Sunday, July 20, 1997

Rhodes' grades may scuttle season

By LANCE FLEMING / Abilene Reporter-News

Dominic Rhodes is still holding out hope that he'll be able to play football at Texas Tech this fall, but instead it appears that he'll be attending junior college.

Rumors have been swirling for months regarding Rhodes, the former Cooper running back who was the state's second-ranked prep recruit. Those rumors had him having the necessary grade point average on his core curriculum, as well as making the necessary score on his SAT.

Other rumors had Rhodes - who rushed for 2,188 yards and scored 33 touchdowns in leading Cooper to the Class 5A Division II state title game - having the necessary core but not the SAT and vice versa.

But as of right now, Rhodes hasn't been certified to enter Texas Tech by the NCAA Clearinghouse, which certifies all athletes.

This, however, is where things get complicated.

Back in the fall, Cooper administrators sent Rhodes' transcript to the NCAA for review. On the lower left corner of the transcript was a section that gave the letter grade equivalent of a number grade.

The Abilene Independent School District, though, doesn't recognize letter grades, and that apparently threw the NCAA off.

Upon reviewing the transcript, the NCAA assigned "D's" to several of Rhodes' number grades, meaning, essentially, they were failing grades in the eyes of the NCAA. The AISD, however, recognizes anything above a 70 as passing.

Those failing grades dropped Rhodes' GPA below the necessary 2.5 in his 13 core classes, which are four units of English, two units of science, two units of math, two units of behavioral science, two units of natural science, one year of an additional course in English, math or science and two additional years of any of the above.

NCAA rules state that if an incoming athlete has a 2.5 GPA in his 13 core courses then that athlete needs only an 820 on his SAT to qualify for an NCAA Division I athletic scholarship. However, Rhodes didn't have the 2.5, and the 810 he received on his latest SAT wasn't good enough.

If the NCAA had given Rhodes a 2.0 GPA, then he would have needed a 1,010 on his SAT in order to be eligible.

Where it all gets confusing on Rhodes' end is that he, his mother and Cooper administrators all believed - according to the grade scale at Cooper - that his 13 core classes gave him a GPA of 2.25-2.30, which would have made it necessary for him to score approximately 900 on his SAT to be eligible.

Also, the NCAA inexplicably didn't figure in two of the core classes Rhodes took at Cooper - Algebra I and Business Computer Application - as part of his GPA.

Rhodes' last hope is that his score on the ACT, which he took June 10, goes through the roof and then he can again petition the NCAA Clearinghouse to look at his transcript.

Rhodes' mother, Patsy Rodriguez, said that Tech officials told them that if the ACT score comes through, the NCAA would probably add the algebra and computer class to his transcript.

"I don't know why they didn't put them on there," Rodriguez said. "There was a question about that. But a junior college coach told us he found out from the Clearinghouse that they would accept them. This has all just been a big headache, and I feel so bad for Dominic. He doesn't want to go to junior college, but it might work out to be a blessing in disguise."

Rhodes, however, still harbors hope that he'll be playing for Tech this fall. But he also knows that junior college - or even another year at Cooper to get his core grades where they need to be - could be on his horizon.

"It would be a big disappointment to me and to all the people that helped me with this if I didn't make it to Tech," said Rhodes, who was voted the Texas Sports Writers offensive player of the year this past season. "The biggest disappointment is that I know I'd be there if the grades were what they should have been."

And to dispell any rumors that Rhodes doesn't have what it takes to make it in college, he earned a spot in college algebra a couple of weeks ago at Tech's freshman orientation. In fact, he had one of the highest grades on the math placement test of any of the inbound freshmen athletes.

"He was real proud of that," Rodriquez said. "Dominic is a smart kid, and he can do the work. There's no doubt in my mind about that."

And while he doesn't want to go the junior college route, Rhodes has already been checking some of them out in case that's where he ends up. He and his mother visited New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell, N.M., Tuesday and will visit Tyler Junior College on Monday.

"I know Dominic doesn't want to go to junior college," Rodriguez said. "I feel so bad for Dominic, because he's not getting to go to Tech. But I told him that whatever happens is God's plan for his life."