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Making Grade Is Tough Proposition
Barnes Pointing Kids In Right Direction
Mac Barnes is probably Mississippi's most successful high school football coach. His Meridian High Wildcats have won three state championships in the last nine years and he has sent some 55 players on to college scholarships. Here are more of his views on today's problems in athletics from the high school point of view.
Question: Now, in the second year of Proposition 48 are the kids paying attention to the requirements?
Barnes: They're paying attention, but I still don't think they realize the full impact of this. I think you're going to find very many high school kids this year that are not meeting Proposition 48. That would
	
	Stan Torgerson Cats' Pause Columnist
	
lead me to believe they didn't realize the strictness of that rule.
Question: If the rule stays on the books, and it certainly appears that it will, will it have the desired effect? Will it make the student athlete as much of a student as he is an athlete?
Barnes: I think it will do this. I think it will change the type of athlete being recruited. I have not ever seen as much indecision on the part of college coaches. I've never seen them in the dark as much about whom they're actually going to offer a scholarship or whom they're going to recruit. Usually by this time a coach can sit down and tell me "we've got 15 or 20 solid people right now we're going to sign." Now I say, "What's it look like coach?" and they tell me "I really don't know."
Question: Coaches tell me, particularly in the last year or so, that the first thing they do when they visit a school is go look at a kid's grades. Is that true?
Barnes: The first thing they do is come by the office and ask me who we have. Once they get those names they spend more time in the record office and the counselor's office than they do in my office.
Question: Well, do all colleges basically recruit alike?
Barnes: The ones who recruit us, that is come in here and really recruit our kids, I would say are almost identical. I'll tell you another situation that I see. Last year a lot of colleges took on five or six guys that didn't meet Proposition 48, then brought them on campus for a year to try to get them eligible. 1 don't see that taking place this year. I think the majority of those students with whom they tried that did not make it the first year and as a result I don't know of a school right now that comes in recruiting us that's looking at that marginal guythe one that's not going to make it. They don't say "We're going to take him anyway and try to get him eligible in a year." That's the biggest change from last year to this year.
Question: Now that Division 11 also is going to observe Proposition 48, it seems to me the high school athlete is under more pressure than ever to hit the books.
Barnes: I think he is. Stan, but I think there's a fallacy in the whole idea in that a lot of people assume the athlete is not making the grades because he's not trying. There are a lot of these kids who try hard. They're just not going to make a two-point average in your tough coursesalgebra, chemistry, physics, things like this. I have a feeling there are a lot of college graduates who, if you went back and checked their transcripts, they wouldn't have a two-point (average) in those major subjects.
Question: Is there more intense competition between certain schools for athletes, for examplean Ole Miss versus a Mississippi State or an Alabama against an LSU, compared to the attitude of the Florida recruiter if he came in here to check on a player?
Barnes: The competition is this. The young man who can play major college football and has a three-point average is premium right now. That means that with the network of the college recruiting system the great athlete who has the grades is going to be nationally recruited. The almost great athlete but with great grades has also become a premium. I have some coaches tell me that some of the schools are recruiting kids based not necessarily alone on what they can do on the football field, but also that they can become eligible and meet Proposition 48. Therefore, a kid that might have stayed in-state because the out-of-state schools three years wouldn't have been interested in him, now sees the out-of-state schools coming in to recruit him.
Question: From how far away are schools recruiting players in
Meridian, Miss.? Are we even getting interest from the California schools, for example?
Barnes: We've always had that. That's part of the fallacy to me in college recruiting. The network is so broad. UCLA five or six years ago in the Donahue era, went to the national recruiting system. I will be getting a letter from them in February wanting to know who our prospects are for next year. There are four or five of your schools nationally, Pittsburgh, for example, that you get letters from. I personally do not respond to those. I respond to the coaches who come in personally and recruit our area where I can sit down one-on-one and talk to them. If I put a kid's name down on a letter, that is on a prospect list, then he's going to get on an overall list and he's going to start getting letters from everybody. I've got some juniors already getting letters. I've got one junior getting letters from Illinois and I've had no contact with them. I don't know how they got his name. It misleads a kid. He'll get a letter and that school may be sending out 2,500 to 3,000 letters and he thinks he's got a legitimate shot at going somewhere but they don't really know anything about him except his name, height and weight and that's it.
Question: How much weight does your opinion carry with a recruiter?
Barnes: That's a difficult situation. I've recommended a lot of kids who weren't signed and we've had some kids signed who I didn't think were great players, but they were big kids and, as a result, the school signed them. I think maybe my opinion goes a certain way but I think that probably the best thing that coaches ever do is come watch our players practice. I think you can tell more in practice. I can always send them a film that he's going to look good in. Out of 10 games if the guy is any kind of a player I can send out a film in which he looks good.
Question: And do you?
Barnes: I try to send films that will give them an honest opi nion. I've found that our players understand this. If I mislead a col lege recruiter then they're not going to come back. If our kid has a problem getting to practice on time, if I don't think his work habits are very good. I'll tell the college coach that.
Question: Well, that was going to be one of my questions. Do you ever warn recruiters about kids with character flaws? Barnes: Sure. I find thisthe best recruiters always check that out
Question: But Mac, isn't it true that there are some schools which make a living more or less recruiting the problem kid, the troubled kid because nobody else really wants him? There are some schools which just overlook the boy's character, don't they, and just concentrate on his physical ability?
Barnes: I really haven't run into that in this area. I know I watch the teams on TV that I feel that about and I think they're a negative influence and I think they make my job a lot harder. For example. I really think that an athlete with an earring in his ear is a bad example for young people. We don't have that problem here but as our kids look at TV and they see the kids from the big colleges with the earrings, with the really eccentric hairdos, things like that, making totally obnoxious statements in the paper, to me that's a negative effect in athletics. That's not the case here. Every coach
VIEWPOINT
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"There are a lot of these kids who try hard. They're just not going to make a two-point average in your tough coursesalgebra, chemistry, physics, things like this. I have a feeling there are a lot of college graduates who, if you went back and checked their transcripts, they wouldn't have a two-point (average) in those major subjects."
Mac Barnes, football coach, Meridian (Miss.) High School
that's come in this year has really questioned the grades and has really questioned the character of the player.
Question: What you are saying is that the college kids they see on television are, in many cases, role models for the high school players?
Barnes: I don't think there's any doubt of that. You look at news reports or articles about the number of kids who have gotten their hair cut like (Oklahoma linebacker Brian) Bosworth. Now he's a role model, good or bad. He's a role model and to me that's the reason it's important that our kids go into the good programs.
Question: Consider the conduct problems of the Miami team at the Fiesta Bowl, for example. As a successful high school coach I gather that dismays you a little bit. Does it?
Barnes: Very much so. Some of the proudest moments I've had
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Them That's Happy. . .
Dear Sir:
I just want to say how much I enoy the University of Kentucky Wildcats and how thankful I am for Eddie Sutton. I see a very positive coach and a different attitude in the boys. As I watch coach Sutton throughout the games and his excellent coaching as the sweat pours from his face, I wonder if there is a coach anywhere who works harder. But mostly I'm impressed with how he treats the boys.
You know we fans in western Kentucky are true Blue. We love our ball teams. In fact when the 'Cats are playing the streets are void of traffic, the mall is almost empty and everyone is at home watching.
We also fill up lots of busses for those out of town games in order to see our team play. We wish we could see them play in Lexington, but are unable to get tickets. So we make the bus trips and always have a good time. It's also our way of letting them all know what an exciting team they are. Is there a team anywhere so exciting?
My husband respects Joe Hall and I do too, but Eddie Sutton is my kind of coach and the Wildcats are always my team.
Thanks to you also for a fine Cats' Pause.
Mrs. Lois Smith Paducah, Ky.
. . .Them That's Not
Dear Sir:
As a longtime Wildcat fan. in a strange
land, far from home for the first time in 50 years, I'm ashamed to watch the 'Cats play! Someone has to say it so I will! This year's version is the worst coached group that ever wore a Wildcat uniform. I AGREE WHOLEHEARTEDLY with Barry E. Shields of Chatsworth, Ga., whose comments appeared in your Feb. 7 edition. The team simply is not ready to play in too many of its outings and definitely not motivated.
When it gets behind, it's like five guys out there on the floor free-lancing with no direction, no poise and with everyone trying to win the game single-handedly. And on defense, where, oh where, is that famous Sutton defense?
Constantly, they give up the baseline to the opponents to make easy drives for the basket and too often you even see the Kentucky player simply fall flat on his butt trying to guard his man while his man goes right by him! Adolph Rupp has had to be turning over in his grave all season.
And if they can't shoot free throws (which they can't), hasn't our famous coach ever heard of the 'Loyola hoop2the small hoop that fits inside the regulation hoop and clamps on to it? The players should never shoot at anything but this smaller one except in the game. When they practice all the time on the smaller one, when they get in a gamethe regulation size seems as big as a barrel. There is simply no reason for high school standouts, which every one of them happens to be, not to be able to shoot free throws. Practice on the small hoop and concentrate!
Come on Eddie, we're not interested in apologies, we're interested in a team that we can be proud of. These guys can't even pass the ball or move it around with some zip on it!
Sincerely yours,
Alan James Plymouth, Minnesota