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Friday, July 27, 2007
Of Footballs And Textbooks
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This coming school year, high school football players who attend campuses in Atlanta’s city school system will be getting some extra, intensive training. But victory on the field is not the goal, graduation is.
With a $180,000 donation from the Chick-fil-A college football bowl, Atlanta Public Schools will be hiring an extra, part-time coach for each team to focus exclusively on improving athletes’ academic performance.
As of earlier this week, most of the new coaches had been hired. Officials are expected to formally announce the initiative today.
The program, “Play It Smart,” was started by the National Football Foundation & College Hall of Fame nine years ago as a way to promote success off the field for students who don’t have the support at home.
Atlanta’s Mays High School has been involved in the past. But now all of the system’s high schools will participate.
Organizers tout some impressive statistics as proof of the program’s success in helping at-risk students: 95 percent of their seniors graduate and 80 percent head to college.
I wonder: Will those kinds of graduation and college-going rates ever be considered the norm?
