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A Player Rises Through the Cracks
George Washington's Omar Williams got his NCAA certification despite a shaky academic standing in high school.
(Toni L. Sandys - The Washington Post)
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As far the Clearinghouse was concerned, Celestial had a full staff of teachers. The Clearinghouse approved 35 courses at Celestial, including biology, chemistry, two classes of French and two classes of Greek, the Web site stated on Wednesday.
"What? We didn't have anybody to teach all of that stuff," Mills said, when told of the list. "I don't believe this. We were trying to teach them elementary things, like reading, writing and math. They were having problems reading and writing; they couldn't speak Greek."
After the first couple of weeks of school, Mills said, she rarely saw Schofield or the students. She said Schofield only came by to meet college recruiters and would give them a tour of the school and church.
McCullough, now a senior guard at Benedict College in Columbia, S.C., said Mills's concern was justified.
"They were just some guys running a scam," McCullough said. "We were supposed to be going to school at the church. Schofield said we didn't have to go, so we never went to school."
Tuition bills were also overdue from some of the players. Mills said the church learned Schofield had opened a separate post office box in the prep school's name and was handling the mail. Mills said she notified the postmaster and had the box closed in early December 2001. She said the players still weren't attending classes and their academic transcripts from high school were missing. Mills said she began the process of closing the school.
On Dec. 11, 2001, George Washington announced that Williams had signed with the Colonials.
On Dec. 24, Mills met with Schofield and informed him she was closing the school.
In a Jan. 17, 2002, letter to the church's directors, Mills wrote that a preliminary investigation of the prep school found that "persons unknowingly and without authorization or authentication have engaged in changing student's grades, removed transcripts from school premises, misled the U.S. Postal Service without our knowledge or approval and rerouted or diverted mail, including funds earmarked for the Celestial Preparatory School."
Since the players rarely attended classes and didn't come to school at all after mid-October, Mills said none of them were given grades for fall semester 2001.
Reginald Holder, a friend of Schofield's, was hired by Mills as the church's legal counsel before its fallout with the coach. Holder, citing the dispute over tuition payments, said the players' relationship with Celestial Tabernacle Church was never very good.
"The commitment to the kids wasn't there," Holder said. "If their rewards are going to be strictly financially, then they're going to be sorely disappointed."
