Educators Push Plans to Reform College Athletics : Sports: Proposal for tougher eligibility requirements faces NCAA vote. Critics say the new standards will discriminate against the poor.

ANAHEIM —  Some university presidents, stepping up their drive to reform college athletics, will vote on tough new eligibility requirements for student athletes today at a meeting of the National Collegiate Athletic Assn.

The proposed reforms have provoked angry criticism from other university presidents and some coaches, who say the tougher rules--requiring incoming athletes to have a C-plus high school average instead of a C--discriminate against poor youths, many of them inner-city blacks who would not go to college were it not for their athletic abilities.

“We can no longer permit a student’s admission (to college) to be decided on the basis of athletic ability alone,” said Thomas K. Hearn Jr., president of Wake Forest University in North Carolina and a leading proponent of the stiffer rules.

“It’s a holy mission,” said William E. Davis, chancellor of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. He said he will vote today to raise the number of academic classes high school athletes must take. But he plans to oppose the C-plus, or 2.5, cumulative grade-point average requirement.

“I think the message to students is that, whether they are an athlete or not, they’ve got to plan to go to college and prepare for it,” Davis said. He predicted that the C-plus rule would be approved by a 2-1 margin. “The most important thing is to have the solid core requirement. That will make the biggest difference in academic programs. But I think a 2.5 GPA is unreasonable.”

He said an “informal assessment” shows that 70% to 75% of minority athletes would not be admitted under the 2.5 GPA rule. “That’s wrong. I feel we have a responsibility to students who aren’t from affluent families.”

Hearn agreed that educational access for minority athletes is important, “but the access most of these people are talking about is access to the playing field,” he charged. “What we need to be talking about is access to the classroom.”

Microbiologist Arnold Lockett, a faculty delegate from Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina, favors raising academic standards. Colleges must make certain all students get a education, but “the ones who aren’t serving these kids well are the public schools from whence they come,” said Lockett, who is black. “They should be making certain these kids can read and write and think before they come to college.”

The new requirements would send a message to students as young as junior high school age that they must succeed academically if they want to play college sports. The rules would become effective in the 1995-96 academic year, and would apply to students who are now high school freshmen or younger.

“It’s hard for people like us high school students to maintain a 2.0 and play sports too,” said high school senior Brandon Jessie, 17, a Huntington Beach basketball standout. “I have to get my grades up to a C in algebra and in geometry before the (college basketball) signing date in April.”

“I don’t think they should be going to a 2.5 (GPA). They should be looking at all the kids struggling now to maintain a 2.0,” said Jessie, son of former Los Angeles Rams wide receiver Ron Jessie.

Others favor emphasizing academics over athletics.

“Right now, if you look at the priorities of student athletes, the athlete comes first,” said Terry Mann, a highly recruited high school basketball player from Fullerton. He scored 1,360 out of 1,600 on the SAT and is considering Stanford University, UC Berkeley and several Ivy League schools.

“Guys are looking to play pro ball even in high school, so they choose education as a way to play basketball. I think we should get back to education,” he said. “It’s so hard to get a college scholarship and even harder to go pro--numerically, it’s almost impossible. So we should prepare students to survive in the real world.”