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Friday, August 1, 2008
Focusing on the Future
Central Indiana, IN
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By: Mike Beas
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Photo(s) By: Brian Spurlock
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The musical preferences of a man who is among the sturdiest and most-respected pillars on Indiana’s academic landscape is a portrait of diversity.
Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) Superintendent Dr. Eugene White can go classical or he can go modern jazz. Rhythm and Blues, Frank Sinatra and even the country croonings of bandana-wearing Willie Nelson when the time and mood are right. As for rap, today’s negative messages simply don’t click with an upbeat visionary such as White, so its old-school with Kool Moe Dee or it’s nothing at all.
White’s most frequent musical temptation is, well, The Temptations. The man is a 6-foot-4 inch library on the Motown super group, an individual who in a split-second can tell you if it’s Eddie Kendricks or David Ruffin handling vocals during a particular song verse.
Or maybe it’s Dennis Edwards or Melvin Franklin, the latter boasting a voice deeper than Donald Trump’s pockets.
Regardless, White knows.
Asked if “Ball of Confusion,” the group’s flirtation with psychedelic from the summer of 1970, could be viewed as the Temps’ release that best suits where IPS has been and the struggles it has encountered, White leans back in his chair and quietly speaks the song’s opening to himself:
People moving out, people moving in
Why, because of the color of their skin
Run, run, run but you sure can’t hide
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth
Vote for me and I’ll set you free
Rap on, brother, rap on
“Even in ‘Ball of Confusion,’ there were things in the world that were right,” says White. “But, yes, some of the lyrics are appropriate.”
White’s objective, his purpose for coming to work every morning and frequently putting in painfully long hours, is to not only change IPS, but drastically alter the way in which the state’s largest school district is perceived both locally and nationally.
Long criticized for its numerous school closings, unacceptably high dropout rates, budget woes and archaic facilities from an athletic standpoint, IPS best offers flickers of greatness compared to its glory era. Notable drops in the bucket include Crispus Attucks basketball great Oscar Robertson destroying defenses designed to stop him, the mythical state football champion Washington Continentals of 1966 and Broad Ripple’s boys basketball program cutting down the nets inside Market Square Arena on a March evening in 1980.
And the girls. Don’t forget them.
Arlington’s track and field state title in 1978 came three years before Cheryl Cook of Washington was named Indiana’s Miss Basketball, thus earning the honor to wear the coveted No. 1 jersey for the annual Indiana-Kentucky All-Star games.
These are but a few. There are more.
So, so many more.
Over time, though, IPS athletically began mirroring the stadiums, gymnasiums and ball diamonds on which their athletes practiced and competed. A marvelous era drifted further and further away with each passing school year and the number of people who remembered it declined by way of the obituary page.
Enter White, whose 11-year run as the no-nonsense superintendent of the Metropolitan School District of Washington Township made him the perfect choice to orchestrate an IPS revitalization process that was long overdue.
On the job since 2005, White, who turned 60 last December, says the defeatist attitude of the past is the first domino that has to fall in order for there to be widespread change.
“We can’t talk our way out of the old perception of IPS. We have to perform our way out of the old perception,” says White. “People always accentuate the negative and we know that’s not true. Most of the time when you heard ‘IPS,’ you thought about a problem. One negative act can reverse the attitude even after you’ve done 100 good things. The whole district has to change that, and that’s unfair.
“The secret and the solution is not the children of IPS, it’s the adults. The parents, the administrators, the teachers.”
And, yes, the coaches. White knows all about them, having been a three-sport standout in high school before furthering his academic and athletic pursuits at Alabama A&M University, where still today he is among the leading scorers in men’s basketball history. White used these experiences – not to mention the love and support of his mother, Elizabeth, and maternal grandmother, Birda Mae Mitchell – as a springboard to go on and get his master’s degree from the University of Tennessee.
Elizabeth gave birth to her only son as an unwed, 17-year-old residing in Phenix City, which hugs a southern portion of the Alabama-Georgia state line. There was no silver spoon sticking out of Eugene White’s mouth, much less one anywhere in his house.
“When your mother is that young and you’re that young, you kind of grow up together. You have a special relationship,” said White of Elizabeth, who succumbed to a heart attack in November of 2000. “Where I grew up, education was the only way out. It freed me and I realized how powerful that is.
“When I was coming up, you couldn’t be just as good. You had to be better. You had your religious faith and you had your education. A lot of people have lost sight of that. You can’t be ignorant and free. Ignorance locks you up.”
Many of those affiliated with IPS, either as students or faculty members, can relate to White’s upbringing and his message. Among them is John Marshall High School athletic director Joby Wright, who was raised in Sandfly, Ga., located in the outskirts of Savannah. Wright, 57, proudly points out that Pin Point, another part of Savannah’s makeup, is where Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, 60, grew up.
“I was poor. My mother and father did the best they could for me, but sports offered me the opportunity to get an education,” says Wright, who went on to play basketball at Indiana University and captained the first Hoosiers team coached by Bob Knight in 1971-72. “(Dr. White) also used athletics to not only further his education, but it was a way out.
“He’s providing unique dynamic leadership and he’s giving IPS everything it needs. It’s time to stop beating up IPS and change the attitude toward IPS. Being at John Marshall is extremely exciting. I can make a difference in the lives of young people.”
Adds Broad Ripple athletic director Mike Hannan, “I think (Dr. White) has done a lot of good things, a positive job of not only making kids accountable but coaches and athletic administrators, as well. It’s not all about winning. It’s about putting things in place to be able to make that happen.”
In May, White was the final speaker on behalf of Indianapolis in the city’s bid to land the 2012 Super Bowl. White’s five-minute speech at the NFL meeting in Atlanta touched upon the need to reinvigorate the east side community and that part of the vision included a $10 million state-of-the-art practice facility at Arsenal Tech High School.
The facility will be used as the practice location for the team representing the National Football Conference (NFC) prior to the Super Bowl, while the AFC qualifier is scheduled to utilize the Indianapolis Colts’ complex on W. 56th Street. Following the Super Bowl, the east side facility will be for community use for generations to come.
Brick-by-brick, wood plank-by-wood plank, window-by-window, the structure in time will become reality, a tangible byproduct of the workings of White and those hundreds of others employed by IPS in less-visible capacities.
Under White’s watch, IPS in changing. For the better.
And, athletics promise to perform an integral role in the growth he envisions the same way they did in the 1950s and ‘60s.
“Sports provide the second education. You get that core in the classroom, but there are tremendous lessons to be learned in victory and defeat. Lessons you learn in competition that shape you just as much as your math and English lessons shape you. It makes better people. It allows you to have an outlet for those energies and passions,” says White.
“And, athletics is one of the best public relations mechanisms a school has,” he continues. “People celebrate, relate to and support winners in this country. It’s in our DNA. Winning breeds winning.”
Don’t look now, but it appears the “Ball of Confusion” is becoming smaller. Maybe one day soon it will cease to exist. That is White’s greatest temptation.•
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