Case Study: Cardinal Ruhle Academy: National Champions In 2002, after 14 years as athletic director (AD) at Green Valley District High School, Derron Damone had taken a job at Cardinal Ruhle Academy (CRA), a private Catholic high school of 350 boys, located in Akropolis, a fading industrial city of 75,000 people. CRA was just a few miles from Green Valley, but light years apart in every other way. It had a strict dress code, a traditional curriculum focusing on math and science (along with religious education), a 70-year-old building that had seen better days, and a mix of students, many of whom were first generation immigrants from Central America, Russia, and Somalia, and some of whom traveled more than two hours on the city’s transportation system to attend. Sixty-five percent of the school’s students were ethnic minorities. When he took the job, Damone had been charged by CRA’s head, Monsignor Gennaro (Jimmy) DiNapoli, to improve the school’s profile and enrollment (which had been falling due to concerns about the school’s dangerous surroundings and fallout from the clergy sex-abuse scandals that had rocked the U.S. Catholic church) through expanding its athletic programs, specifically boys’ basketball. At that point, he learned the school was about to undertake a significant fundraising campaign (with a goal to raise $40 million) to refurbish its crumbling facilities. The creation of a nationally ranked boys’ basketball team was going to be part of the public relations campaign to generate interest amongst alumni and prospective students. The move to create a nationally prominent program had gone well. CRA had sent several players to top National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Divi- sion I men’s basketball programs, and even had one player currently in the NBA, DeRay Higgins, who played collegiate one year and then entered the NBA draft. Higgins, unfortunately, had brought some unwanted attention as well. In the last few years, “high school” institutions have sprouted up across the United States: Lutheran Christian Academy and Rise Academy in Philadelphia; Boys to Men Acad- emy in Chicago; God’s Academy in Irving, Texas; One Christian Academy in Mendenhall, Mississippi; and Stoneridge Prep in Simi Valley, California, among others. Some of these “schools,” none of which has been accredited by the appropriate state education oversight organizations, have actual classes, although often for only two hours a day, but their students in most cases are all African-American male basketball players looking to become eligible to play in college. At least 200 players have been deemed academically eligible by the NCAA in the last decade by enrolling in such “schools” (Thamel, 2006b; Thamel & Wilson, 2005). In the summer of 2006, the NCAA released a list of 16 schools from which it would not accept graduated students as academically eligible, and another 22 that would be subject to ongoing review. Lutheran Christian, along with several others mentioned above and other well-known boys’ prep hoop powers such as Fork Union Military Academy and Oak Hill Academy in Virginia, and Bridgton Academy in Maine, were among the schools identified (Thamel, 2006a). In 2008, the Association’s High School Review Committee denied approval for Charis Prep, located in Wilson, North Carolina, after reviewing the school’s curriculum and visiting the site. The committee cited concerns over a lack of quality control or organized curriculum structure. The ruling meant that Charis graduates could not use core courses earned at the school, grades, or completion of its course of study to meet initial eligibility requirements (Associated Press, 2008). While CRA had never been one of these fly-by-night operations, whispers about its academics had gotten louder with each player who transferred to the school and played his way to a Division I grant-in-aid. Also, the hoped-for fundraising boost that the ascendant program would bring had yet to materialize. The long-serving and much-beloved DiNapoli had died in 2006, and his replacement,the much-younger and less-charismatic Walter MacMullen who, while well-meaning, has not been able to connect with the alumni and other potential donors to meet the lofty $40 million goal. On a gray January morning in 2010, as he waited in the drive-through line for his morning coffee, Damone’s phone buzzed. It was an e-mail message that the state activities association was considering a vote at its next meeting on a measure to participate in a newly established national championship in boys’ basketball for the 2010–2011 school year. Damone knew that the National High School Coaches Association in Pennsylvania had opted to partner with the sport marketing company International Management Group (IMG) to create a series of such championships at the company’s training academy in Bradenton, Florida, and had read that more than half of other state associations had indicated support of the initiative. The e-mail read that the NFSH was also set to consider sanctioning the events at its upcoming meeting. Damone knew why IMG was doing this: the sale of television rights, charging fees for teams to participate, and the possibility of having participants jump from teams to enroll at its academy. He was less sure about how it made sense for his school. This wasn’t like the NCAA tournaments, he thought, which had a national appeal and all associated costs picked up by the NCAA. True, the state championship meant something to CRA and its community members, but what about the in- creased travel time and cost and missed class time another level of play would require? Would there be additional academic scrutiny because of this? And would all this really help further the school’s fundraising initiatives? The e-mail asked Damone to send back an initial response on how CRA would vote on such a measure. If the initial responses were positive, the association would put it to a formal vote by all school principals and ADs the next month. Damone put the phone down and drove ahead to pick up his large French vanilla coffee with cream and two sugars. He then pulled ahead to a parking spot, picked up his phone, and texted his response.
Case Study: Cardinal Ruhle Academy: National Champions? Answer all questions from this case in your eText
1. How does the issue of potential national championship involvement reflect a change in program goals and focus for CRA?
2. Is the phenomenon of national championships consistent with marketing trends impacting school and youth sports?
3. With which governing bodies will Damone need to interact to determine how involvement with such national championships might impact CRA’s athletic programs?
4. With whom, if anyone, should Damone confer to determine his action on this issue? Note: Information used in this case, as well as sources cited, is from Wieberg, 2010.