Academic Standards

WASHINGTON -- The world held its breath.Last August, when Ohio State's football season was about to begin, the status of Andy Katzenmoyer, a student-athlete studying linebacking, was in doubt. His classroom performance had been bad, so he had to take three summer courses. Would he pass music, golf and AIDS awareness?He did. The world exhaled.Now academic standards have again become a nuisance, as has a federal judge. He has disrupted high schools' attempts to educate athletes, and has thrown the recruiting of athletes by the 302 Division I schools into uncertainty, by declaring the NCAA's minimal academic standards illegal.

The president of Washington College resigned yesterday during a two-hour, closed meeting with trustees of the Eastern Shore liberal arts school.The unexpected move by President Charles Trout comes as the college appears within reach of balanced budgets for the first time in several years. As recently as fiscal year 1992, the school notched a $771,000 deficit on expenditures of $20.3 million, rTC according to the latest edition of the Washington College fact book."It's funny how historians think in terms of a decade," said Dr. Trout, who has served as president for five years.

During the University of Arkansas' drive to the national championship last spring, coach Nolan Richardson used the winners' podium as a pulpit. He extolled the virtues of opportunity, and condemned college presidents bent on passing regulations he felt would have a disastrous impact on some females, many minority group athletes and low-income whites.Eight months later, as college football enters its final weekend and college basketball shifts into high gear, the fierce tug-of-war over access to higher education by athletes has intensified.

As the University of Maryland's president, William English "Brit" Kirwan maintained a delicate equilibrium, acknowledging the school's history as a parochial campus dominated by athletic concerns while encouraging its relatively recent emergence as a major national research center.Kirwan, 59, is scheduled to announce today that he will leave College Park to become president of Ohio State University in Columbus. He has never held a job anywhere but Maryland, where he started as a junior mathematics professor 33 years ago and rose through the ranks to its highest job."

Selena Guerrero-Martin must have a Time-Turner. The Poly senior couldn't possibly do so much so well without being in two places at one time. She has to be hiding one of those little hourglass necklaces that hurled Harry Potter's friend Hermione Granger back in time so she could double up on her classes. Just look at this slice of Guerrero-Martin's academic resume: 4.0 weighted grade-point average, National Merit Scholar commended student, Maryland Distinguished Scholar semifinalist, Maryland Hispanic Recognition Program finalist.

Panel to toughen freshman standardsFreshman eligibility requirements may get tougher, but freshmen probably still will be competing under new guidelines proposed this week by the NCAA Presidents Commission.The 44-member commission, the spearhead of college reform the past six years, was expected to end a two-day meeting today by calling for strengthened academic standards throughout Division I."The trend is toward strengthening initial requirements, rather than keeping all freshmen out," NCAA president Judy Sweet said.

NO PATRONIZING lectures today about the value of a good education. Those 30,000 kids heading for summer school know bad news when they hear it. Instead of sleeping late, they'll sweat the multiplication tables. Instead of playing ball, they'll match nouns with verbs. The kids have every right to be ticked off. But they need to know where to direct their anger, and it ain't gonna be pretty. Last week, city school officials announced that nearly one-third of the public school population deserves to flunk.

In his recent column ("Student-athletes need a degree, not a paycheck," May 6),Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.makes a persuasive case for the bargain available to students who are talented enough to win an athletic scholarship to a college or university. They, as Mr. Ehrlich was, are in college primarily to prepare for a career in something other than professional sports. However, for the student-athletes with professional prospects, I believe that we can design a better system. Although some might find this approach a radical change, I believe that it is practical in they way it effectively utilizes the existing infrastructure and would actually make the jobs of coaches and athletes clearer and simpler.

"If we were worth a ----, we wouldn't be playing at The Citadel." -- My Losing Season A teammate of Pat Conroy's made that observation during their senior year at The Citadel, back in 1966-67, when the seeds of The Great Santini and The Lords of Discipline were germinating in the Bulldogs' point guard. Pat Dennis, the coach who is in his 13th season tilting at windmills at the military academy in Charleston, S.C., has a signed copy of My Losing Season, an autobiographical work about Conroy's final go-round in the game.

The state school board is considering whether students who play sports in high school should maintain a minimum 2.0 grade point average to be eligible, a requirement already in place in 16 school systems in Maryland. A statewide committee of superintendents, principals and coaches made the recommendation, although school board members expressed concern at a meeting Tuesday that such a standard might increase the dropout rate among students who are drawn to school for the chance to play on a team.