VARSITY TIMES - For these players, it's academic - Program assigns study coaches at three local high schools, using better chance at football opportunities as the incentive.
Kyle Byrdsong and Marcus Falanai sat at separate tables near the front of the Long Beach Poly football team's film room, each hunched over a textbook and doing his best to decipher the intricacies of algebra.
At another table, near two large and noisy fans that stood opposite a wall with the words "Study, Work and Play Like a Champion" painted on it, Daveon Akinsanya and Garry Phillips were punching numbers into calculators as they pored over a physics assignment.
"I use this period to finish all the hard work. It's like my safety net," Phillips said. "You're going to have to do all this in college, anyway, so you might as well get used to it right now."
Poly, Westchester and Los Angeles Crenshaw football players are learning the lesson first-hand as their schools are among 142 nationwide, and the only ones in the Southland, that participate in Play It Smart, a youth-development and mentoring program sponsored and administered by the National Football Foundation & College Hall of Fame. The nonprofit program began in 1998 with four schools.
Players' attendance at the 50-minute tutorial session, held daily except Friday, which is game day, is all part of working toward a 3.0 grade-point average before lining up in a three-point stance.
"You use football as the carrot," said Monica Kim, the Jackrabbits' academic coach. "We kind of bank on that carrot, and academically, they know what's at stake."
The Jackrabbits have excelled in football, winning 16 Southern Section titles and 26 league championships since 1980. With the support of Coach Raul Lara, Kim has similarly lofty goals for the classroom.
She requires attendance at the study sessions by all of the school's approximately 200 football players, has implemented biweekly grade checks and uses incentives as motivation.
"She's more strict than our football coaches," said Falanai, a senior tackle working to raise a 2.6 GPA in hopes of earning a college scholarship.
"She has days where she comes and checks up on us in classes. We show up, and she comes through the door like, 'OK, I just want to make sure you're here.' It's kind of annoying, but she does it for our own benefit. If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't even be thinking about college right now."
Play It Smart, funded in part by the NFL Players Assn., raises $3 million to $4 million a year to help train and employ academic coaches, like Kim, specifically to help football players.
