Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, July 3, 1993 TAG: 9307030076
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SCOTT BLANCHARD STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
In the spring of 1992, Kinzer walked up the steps of Cassell Coliseum to tell Tech's academic advising office he wanted to re-enroll and earn his degree. He had spent five years as a student-athlete, but, in part because of a switch in majors, was 42 credit hours short of a degree.
"I had the damnedest knot in my throat," he said. "I don't ever remember anything being harder than that. I didn't cry, but I came damn close."
Kinzer was admitting, he said, that he had made a mistake. He wasn't alone. Of those student-athletes who enrolled at Tech in the 1983, '84 and '85 school years, only 31 percent of football players and 46 percent overall graduated.
Kinzer also isn't alone in coming back. Jerry Via, the school's athletic academic adviser, said Kinzer, Victor Jones, Alonzo Smith, Kent Thomas, Allan Thomas, Milton Franklin and Eddie Hunter are among the football players from that era who didn't graduate during their playing careers but either have earned a degree or are working toward one.
That is in part because Via, his staff, Tech football coach Frank Beamer and athletic director Dave Braine have kept in touch with former players, urging them to come back.
Kinzer's push came differently.
A disagreement with management, he said, preceded his dismissal from New York Life insurance company in Blacksburg in late 1991. In January 1992, he was visiting his mother in Greensboro, N.C., on his birthday.
"She said, `Chris, ever thought what you have from Virginia Tech? A Peach Bowl watch, a Peach Bowl ring and a poster they made of you,' " Kinzer said.
He enrolled that spring.
Academic careers such as Kinzer's are less common at Tech these days, as graduation rates have increased for the 1986-87 and 1987-88 classes.
Those interviewed about the days when the athletic department was its own corporation, run by football coach/athletic director Bill Dooley, place at least some of the blame for not graduating on themselves. But they describe an atmosphere in which academic progress hardly was a priority.
Dooley, who claimed to be a "pioneer" of athletic academic advising during his days at North Carolina from 1967-77, said the statistics misrepresent his record at Tech. "I don't think there's any doubt about it, the goal was to get a degree," he said.
The players tell a different story. Tough classes were put off until after the football season or, in some cases, for years; tutors were available, but athletes had to seek them; and the emphasis was on keeping the players available for Saturday afternoons.
"Graduation wasn't my priority," said Kinzer, who enrolled at Tech in 1985. "I cared about being eligible to play football."
Victor Jones, now a linebacker with the NFL's Detroit Lions, and Allan Thomas agreed. Even Earnest Jones, a former fullback who graduated on time, said players would be pushed "to a point . . . but you've got to prepare for the game that week.
"They would give [a player] encouragement, but [say], `We can push you so far.' "
The feeling, Victor Jones said, was: "If you made it, you made it. If you didn't, you didn't."
Thomas, a detective with the Blacksburg Police Department, would have earned his degree in the spring had he not suffered a stroke in February that left him with no feeling on the back of his left hand. Now, his goal is to have a degree in December.
Thomas, a wingback, enrolled in 1982 and said his mother helped him schedule his first quarter of freshman classes, all pertinent to his major then, education.
The next quarter, he said, the academic advising office set up his schedule with the admonition, "Your main focus right now has got to be on football."
His reaction?
"I thought, `Well, I guess they know what they're doing.' "
Victor Jones, who enrolled in 1984, said the academic advising office in those days looked out for the athletes . . . to a point. Tough courses in a player's major would be singled out.
"You'd keep putting [them] off until the end [of your eligibility], or until you had room for error," he said. "Everything was strategically done."
Jones, a four-year student who withdrew from his final semester after being drafted by the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers, left Tech needing 34 credit hours to graduate. He just finished his degree in consumer studies.
Thomas' five years at Tech left him about 40 credit hours short of a degree in urban affairs. Thomas had to take a required freshman biology class this year - 11 years after he should have taken it.
"That's just another ghost from the past," he said.
Dooley said he had never heard of players being told not to take required classes, but he said there was an academic strategy. To be eligible then, upperclassman who had earned a certain number of credits needed a 2.0 grade-point average.
"Say [a player] needed a `C,' " Dooley said. "He could take two courses, get a `B' in an elective, a `D' in a real tough course, and it would average out to a `C' . . . to keep him from flunking out. How are you going to graduate if you flunk out of school?"
To Kinzer, Jones, Thomas and others, however, the focus wasn't graduation. It was maintaining the GPA.
"It'd get around: `What's an easy class? . . . I need a three-hour `A,' " Kinzer said.
"You weren't the only one doing it."
Summer school wasn't a chance to get closer to a degree, it was time to improve your GPA. In some cases the courses came recommended from the athletic department.
"One summer, we took sculpture classes," Thomas said, grinning at the memory. "That was what we were supposed to take. I don't think I remember too many artists on our team."
There were some serious students during those years, though. Earnest Jones credits Mike Johnson, a Pro Bowl linebacker for the NFL's Cleveland Browns, with inspiring him to graduate.
"He told me, `Half the guys you see here will not graduate. Don't hang out with them. Play football and get out of here - graduate,' " Jones said.
Jones is supervisor of a Washington, D.C., after-school program called City Lights School. He said he's thinking about trying to earn a master's degree.
Kinzer, who said his per-semester GPA since he re-enrolled has been at least 3.0 and as high as 3.6, wants to use his degree in physical education to teach and/or coach.
Victor Jones said he had promised his parents he would graduate, and he has had the value of a degree drummed into him since he's been in Detroit.
"I was trying to do some things in the off-season job-wise," he said, "and a lot of people asked me did I finish school yet. I said no. They said, `Well, as soon as you finish, let me know.' "
Thomas joined the police force six years ago and said his life wouldn't be much different had he graduated on time. But he fears that friends who visit his home will look at his athletic-achievement awards and wonder: Where's the degree?
His wife, he says, keeps her degree in a closet.
"As soon as mine lands in my hands, it's going right smack in the middle of the living room wall," he said.
Thomas has spoken to classes of Tech athletes, stressing the importance of a degree. Kinzer said today's Tech athletes have at least one huge advantage over yesterday's: the academic advising office sitting on the athlete's shoulder.
"With the setup they have there now," Kinzer said, "it would be awfully hard for someone to not succeed. You'd be a fool not to let them help you. You'd be a fool. You'd be a damn fool."
by CNB