Deas can only play wait, see
Poor decisions sideline tackle.
By Steve Gorten
Staff Writer
Posted August 24 2005
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Fort Lauderdale · He has been asked by almost everyone he runs into at parks or in the neighborhood. Thousands of times, he says, sighing.
Will he ... rather, can he, play football this season?
</I>Charles Deas, also known as 500 Degreez, doesn't have an answer to give them.
Curiosity deepens. Deas waits.
"It's killing me right now."
In two nights, Dillard will open its season against Deerfield Beach. Deas, who has not practiced with the Panthers while waiting to know if he's academically eligible, won't play, coach Mark James confirmed.
With each day that passes, the likelihood of one of the nation's most coveted prep defensive tackles playing a snap as a senior shrinks.
"That's a shame. If he ends up missing his senior year," says Plantation coach Steve Davis, "it's gonna be a tragedy."
After twice transferring high schools -- Broward Christian and Boyd Anderson -- last school year, Deas is back at Dillard, where the behavior that created his current predicament, he says, started near the end of his sophomore year.
The 18-year-old is again minutes from home, where he and 10 siblings share five bedrooms with his mom, Anita Davis.
This is where "I'm supposed to be," Deas says, yet he admits everybody was surprised to see him on campus again.
Last fall, Deas frequently skipped classes and walked home, where he says he did nothing. When school started two weeks ago, Deas says he was most happy to be reunited with his girlfriend.
But his situation isn't any better now than when he left.
Deas departed Dillard academically ineligible, the player responsible for the Panthers' forfeit of a playoff berth last season. He has returned with a grade-point average believed to be either just below or above the 2.0 required to be eligible.
Deas doesn't know if the C-plus he earned in American History -- a night class he took at Fort Lauderdale High this summer -- was enough to bump it over.
Deas and James say his transcripts from Boyd Anderson after school year's end reflected a 1.9 overall GPA.
Broward Christian principal Ray Nichols says Deas transferred to his school with a 1.6 or 1.7 GPA, and during his roughly 21/2 months enrolled there, was absent more than 20 days. Deas contends the latter isn't true.
"I don't know how in the world he can be eligible," Nichols said Monday, adding that Broward Christian informed Boyd Anderson after Deas transferred there that his GPA was "well under two."
Dillard's administration has put a gag on its teachers and coaches regarding comment on Deas in any capacity. The Buckley Amendment protects a student's right to privacy in regard to educational records.
Dillard Athletic Director Tracie Latimer told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in late July that Deas would not play football for the Panthers this fall, but has made no comment on the matter since.[/font]</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>FHSAA Associate Commissioner of Eligibility and Compliance Bill Grey said Monday that Dillard hadn't contacted his office regarding Deas. Nichols said Dillard hadn't asked him for a copy of Deas' transcripts, either.
With his eligibility in question, Deas can't dress out for games or be on the sideline, according to FHSAA rules. They do allow Deas to practice with the team, Grey said.
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But he hasn't done that, either, as Dillard is especially wary of committing a violation after last season. Deas played nine regular-season games before his ineligibility was made public.
The 6-foot-4, 315-pounder is rated the nation's eighth-best defensive tackle by rivals.com and is among the top 100 overall by rivals and Superprep.com. For three weeks since fall camp began, Deas has lifted weights, run and acted as an assistant coach to his teammates.
"It's like we've had a big piece of our puzzle missing," says defensive lineman Evan Johnson.
Watching has been "torture," Deas says, wondering perhaps worse.
He describes his passion for football as a level just under the love he has for his mother.
On the other hand, he says: "If I don't play this year, it'll just be better for me to focus on one thing -- grades."
Deas and James, who serves as his mentor, have contacted prep schools -- "temporary colleges," Deas calls them -- and continue to consider that option for this year, though they must move quickly should he choose that route.
"I'll do whatever I have to do to make it."
Deas says he also persuaded five major Division I programs -- Georgia, Nebraska, Auburn, Louisiana State and Tennessee -- to put into writing that they'll honor scholarship offers even if he doesn't play this season, as long as he meets academic requirements.
His first scholarship offer came two years ago. It was from Duke.
Deas finds humor in that and smiles.
"That's what everyone fails to realize," he says. "My ninth- and 10th-grade years, I made good grades, stayed out of trouble, stayed in school. But I just got [caught up] in the fame."
He insists he second stint at Dillard will be different.
"There's never a day where [James] hasn't been on my case," Deas says. "It's just that I'm hard-headed. I let it get too bad.
"It's not going to go back to how it was. Trust me, I'm a changed person."
Deas says he now sits in the front of his classes. Three times a week, for an hour and a half after school with the help of a tutor, he prepares for the SAT, which he plans to take next month. And the jokes, like 500 Degreez getting one high school degree, are "fuel to my fire."
"Every time I hear them, it makes me want to ... do more schoolwork, go ask the teacher, `What else can I do?'" Deas says.
He says seeing former high school star athletes who wasted opportunities now living in his neighborhood also motivates him to change. He's asked why that didn't have an effect on him last fall, before his own future was thrown into question.
"It's just like a crack addict," Deas says. "He sits and does this, does that, keeps taking drugs, and one day ... when it's almost killed him ... that's the turning point in his life."
Deas says his turning point came when he cost his teammates a playoff berth last season.
Nichols wonders whether Deas has dropped his old habits.
Nichols says Deas attended Broward Christian daily for about the first month, but then started skipping regularly, sometimes the day's last two classes, sometimes the entire day.
"It was a good three weeks before we found out what happened to him," Nichols says. "He had missed so much. We kept calling his house and checking. Nobody answered the phone. Finally one of our coaches found out he had gone over to Boyd Anderson."
Deas contends he didn't have those absences, and that his departure from Broward Christian was prompted by racism he encountered at the school.
Nichols was surprised by the accusations, saying there was "never even a slight confrontation" between Deas and anyone -- administrator or classmate -- and that "[Deas] was respectful and we respected him."
"I don't know why he would say anything like that," Nichols said. But then he offered this reason for Deas' anger with Broward Christian. "He knows we probably have a hammer in our hand.
"He knows we have the records that show grades he had when he came in and when he left, and his eligibility will depend on whether we decide to hold onto the information and play dead or release the information to his new school and the state. He knows that record would be very damaging."
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