NASHVILLE BANNER September 21, 1989

TEAMS NEED MORE PLAYERS LIKE REESE

All too often, it seems, those of us in this business tend to emphasize the dark side of college athletics. It sells newspapers, some suggest. Headlines scream at us almost daily: Steroid abuse, alumni with deep, filthy pockets, drug use, rapes, agents, armed robberies, cocaine trafficking.

Where does it all end? With Renford Reese, that's where. And others like him. They are the ones quietly setting examples. They offer hope. Renford Reese is a fifth-year senior at Vanderbilt. He has already graduated with a political science degree. He is currently working toward a master's degree in public policy studies.

Saturday, he will take his place as starting cornerback against Alabama. Down the road, it could be the NFL. He's that good. Or law school. He's that smart. “I want to try the NFL,” Renford says. “If it comes, it comes. I already have my degree to fall back on. I don't want to fool myself, I would love to play professional football. I don't want to disguise or camouflage that fact.”

“If it doesn't happen, I want to take a year off, to unwind, to deprogram,” he laughs. When the time is right, Renford plans to apply to three law schools. Vanderbilt, because he is familiar with the school. Emory, because it us near his hometown. And Harvard, because it's considered the best.

And the best is what Renford aspires to. "I was driven to excel,” he says. Renford played four sports in high school, was president of the student body and somehow found time to blow a mean saxophone. As a freshman, Renford even played sax in the Vanderbilt pep band at basketball games. Until the group stood up and bellowed the nerdy cheer: Suppress, them, suppress them. Force them to relinquish the spheroid.

That was it. After all, a scholar can only take just so much. Oh, Renford Reese could have just as easily turned out wrong. He grew up in McDonough, Ga., a sleepy Southern town just south of Atlanta. Reese's house was across the tracks, in a section of town locals refer to as Blacksville for obvious reasons. “I grew up around the uneducated people,” says Reese. “The projects were only 200 yards up the street and I played with the project kids.”

Fortunately, Renford had parents who cared. His mother, Artelia, graduated from Tennessee State an as assistant principle at Henry County High, handed Reese his diploma. Renford's sister, Regina, is a TSU grad and is currently an engineer in Myrtle Beach, S.C. Renford's father, Earnest, was one of the first black sports writers in the south. He has been with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution for several years.

Earnest graduated from Alcorn State, where he played football. He grew up in Jackson, Miss., and a brother was one of the first blacks to play football at Oklahoma, under Bud Wilkinson. Relatives lived in Tunica, Miss., in a poverty-stricken area known as Sugar Ditch. “I've recruited in that area,” says Vandy secondary coach Ron Case, who came here from Ole Miss. “Dirt floors, row houses, no sewerage facilities. He (Renford) got to see that coming up.”

“My dad did not shelter me.” Renford says. "Dad coached me in all sports when I was young and has been the most inspirational person in my life. When I think of the amount of time he spent with me, countless hours. I look at some fathers and they don't spend any time with their kids.”

Being the son of a sports writer did have some of its advantages. When he was 10 years old, Renford met Julius Erving. Hank Aaron used to call the Reese home frequently. But Earnest Reese also made sure Renford met the ones who fell by the way side on their way to the big leagues.

One was Dan Jackson, who won the state track meet's 100-yard dash in 9.5 seconds. His coach needed someone to compete in the hurdles. Jackson had never run hurdles, but after a quick lesson he won that event 30 minutes later. Jackson was also a hot baseball prospect, a catcher who caught the attention of the Atlanta Braves.

The night before a game in which a Braves scout was to look at Jackson, he decided to party. Things got out of hand. A shot was fired, hitting Jackson in the arms and ending any athletic dreams. “He couldn't adjust,” Renford says. “He got on drugs and is walking the streets today, nowhere to stay.”

“I heard stories like that over and over. It was like that out on the streets, but when I got back in my house, education was stressed and my parents gave me values. I had a taste of two different worlds, but I never did get sucked into that other world."

“I've always been a leader, not a follower,” he says. “I've seen it all in front of me, seen great athletes fall.” Renford became one of the first from his neighborhood to graduate from college. Now, he's a role model for others to follow. It's not a subject he takes lightly. Every May he returns to Henry County to substitute teach. Students swarm him for autographs.

“Everything is riding on me.” Renford says. “I saw a guy the last time I was home who is a crack addict now. He stopped me on the streets and had a Vanderbilt hat on. “They look up to me back home. We still play basketball together, even though half of them are in jail.”

While his father taught him about sports and hazards of the streets, Renford's mother taught him about life. And death. While Renford was worrying about Alabama and Tennessee last fall, his mother was battling cancer. She had surgery, followed by seven months of painful chemotherapy.

“You always here about someone else getting cancer, you never think it will happen to anyone you know,” Renford says. “It was inevitable that you're going to think about it. This is the first time I've really talked about it. Not many people knew. That's just the way our family handled it. They didn't panic.

“They had already given me direction and confidence to succeed no matter what happens. “She's a fighter and had command of things.” Still, Artelia occupied her son's mind much of the time. She sacrificed a lot for me. She drove an old 1976 car around so I could drive a newer one,” Renford says. “My parents had a positive ripple effect on me and my sister. I'll pay them back one day.”

Somehow, I think Earnest and Artelia Reese have been paid back And if it doesn't sell lousy newspapers, so be it.