ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, August 4, 1996 TAG: 9608050097
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: ROCK HILL, S.C. (AP)
SOURCE: MICHAEL GORDON THE CHARLOTTE (N.C.) OBSERVER
THIS FALL'S FRESHMAN CLASS at The Citadel will face more scrutiny than any other in recent history ... which makes it hard for the cadets to fade into the background
Kim Messer enters a world of gray wearing a white blouse and navy blue slacks.
She's still learning The Citadel dress code. So are the other area students entering The Citadel this month. And there are all those lessons about honor and tradition, about shirt tucks and chin tucks and ``Sir, yes sir'' still to come.
Yet they are the lucky ones. Local alumni have armed them with vital information that could make those first months at the gated Charleston school a little less, shall we say, informative.
For starters, they now know the proper kind of sandpaper - 600 grit - to keep uniform brass tarnish-free, the right kind of repellent - freshman can't scratch - to keep Citadel gnats at bay, and the best choices for everything from alarm clocks and bedclothes to crew-neck T-shirts. More significantly, they have been let in on the secret that success at the school starts in the middle.
In short, Messer and her classmates will fall back on the tried-and-true to blend in with the best and worst of their freshman class. All those independent minds will be thrown into a climate as closed as a crock pot, then simmered over an open flame for as long as it takes to turn them into indistinguishable Citadel men - and women.
All knobs. All cadets. All the same.
``Your uniform is gray for a reason, '' Rock Hill attorney Henry Woods told about 15 incoming Citadel freshmen and their families during a private orientation last week.
``The best way to make it through the system is to be gray. You should not stand out in any way.''
Messer already does, of course. To date, the Clover High School graduate is one of three women who will walk through the gates of the Charleston school to form its first true coed class.
Three weeks from moving into the barracks, she already has learned there is no place to hide. Reporters call her at home. TV crews follow her around. A curious public openly debates whether she, unlike Shannon Faulkner, the first female cadet, has what it takes to stick.
Meanwhile, Messer treats the scrutiny like a snare. She is not giving interviews. Though Woods had planned to counsel her privately, she chose to attend the orientation with the rest of her area classmates-to-be instead, taking a seat one row from the back.
The Messers and the some 50 others on hand listened or took notes as Citadel cadets, such as twins Chris and Matt Coggins of Indian Land, joined area alums Woods, Marty Mobley, Randy Graham and others to clue them in on what no one else can tell them.
Twenty minutes into the cram session, the students were taken into a separate room for a closed-door, question-and-answer period. Forty-five minutes later, they returned: good chins and straight backs, golf shirts and dark ties, all wearing the same blank expression. The graying had begun.
Mobley later explained: ``When you tell them first off that `Listen, I don't know what your life has been like up to now, but I'm willing to bet that for 99 percent of you this will be the hardest thing you've ever done,' you'll get their attention.''
So will this: ``I lost 50 pounds in my first year,'' Chris Coggins tells the room. ``But the worst part is all mental.''
Woods, gray suit and beard, the blue stone of his Citadel ring darting before the students' eyes like a top-water lure, dominates the discussion and directs most of his comments to the parents. His message: Have faith.
``Nothing is going to happen to your child, physically,'' he assures them. ``That's just one of those things you have to trust us on.
``Now there will be days ... when I could put my foot on your child and feel the floor. The next day, I couldn't peel him off the ceiling. That's just the way the system works.''
And that's the way The Citadel will stay, he says, even as it changes.
``Whether we like it or not, there will be a change in the way we do things,'' he said as the meeting wound down.
``My advice to you is this: If you don't want to make it work, don't come to The Citadel, because The Citadel has always been about making it work.
``Your class will be under scrutiny like no other class in some time. There will be tremendous media presence. My advice to you is to ignore it. You are there to get an education and to make sure that the dollars your parents are investing are well spent.
``We need to get on with it, and we need to do it within the system and not let anyone interfere with that.''
LENGTH: Medium: 89 linesby CNB