convicted of a felony.

One of Ellis’ former freshman teammates also has an arrest record and no degree. Police said David Holliman threatened his ex-girlfriend with a gun and hit her with a broom in separate disputes last year. Holliman, who was sentenced to two years of probation, never lettered for the Hurricanes and dropped out of school less than a year short of graduation.

Like many recruits at Miami, Florida and Florida State, Ellis and Holliman grew up in poor neighborhoods and faced a difficult adjustment to university life. Academic support programs are intended to make such transitions easier, while also monitoring classroom progress.

“I don’t know that we’ve lost anybody who has gotten here and has worked as hard as they can,” said Roger Grooters, director of academic support for athletes at Florida State.

Florida State was embarrassed in 1989 by the disclosure that All-American cornerback Deion Sanders played in the Sugar Bowl even though he hadn’t attended classes during the fall semester of his senior season.

It’s no coincidence that since then, Florida State’s budget for academic support has nearly doubled to $481,037, now 2.6 percent of the athletic department budget. The Seminoles’ full-time academic support staff has grown from three people in 1989 to seven.

Academic support once focused simply on tutoring to keep players eligible. Now it also involves counseling, career development and planning.

“When someone doesn’t graduate, you can’t blame the university,” Florida coach Steve Spurrier said. “With the support we have, anyone who makes a serious effort can graduate.”

The Gators will open a $3.6 million academic support center this fall. Miami considers its program led by Anna Price so successful that she recently was named coordinator for a university-wide academic support program.

On a wall in Price’s office hangs a drawing by Corries Hardy, a member of Miami’s 1990 recruiting class. The sketch shows NFL Hall of Fame coach Tom Landry, and quotes him acknowledging there’s more to life than winning championships:

“If your priority is football, then you’re going to suffer a whole lot.”

Monday: One player’s struggle to escape poverty and legal troubles.

MEMO: Cut in Spokane edition