THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 26, 1997 TAG: 9701240156
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 14 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LIZ SZABO, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 76 lines
VIRGINIA WESLEYAN COLLEGE sophomore Kevin Flanagan spends 20 hours a week in baseball practice. But for two weeks this month, he spent his afternoons in the library of Oscar Smith Middle School in South Norfolk, tutoring 11-year-old Lacey Gallop.
Flanagan was one of a dozen Virginia Wesleyan baseball players to volunteer to help Oscar Smith students prepare for the state Literacy Passport Test, which is required to advance to high school. The athletes worked with students for two hours a day in reading, writing and mathematics.
``For a lot of us, this is about giving back,'' Flanagan said. ``I grew up in Virginia Beach, and I wish I had had someone to help me when I was this age.''
Gallop said the tutoring has helped her earn `A's on all her papers this week. She wants to be a lawyer one day.
Gallop and Flanagan huddle over her workbook while working. On the table next to Gallop's elbow is a cream-colored manilla envelope filled with her work. Beside Flanagan is a pencil drawing on blue-lined notebook paper of his name, in all capital letters, surrounded by a flower, with a heart dotting the `i' in `Kevin.'
The two became fast buddies.
Flanagan wears a blue baseball cap over his closely cropped hair.
Gallop's eyes are wide beneath her large, orange plastic glasses. Her round face is framed by a cascade of finely braided cornrows, which swing and dangle in front of her eyes as she leans forward over her work. Flanagan playfully flips one the braids, caught up in a high ponytail, to cajole Gallop into thinking harder. They share a high five when she finishes the exercise.
Several of the baseball players who signed up as tutors plan to become teachers.
``This is good for me because I want to teach elementary or middle school when I get out of college,'' said senior Chris Lemore. ``It gets me to understand what kids are like.''
Marlins coach Nick Boothe and Oscar Smith reading specialist Linda Buckingham organized the tutoring session.
``I'm hoping this is just the beginning, that we'll develop a long partnership,'' Buckingham said.
Boothe encourages the team to volunteer. Baseball players have volunteered at Lynnhaven Elementary School and John B. Dey in Virginia Beach, reading to students and conducting baseball clinics.
For Boothe, his players learn as much as the children they tutor.
``When we're back at school, they all talk about the kids they met today and what they said,'' Boothe said.
Students at the private college come from more privileged families than the children they tutor, Boothe said. Volunteering helps them appreciate what they have had - not only financially, but emotionally.
``One of the things these players learn is to appreciate their parents,'' Boothe said. ``We have a tendency to take our parents for granted, and assume they'll always be around. But many of these kids have parents who work two jobs who they never see, or whose parents aren't around.''
Flanagan hopes to show students and teachers that athletes can be good role models - rather than merely the subjects of scandal.
``It's weird that all you see is someone trying to bring down athletes,'' Flanagan said. ``There's a role they can play as a bigger person to set an example for the little ones.''
Boothe said he often talks to school children about leadership and sportsmanship.
``I tell them `a winner doesn't do drugs, a winner doesn't cuss,' '' Boothe said. ``My idea of winning is not championships on the field, but having all my players turn out to be good people. My goal is that when you wake up in the morning, you try to help one person. Then it's a good day.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by MOTOYA NAKAMURA
Kevin Flanagan, a sophomore on the Virginia Wesleyan baseball team,
tutors sixth-grader Lacey Gallop, 11, at Oscar Smith Middle School.
``For a lot of us, this is about giving back,'' Flanagan said. ``I
grew up in Virginia Beach, and I wish I had had someone to help me
when I was this age.''