D.C. Players Are Going Public
Schools Have Made Huge Strides in Attracting Area's Best

By Alan Goldenbach
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 15, 2006

This seemed like the easiest choice for Marvin Austin. Coming out of Hart Middle School in Southeast in the summer of 2003, Austin already was being viewed as a potential football star at the age of 14. DeMatha, with its reputation for producing college football players, appeared a natural next step.

The more Austin thought about it, however, the more reservations he had. What about the long commute, transferring from Metro to a bus? What about having to wear a shirt and tie every day? What about having to compete for playing time with dozens of other players with similar ambitions?

"I thought about DeMatha the whole summer," Austin recalled. "It was tempting, but I was thinking about getting on to the field. I'd get playing time earlier [at a D.C. public school], instead of going to a private school and sitting for the next two years."

Austin decided to go to Coolidge High in Northwest and started on the defensive line as a freshman. He has blossomed into an All-Met, 6-foot-3, 300-pound tackle with rare speed that has college recruiters drooling.

Austin is just one of several high-profile football talents in this year's senior class who have elected to stay in D.C. public schools, where they are helping erase a nasty stigma. For years, the schools of the D.C. Interscholastic Athletic Association (DCIAA) could not attract talented football players. Many kids who stayed in the public school system could not meet NCAA academic entrance requirements, which often scared off recruiters. The best players went to private schools, which promised better education, coaching, understanding of NCAA rules and contact with recruiters.

Now, top flight college football teams that have long ignored the DCIAA are taking notice. Austin, who transferred this summer to Ballou, and All-Met wide receiver Arrelious Benn, who attends Dunbar, have several dozen scholarship offers from schools that include Notre Dame, USC, Miami and Florida State.

And the District's strong class of 2007 isn't limited to them. Austin's teammates at Ballou, Lamar Milstead and Dwan Thornton have orally committed to sign, Milstead with North Carolina and Thornton with Kent State. Another teammate, Romale Tucker, has offers from Big East and ACC schools. Dunbar quarterback Nathan Bussey has several Big East schools as well as Illinois in pursuit of him. Illinois last year signed Dunbar's Vontae Davis, the younger brother of former Maryland all-American Vernon Davis, who was the sixth pick in the NFL Draft in April.

The DCIAA also has caught the eye of ESPN, which plans to broadcast the Oct. 20 game between Dunbar and Coolidge on ESPNU.

The emerging reputation of DCIAA schools is catching even some players by surprise. Benn, for example, tried to get into Gonzaga as a freshman but could not pass the school's entrance exam. "It's tempting and you want to go there," Benn said of the private Catholic school. "I knew I was taking a chance [coming to Dunbar], but I didn't know it was going to turn out like this."

One of the biggest reasons the DCIAA has been able to hang on to its players has been the introduction of the middle school football program in 1992. Prior to that, participation in local youth leagues was the only introduction to the sport for city youths, and private school coaches canvassed those fields for talent.

According to Dunbar Coach Craig Jefferies, the middle school program has only taken off within the last five or six years, after it proved its stability and its success at teaching youngsters the fundamentals necessary for playing high school football. D.C. public high school coaches regularly attend middle school games, and the players recognize them.

"We're catching them now, and keeping them here," Jefferies said.

Austin, for example, opted for Coolidge after the Colts hired Jason Lane as coach before Austin's freshman year. With a coach he knew and trusted, his decision wasn't as difficult.

"It probably would have been easier to go off to a private school," Austin said. "I thought to myself, 'If I get an 'A' at Coolidge, it's the same as an 'A' anywhere else.' All I needed was a chance to play, and I took advantage of it."

Allen Chin, executive director of the DCIAA said: "Our JV program 10 years ago was non-existent. We had kids coming out of middle schools [and into public high schools] that had no skills."

It shouldn't come as a surprise that the District produces strong football talent. According to a 2004 study by recruiting Web site rivals.com examining where the NFL players come from, the District spawned more NFL players per capita than any U.S. state (17.52 per million population; Mississippi was second at 17.06).

Major colleges, however, still stayed away because many of those players had trouble qualifying academically. Mid-major programs were usually the ones that took chances on those types of recruits because they accepted players who were "partial qualifiers."

"We're recruiting the inner-city kids now," said Virginia Tech assistant head coach Billy Hite, a District native who played at DeMatha, and has been with the Hokies since 1978. "It used to be we couldn't take them because of grades."

Players are also staying at public schools because their options are now a little more limited. It used to be that if a player hit a late growth spurt or developed his skills later, he could transfer to a private school in the middle of his high school career.

"We had a number of kids come in as 11th graders," DeMatha Coach Bill McGregor said. "Several a year."

Three years ago, though, the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference passed a rule that required any student who transferred into one of its schools after the 10th grade to sit out of athletic participation for one year.

"For the most part, if you don't get them in by ninth grade, you can't get them," Gonzaga Coach Kenny Lucas said.

As a younger generation of coaches has taken to the sidelines of D.C. public schools, they have brought with them an understanding of NCAA eligibility requirements. Jefferies and Lane, for example, have academic coaches on their staffs who explain the sometimes confusing NCAA rules to players and parents.

"Your mama and your grandmamma, those were your academic coaches," said Lane, who played at Ballou before graduating in 1988, and first hired an academic coach last year. "Academically, we can't compete with DeMatha or St. John's, but we've improved drastically."

Benn said: "The equipment, the guidance, the exposure, the private schools give you all that. [D.C. public schools] had a bad reputation of guys not working hard. But we love to compete, and we're showing we can do it now."