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Finally, success in the classroom Thursday, Apr 26, 2007 By Harry King LITTLE ROCK - Trying to circumvent the assignment, I checked the calendar and the sock drawer. Both were empty. Reluctantly, the subject's cell phone number was noted and, after an hour of procrastinating, the digits were punched. Thirty minutes later, I was privileged to have made the call. Dean Tolson's willingness to share his shortcomings in the classroom was surprising, and his punch line was such a feel-good moment that I had to double-check the facts with academic folks at Fayetteville. A former Arkansas basketball player, Tolson said he finished four years of college with about 1 1-2 years worth of "C" or better. He also accumulated 40 hours of "F's" and 40 hours of "D's" that dissolved into zero after 10 years. At 33, he returned to do the whole four years over and get his degree. He claims that his transcript was so bad that he needed a 4.0 in his final semester to get his grade point average up to 1.9999. "A C or B was not moving that puppy," he said. "When I came back, I still couldn't read or write," he said. "Still to this day, I have problems. Illiteracy is a terrible thing. I transpose things." Confronted by "The cat jumped over the red fence," he was likely to misspell fence, fail to capitalize The and leave off the period, he said. At 55, he's two weeks from earning a master's. For the May 12 ceremony, he's bought his daughter a plane ticket from Madison, Wis., to Kansas City where she is to pick up family members for the drive to Fayetteville. Because he was a basketball player, he said he never worried about flunking out at Arkansas. There was that day he prepared for an anatomy test by writing answers in ink on both arms and donning a long-sleeved shirt. Then he saw the one-sentence test - name the 206 bones in the body and describe the muscles that control them. Even on his long arms, there wasn't room for all that. Using saliva, he washed off the cheat sheet and walked out. That was more than 30 years ago, in the day when Tolson was a rebounder deluxe for the Razorbacks and prior to his three years in the NBA with Seattle. He shares the blame for his who cares attitude about education, but said it didn't mean much in a family where his mother completed eight grades and his dad even less. Although college basketball has changed and there are more rebounding opportunities, Tolson is still first in the UA record book in rebounds per game for a season at 13.2 in 1974 and for a career at 11.0 in 1972-74. Sixteen times, a Razorback has had 18 rebounds or more in a game. Tolson's has 11 of those. His legacy is a force in his pursuit of education. "I realized a long time ago that the legacy of Dean Tolson would never come alive without doing this," he said. "Dead and buried forever. Is that motivation? "People don't realize what it feels like to start from a level of poverty in your life and then go all the way to the top, to the NBA, and then fall all the way back down ... I experienced that," he said. "I said to myself, 'well, we know life is taking advantage of your talent. I understand that. Everybody loved you playing basketball, but the fact of the matter is how much did they really care about you getting your education at that time.'" For years, Tolson made a nice living in Seattle running a business that cleaned carpet and upholstery, primarily in hotels, restaurants and other commercial ventures. When he decided to return to Fayetteville to pursue a degree, some people suggested he start over somewhere else. "This is where I made that mess; this is where I'm going to clean it up," Tolson said. It was athletic director Frank Broyles who argued that the university owed Tolson the opportunity to try for his degree and who convinced the Razorback Foundation to help. Now, there is a Dean Tolson Comeback Scholarship awarded to athletes who return and pursue a degree. So far, the recipients include Teddy Gipson, Todd Day, Ron Huery, Ken Anderson and Clyde Fletcher. Going through the graduation line was painful, Tolson said. "The pain was tears of joy," he said. "If you've never been illiterate, you wouldn't understand." ------- Harry King is sports columnist for Stephens Media's Arkansas News Bureau. His e-mail address is hking@arkansasnews.com. |
