(2020-10-12) In George Floyds High School Sports Was Seen As The Ticket Out

In George Floyd’s high school, sports was seen as the ticket out. ..1992 state championship game, George Floyd, the starting tight end for mighty Jack Yates High School... At that moment, Floyd’s future was already in jeopardy. He had tried and failed at least twice to pass a mandatory state exam. If he couldn’t pass it, he wouldn’t graduate. A big-time college scholarship would be out of the question.

Jack Yates High School has long been a source of identity, pride and affection in Houston’s Black community

But for decades Yates has struggled in its central mission to educate students, a victim of a U.S. educational system that concentrates the poorest, highest-need children together, setting them up for failure. (public schoo, educating kids)

in 1975, working to avoid mandatory busing of students, the city started a magnet program, hoping to draw students to integrated schools by offering specialized programming. Some students were drawn to the communications magnet established at Yates. But far more, including many middle-class Black families, left for programs elsewhere in the city.

In Floyd’s senior year of high school, 21 percent of the juniors and seniors at Yates who took the mandatory state test passed all three sections, compared with 43 percent in the district and 54 percent statewide.

It was a school where many students came from poor families, with little support at home, and where teachers were flooded with students with significant needs. So it was that students like Floyd, good kids who didn’t cause problems, could skate through academically, able to do the minimum.

In the years after Floyd left Yates, the school continued to struggle, targeted by one superintendent after another for overhaul and reform.

Nonetheless, in 2018-2019, the most recent year for which data is available, the school earned a “D” on its state report card.

For top athletes at Yates, things were easier — for Floyd and also for Dexter Manley, the former Washington Redskins star who graduated in 1977 even though he was unable to read or write.

While Floyd stood out as an athlete almost as soon as he arrived at Yates, he seemed to be paying less attention to his schoolwork

At that time, the crack cocaine epidemic was raging

Floyd and his buddies — Moore, Vaughn Dickerson, Jonathan Veal and Herbert Mouton — stayed away from drugs and crime, thanks in part to the discipline demanded by sports.

Teachers liked him, too, said Bertha Dinkins, who taught government at Yates for 18 years. “He was a different one. Very quiet,” she said. Other athletes could be disruptive in class, but Floyd rarely was.

*“He passed all his classes,” said McGowan, adding, “It wasn’t A’s and B’s.”

That was good enough to play football, but not necessarily to graduate in Texas, where students were required to pass a three-part proficiency test... he couldn’t graduate*

that fall, after high school, Floyd took the Texas state exam again... late to get a big-time college scholarship out of high school, Floyd passed the test, and in December 1993, he was awarded his high school diploma.

Floyd’s experience at South Florida Community College was much like Yates — he went to class and he played ball, but he left without a degree.

Leaving South Florida, Floyd once again found opportunity in sports. He was offered a football scholarship at Texas A&M University-Kingsville — at last, he would arrive at a four-year school.

But Floyd had not done well on placement tests, which meant he had to take developmental courses in reading, writing and math. Those courses consumed Floyd’s time, but did not count toward the credits required for eligibility, meaning Floyd was able to practice with the team, but not able to play in games.

The system asks them to manage a full class load, plus remedial courses, plus time-consuming sports activities.

The NCAA, which had ratcheted up academic requirements in response to critics, says some remedial courses are counted toward eligibility under today’s rules. But Huma argues that not enough of them count, and that doing so would amount to an admission that colleges are recruiting athletes who are not academically qualified, undermining the colleges’ argument that players are students first who don’t need to be paid.

Floyd never did play. After two years in Kingsville, he left, again without earning a degree

Soon after arriving home, he was arrested again, this time for delivery of a controlled substance.