Leslie Blames System for Her Poor SAT Scores

When Lisa Leslie graduated from Morningside High in 1990, she was at the head of her class athletically and academically.

Not only was the 6-foot-5 center a consensus All-American in basketball, she was also recognized as a national scholar/athlete and carried a 3.5 grade-point average.

That’s why it was surprising when Leslie needed three tries to score 700 out of a possible 1,600 on the Scholastic Aptitude Test, the minimum score required by the NCAA for eligibility of college freshmen.

Leslie, entering her sophomore year at USC, says the education she received at Morningside failed to properly prepare her for taking the SAT, but her high school coach, Frank Scott, was not to blame.

“It’s not necessarily just the coaches, but the school system itself,” Leslie said. “I don’t think the educational system (at Morningside) has prepared any of the students to pass that test.”

In an effort to raise the academic performance of student athletes, the Inglewood Unified School District has adopted a job description for coaches that requires them to become more involved in the academic development of their athletes. To get the point across, the district has declared all coaching positions at Morningside and Inglewood vacant and is requiring present coaches to reapply if they want to keep their jobs.

Coaches, however, argue that they have monitored athletes for quite some time and view the new guidelines as unnecessary.

“If every teacher did what the coaches did, Morningside would be the No. 1 high school in the nation,” said Ron Tatum, who coaches football and the state champion girls’ track team at Morningside. “I know the coaches, and these guys are bending over backwards.”

Hollis Dillon, director of special services for the district and author of the job description, said he realizes coaches work hard. But he believes they need to take a more systematic approach in the way they monitor athletes and supervise tutorial programs.

“Too often we sacrifice academic performance for athletic performance,” Dillon said. “The result sometimes is that students cannot pass the SAT or the (American College Test) and get lost along the way.”

Leslie said her problems in taking the SAT stemmed from poor preparation rather than from a lack of concern on the part of Scott, her basketball coach at Morningside. Scott became an assistant women’s coach at USC last year.

“I think (Scott) was very good as far as academics go and as far as being honest about our grades,” Leslie said. “At one point in my junior year, all 12 players were on the honor role.”

In retrospect, Leslie added, “I’m not sure how much that meant.”

Although she had good grades in college prep courses, Leslie had difficulty with the SAT. She twice scored under 700 before enrolling in a private course, Test Takers, that cost between $500 and $600, she said.

“That’s what I had to do,” she said. “I was faced with a test I knew nothing about. I’m not saying I didn’t know my English or math, but it wasn’t something that stuck with me. I learned it to pass the test.”

Leslie said she believes students who come out of the Inglewood district are at a disadvantage in handling college-type work.

“I think it is virtually impossible for students there to pass the SAT,” she said.

Others, though, offer evidence to the contrary.

Tatum used two of his former football players as examples. Chris Moton and Jason Carr, Morningside standouts from a few years ago, both scored more than 700 on the SAT in their first attempts and received football scholarships to Washington State.

Moton, a defensive back, was named an Academic All-American last season in his senior year in college, Tatum said.

“They went through that SAT like it was nothing,” Tatum said. “In those years, the teachers (at Morningside) were pretty much the same as they are now. What has changed are the attitudes of the kids. A lot of kids who come into the classroom now would rather be somewhere else.”

Tatum says he encourages his athletes to take the SAT as juniors so they become familiar with the test. His son Ron, a senior wide receiver, took the SAT last year and scored more than 800.

“The key to the SAT is you have to have basic skills coming in,” Tatum said. “When you come into high school prepared, you usually leave the same way.”