STAYING ABOVE C LEVEL : Athletes’ Efforts to Maintain Academic Eligibility May Block Their Educational Development, Coaches Claim

Brian Leonard did not play football for Chatsworth High as a sophomore in 1983.

A failing grade in typing as a ninth grader at Chaminade Prep cost him an opportunity to play for the Chancellors’ varsity.

“I didn’t even know about the C-average rule,” Leonard said. “I learned the hard way.”

Leonard discovered then what thousands of other students have learned over the last 2 1/2 years--that a rule approved in 1982 and implemented in 1983 would force them to maintain their marks in the classroom or face the possibility of ineligibility.

The 10th week of the current high school year ended on Friday and by early next week students will find out their eligibility status for the next 10 weeks. The timing is crucial to athletes who play for schools that have earned playoff berths. City playoffs begin Nov. 29.

The C-average/no-fail rule, approved by the Los Angeles school board, makes students ineligible for extracurricular activities for 10 weeks if their overall grade-point average falls below 2.0 or if they receive an F in one class. Grades for one 10-week period determine eligibility for the following 10-week period.

It is statistically apparent that students are now becoming more aware of the rule and that they are adapting to it.

After the rule went into affect, 20.4% of the nearly 30,000 high school students in the L.A. Unified School District involved in extracurricular activities became ineligible after the first 10 weeks. By last spring, however, the ineligibility rate had fallen to 16.3%, according to the district.

Leonard was not one of the lucky ones. He discovered the severity of the rule for a second time during last year’s football season. After becoming a starting linebacker on the Chatsworth football team in 1984, he lost his eligibility after the first 10-week period when he received an F in a U.S. history class. He missed the playoffs.

This time, Leonard believes that he’ll be there. His team finished first in the Sunset League.

Leonard’s schedule this semester includes classes in basic math, modern literature, physical education and football. He’s also taking two classes in auto mechanics.

“I’ve worked my schedule for my first semester of my senior year to be basically easy so as to not be worried about being ineligible,” he said.

It is this kind of thinking that has many coaches, activity leaders and administrators frustrated.

While the C-average stipulation of the rule has met with nearly unanimous approval from coaches, many believe that the no-fail stipulation takes away the student-athletes’ ability to challenge themselves in school. They contend that difficult classes are being passed over in favor of easy ones.

Said Kennedy football Coach John Haynes: “The no-fail has a very negative effect on the athletes. We’ve had two or three kids with grade-point averages of 3.5 or better, yet because of one fail they were not eligible.

“The rule should be amended to where you have to have a C average with no more than one fail. It discourages the athletes from taking college-prep classes. A kid thinks twice about taking chemistry or advanced math class if he’ll be ineligible.”

Said Chatsworth football Coach Myron Gibford about taking easier classes: “It is very apparent at our school. It’s a real problem.”

Two years ago Reseda football Coach Joel Schaeffer was adamantly opposed to the no-fail rule. He told The Times, “It is the most obscene rule I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Granada Hills’ football and baseball Coach Darryl Stroh says the rule “has not necessarily improved the quality of education. Instead, it’s made it poorer.”

Hal Harkness, president of the Los Angeles Coaches Assn., sees the possibility of changing the no-fail provision as “nil.”

Harkness, the track and cross-country coach at Franklin High in Los Angeles, said he has found that no board members are interested in adjusting it. He would like to see the rule changed to allow two fails.

“The fact that you fail a single class but have a better than C average is not indicative of a severe academic problem,” Harkness said.

Harkness was on a district committee last school year that voted unanimously to recommend to the board that students be allowed two fails. “But it was never even submitted,” said Harkness, citing the board’s refusal to discuss the no-fail provision.

Toward the end of the 1984-85 school year, the board did, however, rule that students who failed a class could regain their eligibility by retaking that class, if it was offered, in summer school. But summer school does not help those taking part in fall activities.

Leonard, for example, is planning to upgrade his level of classes next semester to help him get in a trade school next year. He will take courses in government, economics, geometry and biology. While he hopes to run track as well, it is not as important to him as football in the fall.

“If there wasn’t the rule, I’d probably be trying harder classes,” Leonard said. “But it’s scary going through classes with the C average. You are nervous about what’s going to happen.”

Chatsworth baseball Coach Bob Lofrano said he believes that coaches and players are over the initial shock of the rule.

“After the last couple of years, I’ve gotten used to it,” Lofrano said. “I expect the kids to realize what it takes to become an athlete and what it takes to become an eligible athlete. We’ve all survived and made adjustments.”

Sylmar football Coach Tom Richards gave up his job as swimming coach partly to be able to monitor the progress of his football players in the off-season.

“Trying to keep Sylmar football players eligible is a full-time job,” he said.

With the football playoffs approaching, many coaches are hoping they won’t lose any key players to ineligibility.

San Fernando Coach Tom Hernandez said he may lose one or two players.

“It doesn’t make any sense to punish someone who has worked so hard all year,” Hernandez said. “If you fail a class you can always repeat it, so I don’t see what good the no-fail part does.”

If football is taken away from some of his players, Hernandez said, “they’ll stop coming to school.”

A real problem exists with incoming sophomores who are ruled ineligible before they have any chance to play football in high school, Hernandez said.

“They’ll come out for the summer,” he said, “then you’ll tell them they can’t play. We never see those kids again at school.”

San Fernando High fullback Ron McMillan said he knows a lot of players--and not just at his school--who are more interested in sports than classes. He said, “It would take a lot from some of the guys, if you took away sports. That really gets me. The C average is perfect,” he added sarcastically.

Three seasons ago, when the football teams were first affected by the standard, San Fernando High lost four starters just before the playoffs. Birmingham High was hit even harder, losing 11 players before its playoff game with Narbonne. Seven of the players were starters.

Said Birmingham Coach Alan Epstein: “We had to go with a patchwork of players. It got to the point where nine guys who played on offense also had to play on defense.” Birmingham lost the game, 21-15.

Epstein favors the C-average because, he said, it has weeded out the players who aren’t willing to work in the classroom.

“But I don’t agree with the one fail,” he said. “Some of the kids just won’t take the tough classes. I always tell them to take the most difficult English teacher to get better.

“The one-fail is very tough.”

On Nov. 8, 1982, the L. A. Board of Education unanimously approved the C average/no-fail policy for the students in grades four through 12. Board President Rita Walters authored the bill.

Previously, students were permitted four Ds and two Fs to maintain their eligibility.

Under the existing plan, grades were to be reviewed every five weeks. Students who did not meet the standard were placed on probation. If they did not improve their grades at 10 weeks, they became ineligible.

The action drew national attention and several school districts followed with similar eligibility standards.

“It seemed that we were placing more emphasis on extracurricular activities than on our general education classes,” Walters said. “When budget cuts were made, everyone screamed about sports, but no one screamed about losing sixth period or an extra math class.”

Early reaction to the rule from coaches and students carried a mostly negative tone. Some coaches predicted that as many as 50% of the athletes would not meet the standards.

After the rule was implemented, a student at Eagle Rock High was quoted by The Times as saying, “I know a lot of people who won’t come to school if they can’t play sports. Sports is a sense of pride. Take that away from them and they might kill themselves. I’m not kidding.”

Walters, who originally wanted the C average in academic subjects only, said the no-fail provision is vital.

“The rule is meaningless without the no-fail,” she said. “When work services or P. E. classes are included, those easy classes could have balanced out a failing grade in a tough class.

“People forget that the purpose of school is not to play ball or participate in drama. It’s to learn, grow and study, and hopefully leave with thinking skills, knowledge and the abilities to make the right choices in life.”

Harkness is not optimistic about the number of ineligible students dropping. If anything, it will stay the same or increase, he said.

His cross-country team, he said, will lose a third to half of its members within the next few days.

While he was coaching football at Manual Arts, Steve Landress managed to be successful despite the C-average/no-fail rule.

In 1983, Landress and co-Coach Jeff Engilman had just 33 players on the football team, but still won the City 3-A title.

Last season, the Toilers repeated as champions with a squad of 26. “Everybody else was ineligible,” said Landress, now the football coach at Cleveland.

Landress said that he lost a lot of players to the gangs.

“They want to belong to a peer group,” he said, “so instead of an athletic group, they belong to a gang.”

Those who did stay with the Toilers worked hard to remain eligible, Landress said.

Would they have worked so hard had they not been such a good team?

“I don’t think so,” Landress said. “They wouldn’t have seen the light at the end of the tunnel. Those guys were just aching for the playoffs.”

Landress is one of the few coaches who opposes the C-average requirement.

“I don’t think because a guy is a bad student he should be penalized,” he said.

“The lady (Walters) wrote the rule because she didn’t want dumb jocks. As a result, you don’t have dumb jocks walking around, you have dumb street gang members walking around.”

Craig Raub, coach of the girls’ basketball team at Kennedy, is in charge of the school’s pep club.

“The sponsors of extracurricular activities have added responsibilities because of this rule,” he said.

Coaches are doing more to make sure their players can play. But as Chatsworth’s Lofrano said: “You can’t go to class with them.”

Still, the coaches can monitor their players’ off-season activities.

Lofrano’s winter league baseball team will play in December and January. If a player is below 2.0 or is failing a class at any 10-week period before that, he cannot play for the team.

“Even though we don’t start the season until the spring, this way we keep the kids aware,” Lofrano said. “It’s seemed to work in the past.”

Canoga Park’s Doug MacKenzie makes his baseball players run laps if they receive any fails or unsatisfactory cooperation grades in the off-season. “What is a lap?” he asked, rhetorically. “It does, however, bring to their attention that they aren’t keeping up.”

MacKenzie is one of the few who favors both the C-average and the no-fail. “The tougher, the better,” he said.

Last season, Taft basketball Coach Jim Woodard lost the Franklin brothers, Keith and Kevin, to the no-fail provision right before the playoffs.

“Last year, we had study hall once a week,” Woodard said. “Now we have it twice a week. We also have the kids take progress reports to their teachers on Thursday to bring back Friday.”

Reseda’s Schaeffer also has weekly progress reports. The reports have helped, Schaeffer said, but elimination of the fail rule would help more.

“The kids with three fails or a D average, I have no sympathy for,” he said. “The one-fail is wrong. It’s too drastic.

“We in education should be a little more open-minded.”

Walters said it is a matter of priorities.

“Our responsibility is first to the youngsters,” she said. “The education opportunities our youngsters have are more important than having a winning team or having a team at all.”