There is a problem with the men?s basketball program at Sacramento State, and it has nothing to do with wins and losses.

From 1985 to 1997, 54 African American men were enrolled at Sacramento State to play basketball. Only 13 of them ended up graduating from the school.

Over the same 12 years, the period that Sacramento State began offering scholarships, to the most recent graduation statistics, 65 percent (17 of 26) of the non-African Americans graduated from Sacramento State.

“Based on statistics, 24 percent of black athletes, over a 12-year period, graduated,” said the Coordinator of Academic Support for Student Athletes Paul Edwards. “That is unacceptable.”

Sacramento State Athletic Director Debby Colberg is very concerned about the situation, but she also realizes that it is very complicated.

“It?s certainly our goal to improve the graduation rate, just finding out what will help us and working with the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association),” Colberg said. “But every time we have a new academic standard, people object, but I think we need it.”

Colberg already knows some of the steps that need to be taken in order to up the graduation rate. In terms of freshmen who started at Sacramento State over this 12-year period, Sacramento State has graduated six of its 18 African Americans, a 33 percent rate. This pales in comparison to Sacramento State?s graduation rate, 66 percent among those with 15 units or more, for first-time freshmen who started college in 1993 (last available statistic). The graduation rate for all California State Universities in the same year was 65 percent.

“There are certain things you can do as an athletic director and as a coach,” she said. “You do your best to recruit athletes who will succeed at the university. You can take a risk on somebody, but not on everybody.”

With Jerome Jenkins taking over as the new head coach, who just finished up his first year as head coach, there is optimism. But this trend has lasted through the four previous coaches and only time will tell if the phenomenon continues.

Edwards, who counsels Sacramento State?s student athletes, has some thoughts on why African Americans are having trouble graduating from the men?s basketball program.

“I am not an expert on that subject, but I certainly have some ideas like anybody else, and there are dozens of reasons. But in the cases of the African Americans that I?ve worked with in men?s basketball, a large portion of them come from lower socio-economic backgrounds, single parent homes, with a plethora of other ?baggage? they bring with them. This makes it harder for them to be as academically prepared coming in to the university, not to mention a lot of them are from inner city schools that are not as highly funded as schools where some of the other athletes come from.”

Edwards also said that he thinks that childhood has a lot to do with the problem.

“In many cases, they (African Americans) don?t have role models at home that have been to college and thus they don?t see the value of an education,” Edwards said. “I?m not sure that all of these reasons apply to African Americans in general, but I definitely think they apply to many of the African Americans athletes at CSUS.”

Jenkins and his assistant coaches have started a new way of doing things this year, instituting new programs to try and curb the graduation situation.

“We have put in a new mentoring program this year, where three or four players are assigned to each coach,” said assistant coach Bob Cantu. “We monitor the players not just academically but socially as well. We make sure that they are prepared and they have to sign in every day, that they are going to class. There is also mandatory study hall six to eight hours a week.”

At this point, it is clearly too early to know if this new system, which Jenkins and his coaches have been running for a year, will improve graduation rates or tighten the student-athletes? bind with their studies, but early signs have those involved optimistic.

“It will turn things around,” said senior forward Ricky Glenn, who just finished up his last of two years with the Hornets. “We have study hall every day. I came in for two years, even though I had a 3.0 my first semester.”

Glenn, who is set to graduate in the fall, will join a rare group of African American transfer students to graduate from Sacramento State. Since 1985, only seven of 36 African American transfer students to Sacramento State have graduated from the university.

“They made sure I was on track to graduate,” said Glenn of his coaches. “It (a diploma) means the difference between $30,000 a year or $50,000 to $60,000 in my major (communication studies).”

But Colberg also thinks the new system will produce rewards, and there will be more stories like Glenn?s in the future.

“The program is doing a real good job of keeping them (the players) on task,” Colberg said. “Even if they did OK last semester, it doesn?t mean they?ll graduate.”

However, amid all this hopeful thinking and optimism, just recently, another Hornet basketball player left the program.

Arinze Anouro, an African American who has played for the Hornets for the last three years, has decided to transfer to Sonoma State for his senior season. He is mainly leaving because of Sacramento State?s inability to win games.

“I want to experience winning and I didn?t fulfill that at Sac State,” Anouro said. “I felt my first year was the most fulfilling. It was probably because of the new environment and challenge. I wanted to put my all into it. But as the years went by, it?s been playing to get through the year and not really trying to win.”

Anouro also described how sometimes schoolwork gets lost in the world of college basketball.

“The coaches stress schoolwork enough so that it is a priority, but it comes down to the individual,” Anouro said. “When you have been in a program, you lose sight of what your goals are. When you are on the road in the snow in Montana, homework is not on your mind, basketball is. That is a choice we make, and some players give up, some stick to it.”

Jenkins is sorry to lose Anouro but he says that the program will survive. Plus, Anouro is taking after his coach, changing directions.

“I understand Arinze?s frustration. That was his chance to shine in his senior year, he made a change. As far as being willing to change, people told me I had made the worst decision of my life coming to coach here,” said Jenkins, who was an assistant at Eastern Washington before coming to Sacramento State as an assistant two years ago. “But now I?m the head coach and lots of people would switch places with me.”

Anouro, who started at Sacramento State as a freshman, was a scholarship athlete for Sacramento State, and like most of the other African American scholarship athletes, he will try to get his degree somewhere else.

From 1985-97, Sacramento State handed out 47 scholarships to African American basketball players and only10 ended up graduating.

“The big setting on me is to make a change. I had to get rid of one player (freshman Chris Armstrong) last season,” Jenkins said. “The difference from last year is progress. I think this first year has been a success. The biggest thing is I?m putting us on a path. Somebody had to do it, and why not me?”

Assistant coach Cantu, who is in his first year at Sacramento State, oversees recruiting and academics for the basketball team, and sees the problems and thinks he knows how to change them.

“We have a lot of players who are not committed to being students,” Cantu said. “They wanted to be athletes first and then they quit when their playing days are over.”

This was how things used to work at Sacramento State, however, Cantu sees a turning of the tide.

“When a player is done playing, we still monitor them and guide them and make sure they are all on track to graduate,” Cantu said. “I try to teach life skills, morals and values through basketball. Preparing them for life. If they have mortgage bills, or a family, it is everything.”

A vital step in the process of turning around a losing program with low graduation rates of African Americans, which most of the team is made up of, is recruiting.

And everyone has an opinion on it, even ex-Sacramento State head coach Don Newman. Newman, now an assistant for the Milwaukee Bucks, where he has coached for ??????? years, led Sac State to a 20-114 record from 1992-93 to 1996-97.

“You have to be able to attract student athletes that your counterparts are attracting to compete,” said Newman, who became Sacramento State?s coach in the school?s second year in Division I. “When you?re trying to build a Division I program, you have to understand what the budget will take and how to build a solid program.”

Jenkins, who used to laugh off Sacramento State signings when he was at conference foe, Eastern Washington, is looking for players who know how to win, not score a lot of points for losing teams. He also wants them to be willing to learn, on and off the court.

“Recruiting is huge. The thing I say is, ?What are you going to be doing when the ball stops bouncing,?” he said. “Get a degree. I am very sincere. Graduating our student athletes is the most important thing to me. My motto is if you?re not trying to graduate, you?re not going to be in my program. I tell them, if I didn?t graduate, I wouldn?t be sitting here talking to them.?”

Newman also feels that he wouldn?t be where he was now, coaching in the NBA playoffs, if he hadn?t graduated from college. Newman attended Washington State.

“Overall, as a coach and a human being, I?ve always had a great belief in education,” Newman said. “I learned the value of an education at home, and it has opened a lot of doors for me.”

Another major issue, in regards to bringing in serious individuals to the program, who will stay in the program, is Sacramento State?s 42-226 record in Division I.

Colberg believes that the team?s losing directly effects graduation rates.

“It is a vicious circle,” she said. “If you don?t come here as a student who is primarily focused on academics, you won?t be successful.”

Jenkins, planning to build from the ground up, wants to separate himself from previous coaches. And if that record doesn?t skyrocket immediately, it won?t bother him.

“The coaches and administrators of the past have basically been trying to win and the job has been a stepping stone,” Jenkins said. “But I?m not using this job as a stepping stone.”Tom Abatemarco, who preceded Jenkins as the head coach, sees a lot of holes in the ship that Jenkins hopes to steer to greener pastures. And he doesn?t agree with the new monitoring system Sacramento State has implemented.

“Sac State needs a stronger commitment to education, particularly with a bigger academic support staff,” Abatemarco said. “Plus, among all other things, basketball coaches are forced to run study halls and monitor their players? classroom performances during the season.”

The former Sacramento State coach also took a jab at Colberg, suggesting that some of the school?s problems are a result of her other job on campus.

“Out of the eight or nine universities I?ve coached at, Sac State is the worst as far as financial support is concerned,” Abatemarco said. “The women tend to out-do the men here because the athletic director is the women?s volleyball coach.”

But Abatemarco, like coaches before him, was not at Sac State long, and therefore was not shouldered with much blame in terms of their players graduating.

Paul Dominquez, an African American who played for the Hornets in 1983-84 when they were still Division II, graduated with an MIS Business degree. He thinks that the number of coaching changes the school has had does not help matters.

“I think that the coaching staff and the administration need to raise it,” said Dominquez, about the African American graduation rate of the basketball team he used to be a part of. “But if there is an excuse, it is the large coaching turnover.”

Another thing that Dominquez mentioned as a priority, was the need to take care of the players when their eligibility is done, and they are no longer on the court.

Wendell Cooper, 25, an African American who transferred to Sacramento State in 1998 to play basketball, says that it is a necessity for the coaches to continue looking out for former Hornets after their playing days are over.

“Coaches check grades while we play,” he said. “But they really don?t follow players all the way to graduation. I want to graduate, but right now I have a steady income. I was in school for six years and I still have two years? worth of classes left.”

Although Cooper never played for Sacramento State due to eligibility problems, he worked out with them, and was around the team until he dropped out of school in December of 2000. Cooper says he is now making good money as a barber, and supporting a six-year-old son.

Jenkins insists that his number one priority is to graduate his players and that will ensure that the African American graduation rate will go up as well, as every year, they make up the majority of the team. This year, for example, 13 of the 17 players in the basketball program were African American. But the underlying problem is the players not taking their studies seriously enough, say current players, former players, coaches, former coaches, Colberg and Edwards.

“As a man of color, I find the fundamental attitude of student athletes is that they don?t take the student aspect as serious as they should,” Newman said. “It goes from the household growing up, to each and every student athlete, black or whatever. Without an education, you are selling yourself short.”

The problem of graduation rates in men?s basketball is not unique to Sacramento State. This year, the NCAA is putting several new rule changes into action that will affect basketball programs all over United States, including Sacramento State.

One of the rule changes will allow a student-athlete to get a head start on a semester load, allowing some a class in summer school to count towards the fall semester.

“This would help retention rates,” said Compliance Coordinator Mark McGushin. “It would also put the athletes on track to graduate sooner.”

Sacramento State will feel the force of another NCAA rule change immediately, as Division I schools are limited to a maximum of five new scholarships a year, and Sacramento State has six openings on its roster.

Colberg is looking to make changes of her own, as she recently advertised for an advisor to meet with at-risk student athletes.

“That will help immensely,” Colberg said. “We are also starting an academic center, where individual coaches don?t have to host study halls.”

The plans to fix the problem are in action, now the hard part comes: Execution.

(Markam Cruz and Will Mosley contributed to this report.)