Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 11, 1993 TAG: 9306110051
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SCOTT BLANCHARD STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Boatwright, working toward a master's degree in counseling, and Tech athletic director Dave Braine created a program within Tech's academic advising office that includes mandatory study hall and tutoring sessions. Boatwright started in January with eight football players, two men's basketball players and one women's basketball player.
He's 10-for-11 - meaning only one of those at-risk athletes is ineligible for the 1993-94 school year. During the basketball season, Tech sources had said several of the Hokies'eight freshmen were struggling academically. Two, Shawn Smith and Damon Watlington, spent the spring semester with Boatwright; Ace Custis, Shawn Good, Delwyn Dillard, Dwayne Archbold and Travis Jackson have joined them for summer school - some just to get ahead.
"We haven't seen any red flags go up," Tech coach Bill Foster said.
That wasn't the case in December.
"You can tell somebody the iron's hot," Foster said. "Sometimes they've got to touch it."
Shawn Smith did. The Metro Conference all-rookie forward said his grade-point average rose from 0.3 after the first semester to 1.8 entering summer school, where he said he is earning an A and a B.
"It just really helped me so much," he said of the study sessions. "I hope and pray Boatwright's here for my four years."
Boatwright said he'll be at Tech at least through the 1993-94 season. That means another school year of his hands-on guidance. The program is based on an 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. time slot, with tutoring sometimes scheduled during those hours and sometimes in the evening. If there is no evening tutoring session, the student-athlete is free for the night.
"If you're not in class [or at lunch], you're with me studying," Boatwright said. "They're actually studying less time, but studying more efficiently.
"We work toward a quiz or a test. I'll say, `This is a busy week for you. This is what you need to get done.' "
Smith said the discipline is like being back at Fork Union Military Academy. However, he referred to Boatwright as a "colonel" only once, compared with two or three references to the former lineman as a father figure.
"We would go in in the morning and he'd let us be kind of leisurely, because we were just waking up," Smith said. "But when we came in in the afternoon, it was down to business."
The results are clear to Smith.
"Everyone has everything [to be eligible]," he said. "Now everyone's just trying to be a sophomore next year."
\ SCHEDULING: Proposed basketball games with Vanderbilt and Rice have fallen through, said Foster, who also has talked to Xavier. The Hokies' 1993-94 schedule, he said, should be complete next week.
\ STAYING ON: Foster said Jimmy Carruth, Corey Jackson and Don Corker will return for their senior seasons. During the season, team sources said some or all of them might be asked not to return. Tech's four seniors (including walk-on Mike Davis) should graduate no later than May 1994, Foster said.
\ BLOWING THE WHISTLE: Foster has openly criticized Metro Conference officiating, but he sees some hope. Dale Kelley, the Metro's supervisor of officials, has added responsibility for Sun Belt Conference officials, "which should really improve his pool," Foster said.
\ ETC: David Jackson, a basketball transfer from North Carolina-Asheville, is expected to be admitted before the end of the month. . . . Former Tech wide receiver Marcus Mickel was cut by the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League, which employs former Hokies Shawn Grayson (Hamilton) and Mark Scott (Ottawa).
by CNB