They are the ones you don`t normally read about-not when it comes to academics. The only athletes who fit into that category are the ones who fail, the ones who show up in the statistics over which college administrators wring their hands and college coaches shake their heads.
No, these are the boring exceptions.
Four athletes.
A multimillion-dollar football player, a Swedish tennis player, an impassioned softball player and a determined basketball player.
Students.
Four graduates or soon-to-be graduates for which the path was neither ordinary nor necessarily easy. They are the ones you don`t read about often enough.
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The question Jeff George is asked most often is why. Why bother to return to the University of Illinois and endure an 18-hour semester load to finish his studies in speech communications? Why, one year ater signing a six-year, $15 million contract with a $3.5 million signing bonus to play for the Indianapolis Colts?
”The main thing is the promise I made to myself and my family that I was going to finish,” said George, who graduated with his class this month after making himself eligible for the NFL draft following his junior year.
George is not about to deny that there were times when he wondered what he was doing.
”There were days when it was hard for me to sit there,” he said.
”There were many times I sat in class wondering, `What am I doing here?
Why aren`t I on some island someplace?` ”
George, who would like to pursue a career in television or radio after his football career ends, said his fellow students were friendly but there was definitely a feeling of isolation. ”Every class I was in had mainly sophomores and juniors and I really did feel old,” he said. ”It was hard sitting there and giving the speeches I had to give. It was hard because I`d get up and everyone would be focusing in on what I had to say.”
George should be well-prepared for any public-service announcements he`ll have to deliver in the NFL. He gave one speech last semester on AIDS, another on drug abuse, drinking and driving, and one on seatbelts.
George said he did not mind being treated a little differently than he was a year ago. ”A lot of people knew me (last year) but it seemed like more people knew me after I left,” he said. ”I thought it was neat because everywhere I went, people wanted to know about my experiences. But signing notebooks made me late for a couple of classes.”
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Erik Andersch was sure he knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to travel to the United States from his native Sweden, play tennis for an American university, get a college education and experience a foreign culture.
At least he thought he was sure.
Reality set in shortly after he arrived on the campus of Northern Illinois four years ago.
Staying with two seniors in an off-campus apartment, Andersch wasn`t experiencing all-American college life. He was, however, experiencing fear and loneliness and major misgivings.
Andersch remained in the empty apartment as his classmates and teammates went home for that first Thanksgiving. His parents (his mother is a lawyer, his father a doctor) broke down and paid for his flight home at Christmas and then, literally, had to force him to go back. ”I think I was very immature,” Andersch said. ”Most Swedes my age serve in the military. It`s mandatory. But I didn`t do that. I said, `I`ll go there first and then serve after.` There was a lot of fighting, a lot of tears.”
Classwork was particularly difficult for Andersch, who had to adjust to a completely different system than the one he left in Sweden, where classes last no longer than seven weeks. At the end of his sophomore year, his grade-point average dipped to 1.9. Tennis was his only outlet.
Life in his sophomore year, while still difficult academically, became much easier, particularly with the addition to the tennis team of Mats Persson, a 27-year-old fellow Swede. ”Everything changed completely after that first year,” Andersch said. ”I learned about American culture. I started to see a future.”
Two years later, Andersch has graduated from NIU with a 3.0 GPA, a degree in economics and the honor of most valuable player in the Mid-Continent Conference with a 28-7 record at No. 2 singles. He will take his entrance tests in two weeks, then try to get into an MBA program, after which he hopes for a career in international marketing or possibly State Department work.
The irony does not escape him. ”I want to work for an American company,” he said. ”Now I`m so used to this society, I don`t know where I belong. I`m so thankful. I feel stupid to come here, take and leave. I feel I want to give something back.”
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Beth Raspopovich`s older brother could hardly believe it when she told him. A math teacher? ”But you`re so smart,” he said. ”Why not be a lawyer or doctor?”
Raspopovich has honed her reply. ”I want to do something that makes me happy,” she said. ”Even if you make all the money in the world, if you don`t enjoy getting up every day, five days a week, it can be a hellish life.”
Doing the unexpected is natural now. An unheralded athlete coming out of St. Francis de Sales High School, she ended up earning a partial scholarship at De Paul to go along with her athletic grant. She completed her collegiate softball career as a first baseman with four school records for games played, hits, singles and triples.
And certainly not to be forgotten, to go along with her all-conference selections in three of her four years, are academic honors that include GTE first-team all-American honors one year and all-conference, all-district and all-American nominee designations the other three.
Last semester, Raspopovich was a student-teacher at Washington High School, teaching geometry, algebra and trigonometry. The first time she went before a class solo, she talked so fast that her presentation was over 15 minutes before the bell rang. ”I was pretty nervous and excited,” she said. ”I`m a lot better now.”
She would like to teach and coach in the Chicago public school system after graduation and is hoping to stay on at Washington. ”Teenagers are teenagers no matter where you`re at,” she said.
The most rewarding part of her job? ”Just the kids who come to ask you for more help when they don`t really have to,” she said. ”The kids who are doing pretty well but want to learn more. Not many people in general want to do more than they have to do.”
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Ironically, it took a failure to raise Keith Gailes` self-esteem. Or at least to give it a nudge.
Basketball was not the problem. Never had been. Gailes was ranked among the top 100 players in the nation four years ago as a high school senior in Michigan City, Ind., and was offered an athletic scholarship to Loyola. He figured he had it made until his entrance exam scores fell beneath Proposition 48 guidelines.
A year away from basketball hit him hard. It also made him think.
”It never really dawned on me in high school until I was a Prop. 48,”
Gailes said. ”Then entering college and not being able to play basketball, I started to get very serious about getting a college degree.”
When he returned to the basketball court, excelling immediately with a 22.5 average, Gailes was determined to stay on track in the classroom.
”You go on road trips and sometimes you miss a class two or three times a week and it puts you behind,” said Gailes, who carries a 2.3 average. ”But you have to read in the hotel, on the bus, wherever you have time.”
Gailes has one more course-Introduction to Poetry-to complete this summer before receiving his degree in sociology.
Last month, after finishing his collegiate basketball career as only the second Loyola player ever to score more than 2,000 points, Gailes was the second draft choice in the World Basketball League draft, going to the Dayton Wings.
”I`m going to chase my goal of the NBA now,” he said. ”I`m going to go to the pre-draft camp in Chicago (June 5-9) and hopefully things will work out. You have to have that confidence.”
When basketball does end, Gailes said he would like to teach sociology and coach basketball on the high school level. His regrets no matter what happens, Gailes said, will be few.
”Education can make you go so much farther than I had ever realized,”
he said.
”To have that degree, you can just hold your chin up a little higher.”
