By MARK VIERA and PETE THAMEL
Published: February 11, 2011
The anticipation for Jadeveon Clowney, considered the nation’s top high school football player, to announce his college destination has kept coaches and fans across the country in suspense. It will end Monday when he makes his choice on ESPN.
But the buzz surrounding Clowney’s decision could be undercut by his poor academic record. Two people with knowledge of his classroom performance while attending South Pointe High School in Rock Hill, S.C., have raised questions about whether Clowney will be able meet the N.C.A.A.’s minimum academic standard if he wants to play next season.
Troy Davis, the coach at Hargrave Military Academy in Chatham, Va., said he had reviewed Clowney’s transcript and described it as consistent with those of other prospects who had failed to meet the N.C.A.A.’s standards. In those cases, the prospects needed to enroll in postgraduate programs like the one at Hargrave. The standards are a formula using high school grades and standardized test scores.
Davis said he had met with Clowney last spring, when he visited one of Clowney’s teammates to pitch him on Hargrave. Davis’s program has taken in many top prospects while they worked to meet qualifying standards.
“A lot of D’s on there,” Davis said of Clowney’s transcript, adding that Clowney had performed particularly poorly in his earlier years at South Pointe. Speaking of students who had enrolled at Hargrave, Davis said “it was pretty common” for a nonqualifier to have a transcript like Clowney’s.
A defensive end, Clowney did not reveal his college decision on the Feb. 2 national signing day, delaying his announcement; his 18th birthday is Monday. He has narrowed his list to Alabama, Clemson and South Carolina.
When asked about meeting the N.C.A.A.’s standards, Clowney said that he would qualify and that his academic record was not a matter of concern. He said he had not given consideration to enrolling as a postgraduate student at another institution. In a telephone interview this week, Clowney said he was not going to have to.
Clowney’s recruitment has been overwhelming. Bobby Carroll, who coached Clowney at South Pointe and has since changed schools, described how Clowney’s cellphone and his own had been ringing continually with calls from college coaches and reporters trying to gain access.
Clowney, who accumulated a reported 29 ? sacks as a senior, was named the high school defensive player of the year by USA Today. A highlight video features his power and grace: engulfing a quarterback, chasing down a running back, scoring a touchdown off an interception. By his senior year, Clowney was widely considered one of the best college prospects in years.
“He’s got everything you look for in a prototypical all-American,” Tom Lemming, a recruiting analyst for CBS College Sports Network, said by telephone. “He’s got an aggressive motor and that tall athletic body. He does not want to stay blocked. He doesn’t want to admit to anyone they can block him, and so far I don’t think anybody has.”
Clowney said that his mother, Josenna, was the most important person in the recruitment process. She accompanied him on campus visits and provided her feedback, but he said that she was not steering him to a certain university. (His father, David Morgan, was released from prison in 2006 after serving nearly 12 years for robbery.)
For his part, Clowney has shied from the news media and college coaches, trying to maintain something that resembles the life of a high school student. He said he had tired of the spotlight and tried to maintain normalcy by playing video games with his friends or competing on his high school basketball team.
At South Pointe, Clowney is recognized for his size (6 feet 6 inches) and irreverent sense of humor (he plays good-natured pranks on his teachers with a plastic cockroach). Other students hold him in high esteem; the English teacher Joe Koon said the ninth-graders who use his classroom gravitate to the back wall to read an essay by Clowney, even though it is one of many that have been posted.
Koon, who taught Clowney’s English class, said Clowney was “an abstract” to most people at the school of roughly 1,400 students, most of whom do not know him personally. Some of Clowney’s teachers, while admiring his athletic ability, wish that he would apply himself in the classroom.
“He’s a smart kid, but he’s a born athlete,” Koon said. “I don’t mean to imply that he doesn’t have a strong mind. But his earlier years, he wasn’t focused on his studies. He’s not much focused on books. He can’t stand reading, and he’ll tell you that.”
Koon said that coaches from some of the universities interested in Clowney had been closely following his academic progress.
Koon said he had spoken frequently with Clowney about his academic situation, among other matters. Koon, who did not talk in specifics out of respect for Clowney’s privacy, said that he had encouraged Clowney to retake his standardized test to help increase his chances of qualifying.
“That is possible,” Koon said of Clowney’s failing to qualify. “That’s not because he didn’t concentrate on his work now; it’s because he didn’t concentrate earlier in his years. He thought something else would carry him.”
Koon added: “He kind of drifted along. He’s tried to straighten himself out about that. But he may play it down to the line about qualifying.”
Clowney, who has been vague about his college intentions, delayed his decision to evaluate how his top-choice universities fared in the recruiting process. Observers from his home state to Tuscaloosa, Ala., and beyond have clamored for any news about his choice.
Clowney said he developed more interest in Clemson after signing day. Despite finishing 6-7 last season, the Tigers staged a coup by signing the blue-chip linebackers Stephone Anthony and Tony Steward. Clowney said he had more closely considered Clemson because he could make its strong recruiting class even better.
Before then, South Carolina, the Tigers’ in-state rival, was widely seen as Clowney’s top choice.
