Never too late to keep on learning

Friday, Dec. 17, 2004 | 3:57 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION

December 18 - 19, 2004

Where: Thomas & Mack Center, Tropicana Avenue at Swenson Street.

With: Retired UNLV football coach John Robinson, Clark County School district Superintendent Carlos Garcia and former University and Community College System of Nevada Chancellor Jane Nichols each will receive the President's Medal for contributions to UNLV and Southern Nevada during the exercises.

At the 2003 UNLV football banquet, former Rebel and NFL quarterback Randall Cunningham stood in awe as 17 players were introduced -- all of whom had earned degrees.

For all that Cunningham accomplished -- setting school career passing and punting records that still stand -- he failed to earn his sheepskin 20 years ago.

"I was blown away watching those young players and thought, 'Why can't I have my degree?' " said Cunningham, who spent 16 years in the National Football League, 11 of them with the Philadelphia Eagles and three with the Minnesota Vikings.

Still, it took the efforts of Janice Henry, UNLV's academic adviser for football, to motivate Cunningham enough to take Internet and summer classes and earn enough credits to graduate from the school that he left following the 1984 season.

On Monday at 4 p.m., Cunningham is scheduled to walk down the aisle during UNLV's winter commencement exercises at the Thomas & Mack Center with about 1,100 other students to receive his bachelor's degree in recreation.

Last year Henry attended Thursday night Bible class at Remnant Ministries, a nondenominational church where Cunningham, an ordained minister, is pastor. She listened to him inspire young churchgoers with his preaching of the Gospel.

After services, she walked up to the 41-year-old minister and said: "I've been listening to you, now I ask that you take a few minutes and listen to me.

"It is very important for you to finish what you started, not just for you and your family, but also for the many UNLV student athletes of today and tomorrow who look up to you as a role model," Henry told Cunningham.

Cunningham is now thankful Henry was so persistent.

"I had always considered the prospect that my children one day would ask me if I had graduated from college," Cunningham said during an interview last week at UNLV's athletic offices, where he hopes to one day work as a football consultant.

"And now, because Janice and many young people inspired me -- people of the age group that I generally minister to -- I've accomplished this goal."

As for why he waited so long to return to school, Cunningham said many people do not realize the demands on the time of a professional athlete, especially those who attain star status.

"You are busy traveling during the season and it doesn't slow down in the off-season with autograph shows and football camps and Dan Marino's golf tournament and Warren Moon's golf tournament and everybody else's charity events," he said.

"Then you have your family calling you, asking when you are going to come home and spend some time with them. There are so many things tugging at you."

Cunningham said he tried to get his college diploma in 1996 during the year between his short-lived retirement and comeback, "but it didn't work out."

Henry said preventing instances of athletes leaving school after their athletic eligibility runs out -- and before they earn their diplomas -- remains a constant battle for people in her line of work.

She came to UNLV two years ago from the University of Southern California at the behest of UNLV football coach John Robinson, with whom she had worked at USC. At that university, football player graduation rates have long been high.

While Robinson retired following this past season, Henry hopes to continue a trend at UNLV to get more players to trade their helmets and pads for caps and gowns.

However, UNLV lags behind the national average for football player graduates. UNLV had a 42 percent graduation rate for players who came to the school on scholarship in 1997 and graduated within six years -- third-highest since 1992.

By comparison, a record 57 percent of Division I-A players who entered college on scholarship in 1997 graduated within six years, the NCAA says.

Statistics misleading

NCAA spokesman Kent Barrett cautioned against using one six-year cycle to gauge the failure or success of an athletic program in graduating its students, especially for just a single sport.

"One or two more players (graduating) here or there could make a difference," he said, noting that with a single program of 85 players, and about 20 players per graduation cycle, the difference between 42 percent and 57 percent is just a few players.

UNLV Associate Sports Information Director Mark Wallington said the work that Henry has done during the last two years to graduate a greater number of football players will reflect favorably on UNLV in future surveys when classes that entered in the early 2000s complete their six-year cycles.

To that end, Henry says the road toward achieving higher graduation rates for football players is being paved with increased grade point averages the last two years and more all-conference academic players now than in the past.

This past season, UNLV had 35 out of 85 football scholarship players attain a 3.0 grade point average or better, five more players than during the 2003 season, she said. Also, the team's GPA was 2.61 last season compared with 2.58 the previous year, she said.

The NCAA does not keep statistics on grade point averages because the formula for determining such averages can vary among schools, Barrett said.

Between 2000 and 2004, UNLV has had 46 football players make the Academic All-Mountain West Conference team, a vast improvement over the 27 who made the all conference academic team between 1995 and 1999.

Henry, who has been an academic adviser for 17 years, said it is encouraging for others that Cunningham, who was away from school so long, could return and find classroom success.

"When I watch Randall walk up and receive his degree on Monday my heart will smile," she said. "All of his persistence will have paid off. I believe deep down this is something he has always wanted."

Cunningham, whose pro career was as scarred by injuries as it was bathed in glory, said he has no regrets regarding his pro football stint, including not being on a Super Bowl-winning team. He said, "That was God's will."

In his 20s, Cunningham developed a strong urge to study the Bible, but he said it took him seven years of daily Bible study to become a minister.

Divine intervention

In 1997 during a post-game news conference after Cunningham had led the Vikings to a 23-22 wild card playoff victory over the New York Giants by sparking a 10-point rally in the last 90 seconds, Cunningham hinted that divine intervention had to have played a role in that miraculous comeback.

"Why would God have me sit out last year, bring me back to be in the playoffs and then to win a playoff game?" he asked reporters. "That just doesn't happen."

And, as he got older, especially during his final two seasons with the Dallas Cowboys in 2000 and Baltimore Ravens in 2001, Cunningham got an opportunity to minister to the younger players, something Cunningham said made those "riding the bench" seasons productive for him.

Cunningham says what is most important to him now, as he watches his three children -- a son and two daughters -- grow up, is that "they are raised with morals" and eventually go to a college "that emphasizes morals."

To help achieve that, Cunningham said he plans to become more visible as a spiritual leader for UNLV and the community. He said he wants to work as a team consultant, traveling with football coaches to recruit top players for UNLV.

"I would like to talk to the parents of prospective players and show them that I am an ordained minister and a graduate of UNLV and that the school is a moral place where I would send my own children" down the road, he said.

"I think it is important to parents that their children get not only a good education and play for a top athletic program but also that they get a good moral experience at the school and on the team."

Part of Cunningham's more visible community presence will include television and advertising work. He has done a popular commercial for Findlay Toyota where the company's pitchman John Barr catches a football tossed by Cunningham.

Pivotal player

Cunningham, a star football player and high jumper at Santa Barbara High School in California, came to UNLV at a pivotal time in the school's history as it struggled to assimilate into major college athletics.

During three football seasons, from 1982 to 1984, Cunningham passed for a school record 8,020 yards and became only the third player in NCAA history to pass for more than 2,500 yards in three consecutive seasons.

Cunningham also set the total offense record of 8,224 yards by rushing for 204 career yards. He also still holds the school's career punting record, booting the ball 142 times for 6,471 yards, an average 45.6 yards per kick.

At halftime of the Dec. 1, 1984, game against then-No. 10-ranked Southern Methodist, Cunningham's No. 12 jersey was retired. UNLV lost that game 38-21, but, two weeks later, Cunningham led the 11-2 Rebels to their first-ever major bowl victory, 30-13, over Toledo in the California Bowl.

Cunningham was chosen in the second round of the 1985 NFL draft by the Eagles at a time when black pro quarterbacks were a rarity. Cunningham became a starter in his second season.

At 6-foot-4 and 205 pounds, Cunningham was one of the game's great triple threats: A player who could pass while scrambling out of the pocket, run -- he rushed for a career 4,928 yards on 775 carries -- and punt.

Cunningham played in 166 NFL games, completed 56.6 percent of his 4,289 passes, tossed for 29,979 yards -- seven yards per completion -- and threw 207 touchdown passes. Those numbers, some sports analysts say, may be good enough to one day get him enshrined in the NFL Hall of Fame.

"I enjoyed the high energy flow," Cunningham said of his football glory days, "but I don't miss the nerves and the diarrhea before the game."

Asked if he thinks he will get that nervous before he gets his diploma on Monday, Cunningham said, "No, I'll just be glad I was able to have done it."

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