Prep coaches work to push academics

National signing day marks the realization of dreams for thousands of prep football players each year, but there’s a side to it that few see. Or maybe it’s a side people don’t want to see.

Alongside the loud celebrations that filled high school gyms and auditoriums last week for those who saw their dreams come true was the deafening silence coming from those who could have been celebrating.

For every Tana Patrick or Dean Haynes there is a teeanger who realized this week that taking the easy way out in the classroom was a mistake they will always regret. Their Wednesday passed with little fanfare and moments when they must have wondered how it got this way.

“The biggest problem is that kids don’t understand that it starts the day they walk in as a freshman,” said Ridgeland coach Mark Mariakis, who, like nearly every prep coach, has seen both sides of the story play out. “I’ve had seniors tell me they are going to buckle down and get a scholarship, and by that time it’s too late.

“We’ve got kids right now who aren’t going because they didn’t buckle down and do the work from their first class as a freshman. You dig yourself such a hole that, one, you can’t get out of and, two, colleges don’t trust that you can do the work because you haven’t proven that you can.”

The days of big-time college programs sneaking in academic underachievers are long gone. The NCAA not only requires student-athletes to pass entrance exams, it more importantly requires he or she enter college with 16 core classes in their academic resume.

Perry Swindall, by his own count, has helped more than 50 prep athletes continue their football careers and education on the next level. The LaFayette High School coach, who led championship programs in Alabama before retiring in that state a year ago, has seen the academic landscape change a great deal during his career.

“The academic requirements have been increased by the NCAA tremendously over the past 20 years,” he said. “I can remember early in my career the NCAA started its requirement, called Proposition 48, and everybody was so afraid that it would eliminate kids from playing sports. But what’s really happened is, what kids always do, they’re resilient and they rise to whatever requirements are out there and they usually meet it.

“There are a lot of athletes in college right now who are more prepared for college because of the NCAA requirements. You can’t just goof off, and it’s probably the best thing to ever happen to athletics.”

Swindall isn’t just saying this from a coach’s standpoint. Son Evan fulfilled his dream by signing with Ole Miss this week.

“We talked about it in the ninth grade,” the coach said of the importance of academics. “We tracked him and we knew he had to have 16 core courses. I told him, here are the courses we’re going to take and he was all for it. The courses you need to take to be qualified for the NCAA are also the courses you need to take to go to college. It worked out easy for him.

“That’s the most important thing in all this, that college football is about college first. No matter what he does on the football field, we want to see him graduate in five years or so, get a degree, have fun with life and do what he wants ... and pay his own bills.”

But not every kid has parents so dedicated to their academic well being, and when there are 100 or so athletes a coach has to keep up with, there are those who can fall through the cracks. Dalton High School athletic director Ronnie McClurg, who coached on the sideline for 30-plus years, has a plan in place he says gives his kids every chance to succeed in the classroom.

“From the day they walk in we’re on them constantly about their grades,” he said. “We make them go to study halls and tutoring sessions. It’s mandatory if they fall behind on their grades that they go to tutoring. Really, the key is to just get them to go to class and turn in their homework. If they start doing it when they’re freshmen, they’ll keep doing it.”

Ridgeland’s Mariakis, who has helped put two players in major college programs in the past two seasons, has several underclassmen who have the talent to play at the next level. He hopes the lessons learned, both good and bad, will not be lost on rising stars such as linebacker DeVaughn Buchanan and safety Dewaun Harrison.

“They’ve seen guys like Nigel Nicholas, Mike Bowman and Chad Smith, guys who have done the work, and they’ve seen the other cases where guys could have gone somewhere and haven’t,” Mariakis said. “They know it’s not the ability that cost them, it was something else. It’s a learning process, and it’s one for our school to learn what it takes to go D-I. It’s our job to get them to college, and from there the colleges will surround them with support that helps them get through.

“The main point is, if you don’t do your work it closes doors and you end up having to take anything that might be out there, if anything comes. That’s the saddest thing, that you know a kid could play at the next level and he could have made good grades and he just didn’t.”