Most high school quarterbacks do not worry about getting kicked off the team for good behavior.
But at Oak Hill Academy, the quarterback prays that he does not go the way of the starting offensive line and get freed days before a big game.
Oak Hill, near Laurel, is the District of Columbia's maximum-security detention center for violent juvenile delinquents. Almost a third of its inmates are awaiting trial on murder charges or have been convicted of murder. It is also home to what may be the best team in the district's high school football league, the Tigers.
FOR THE RECORD - An article in yesterday's editions about the football team at Oak Hill Academy, a District of Columbia juvenile detention facility near Laurel, misidentified its executive director, Edna R. O'Connor, as principal of the school. The principal is Arthur Linder. The article also failed to state that the football program there is junior varsity. The Sun regrets the errors.
The team was allowed to join the league this year, but it does not play "away" games (insiders refer to them as "escapes"). The visiting teams arrive by unmarked armored bus.
The Tigers also do not have a printed roster; that would violate juvenile offender privacy laws.
But they have overpowered the competition. On Tuesday, the Tigers beat top-ranked H. G. Woodson High School, 32-12, at their first homecoming game.
Homecoming is a little different at Oak Hill. Its administrators hope that none of their players returns. Instead, they talk about using the skills inmates pick up on the field to help them in school.
"Our mission is not to prepare them to stay at Oak Hill or in prison," said George Perkins, acting superintendent. "We have to educate, encourage and motivate. We don't want the kids to stay here."
At the academy, just off Baltimore-Washington Parkway in Anne Arundel County, residents are housed in two-story concrete dormitories. A 12-foot-high double fence with curly razor wire surrounds the center.
Long criticized as a dumping ground, Oak Hill has been the subject of a 14-year court battle aimed at improving conditions.
Two weeks ago, a District of Columbia appeals court ruled that a Superior Court judge should not have stripped authority over the school from the district government and school system in September 1998.
Two receivers were brought in to run Oak Hill because of what was termed the district's "abysmal response" to court-ordered improvements.
The recent ruling, hailed by Washington Mayor Anthony A. Williams as a "victory for self-government and a victory for our children," returned control of the academy to the local government this month.
Any hint of the legal wrangling was missing from the pep rally before the homecoming game.
The gymnasium looked and smelled like any other high school's, although its climbing wall seemed a bit out of place.
