Word: matha
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...conference championships in the past 18 years. This season's undefeated team is judged the best high school five in the country by Basketball Weekly, the Bible of the round-ball business. But for all the glory and the shelves full of trophies, Coach Morgan Wootten of De Matha High School in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., is proudest of another, more remarkable accomplishment: for the past 17 years, every senior on his roster, star and sub alike, has received a college athletic scholarship...
...When De Matha beat Dunbar High School 63-55 last week for the championship of the nation's capital, squads of college recruiters were scattered through the crowd of 12,500. Sharp-eyed men with pads and pencils, they liked what they saw, and knew what they would be getting. With his emphasis on fundamentals and unselfish shotmaking, Wootten's players can play defense as well as drive home a dunk-to the delight of college coaches. And his insistence on academic achievement produces athletes who can parse a sentence as well as pass a basketball...
...Hyattsville, Md., ten miles from the White House. In recent years, the march from Washington's inner city has become a stampede. Los Angeles Lakers Forward Adrian Dantley, NBA rookie of the year last season with Buffalo, learned about Wootten from James Brown, who starred at De Matha before attending Harvard on a scholarship. At Wootten's suggestion, Dantley spent the summer before his freshman year boning up on his studies. By the time he graduated, he could meet Notre Dame's tough admissions standards. Now he is the brightest pro star among...
...honesty. When you are streetwise like I was, you learn to read that." Sid Catlett, a Notre Dame graduate who had a brief NBA career, credits Wootten with turning his life around. Catlett had been fatherless since the age of three. When he went to De Matha, Catlett, now an electronics executive, turned to Wootten for guidance. Says he: "In my neighborhood, I could have gotten into all kinds of trouble. Morgan could be a friend, coach or manly role model-depending on what was needed at the time. He was a vital influence in my life...
Despite the absence of a commanding star, this season's team is the most balanced and perhaps the strongest in De Matha history. The talent is so deep that four De Matha players made the five-man all-star squad at a recent tournament: two starters and two reserves. With half the team returning next year, De Matha's opponents face a bleak future. College and pro basketball fans, on the other hand, have a lot to look forward...