The Gem
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produced an Atlantic Universities Athletic Association champion in three of the past four years and a squad that was ranked fifth in Canada at the end of last season. It helps that Peter Gordon of Whitby, Ont. — an all—Canadian and a great natural talent — is on the team, but the UPEI story is more than a one man show.
It begins with Morrison, with an extremely practical recruiting strategy and an inviting academic standard.
First the academic standard: At UPEI, a high school graduate can get in with a 60 per cent aver- age, the lowest in the country at such an institution. For a coach, that’s a tremendous advantage and Morrison is quite frank about what it means.
“Realistically,” he says, “ we haven’t gotten any kids here that had a 75 per cent average who could play university basketball. By the same token, I basically haven’t recruited them either. If you has a 75 per cent average and could get into U of T or Western or McMaster, and those schools wanted you, you’re not going to come down to this part of the country. That’s just com- mon sense.”
“We’re accused of getting kids into school who can’t get in any- where else. Well, it’s true. But that doesn’t mean that we’re let- ting people in below the stan- dards. It just means we don’t have a 70 percent average require- ment to get in.”
The Island produces only one or two prospects a year, so Morri-
“
son the one-man recruiting force must find most of his talent else- where. He has simplified things considerably by concentrating al- most exclusively on Toronto be- cause the city produces such an enormous number of players each year. After a likely PEI type is identified — someone with great basketball shills and limited aca- demic ones — Morrison lets his charm take over.
“If there’s somebody that I’m really after for next year, then starting any time after Christ- mas, I’ll either write to them or talk to them once a week,” he says. “Sometimes more often.” Once he had to convince them about both the place and the pro- gram but with UPEI’s recent suc- cess, the basketball pretty much speaks for itself, especially since Gordon came to town three years ago. Morrison, now in his seventh season, also counts on alumni returning home to Toronto and spreading the word.
Selling the Island and the aca- demic institution are slightly dif- ferent propositions. He tells po- tential students that they will have the opportunity to know their professors well and that even players who haven’t made the squad have always (with one exception) stayed to complete their studies. He tells them about the friendly people, about the tiny student body and about how, despite (if they’re black) being near unique, they will have no trouble breaking the ice.
“To the best of my knowledge, there’s no racial overtones here at all,” Morrison says. “None of these kids have ever encountered
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anything along that line, at least they’ve never let me know.”
“Things go very, very, well for them socially. Very well. I don’t tell them that. I leave it to the rest of my guys to tell them that. But they do very well. They’re not left out in the cold.”
What the coach says seems to be true, thought there is nor- mally some severe initial culture shock. Once Smith realized that all that red dirt was a province, he says it took him a few months to feel comfortable. And his story is typical.
“The mentality of the people is different,” he says. “They’re pretty rural. They only care about things that happen on the Island. They don’t care about
things that happen outside the Is- land. But the people accept you. They’re really friendly.”
“Now I have trouble when I go home. You go to a club here and everything is white. And I guess the attitude of people her is really different. They’re really easy go- ing. You can walk up to anybody and say hi and they’ll say hi back to you.” :
“You get back to Toronto and you’re always cautious. -When I go home and I go out, I feel alien- ated. I don’t know how to go up to a black girl and talk to her.”
“It’s just different. It’s like two different worlds.” |
Reprinted with per- mission from the Globe and Mail.
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to teacher.” This makes it pos- sible for bright, aggressive par- ents to seek out the best schools and within them, the best teach- ers, thereby obtaining an advan- tage for their children over those whose parents aren’t so bright or aggressive. A lax system also pro- duces a broader and more per- nicious form of inequality. Edu- cated parents will see to it that their children learn a good deal, at home if necessary. Children whose parents are uneducated will lose out. In general, the more easygoing the school system, the more it reinforces class barriers.
To change all this would re- quire a stupendous national ef-
fort. Teachers would have to be retrained, texts rewritten, provincial education departments and school boards turned upside down, budgets and school taxes increased. Many teachers would have to be paid better, others would have to be dismissed. It
would call for hard work from
politicians, parents, and above all children. Those fighting for re- form would be widely damned by educational bureaucrats as back— to-basics bigots. It would be a bitter struggle and would last at
least a generation. I don’t think
we would be up to it.
Reprinted with per- mission from the au- thor.
Editor’s Note
The Gem will now be holding information meetings on Tues- days.at 4:00pm, not at 6:00pm, as per last semester.
If you have any questions or comments about the Gem, would like to know more about how you can contribute, or want to help with layout, and eat some terrific (free) food, then come on down!
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Sincerely,
Terri Lyn Hall
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