Winning game plan recharges Miami Northwestern

It was another spectacular play in an otherwise typically lopsided victory for the No. 1-ranked high school football team in the country. But there was something Northwestern principal Charles Hankerson didn't like about Aldarius Johnson's leaping catch and run for a touchdown.

After he scored in Friday's 48-21 blowout of Miami Southridge, Johnson hot-dogged his way into the end zone, drawing cheers from Bulls fans and an unsportsmanlike-conduct penalty from the referees.

The 15-yard-penalty, though, was nothing compared to the earful Johnson received from Hankerson.

''Class,'' Hankerson said he told the school's startled and embarrassed star receiver in a short, private conversation. ``He knows better than that.''

Class -- on the football field, in the classroom and in the community -- is the word Northwestern wants to define itself by these days, a season after the school and football team endured a coverup of a sex scandal involving its star running back that led to the firing of the entire coaching staff.

Hankerson, 46, an All-Dade first team basketball player at Miami Killian in 1979, is a 25-year veteran of Miami-Dade Schools and former basketball coach at Miami Edison. As the new man in charge at Northwestern, a flagship school of Miami-Dade's black community at Northwest 71st Street and 11th Avenue, Hankerson has vowed to get involved anytime he sees a student act inappropriately.

ON A MISSION

Miami-Dade Superintendent Dr. Rudy Crew named Hankerson Northwestern's fourth principal in two years this summer. Part of Hankerson's mission is to help the school climb out of its well-documented academic troubles -- a D or F on FCAT scores for six years running -- but Northwestern supporters and alumni are hoping the new leader can do even more.

They hope Hankerson's staunch discipline can repair the public image it suffered as a school ``run amok''when the previous principal, coaching staff and a total of 21 employees were removed in June for their handling of an incident involving star running back Antwain Easterling and a 14-year-old girl in a school bathroom.

''It really does hurt us to know that in Wikipedia.com if you look up Northwestern, it's got Antwain Easterling and his scandal,'' said Northwestern senior quarterback Jacory Harris, an honor student with a 3.5 GPA and one of five current Bulls who say they are headed to UM next year.

``That's what people portray about us now. We're the school that had the sex scandal. We're not the school that's No. 1 in the nation. We're the school that's bad.

``It's important for us to change it. We don't want to go around carrying this stereotype that we're bad men. People just think we're thugs because we may have gold in our mouth, dreads coming down our backs. We're all good kids. But nobody pays attention to that. They really don't see the good things that happen out here.''

Those good things can stretch beyond the athletic field, Hankerson says.

''This is a tough assignment, but if everyone stays committed to my vision every kid can be given an opportunity to educate themselves,'' said Hankerson, who has a track record of helping schools raise test scores. ``Why not Northwestern? Why can't our academics be as good as our athletics?''

A NEW ATTITUDE

School has been in session only a month, but students and teachers say there is a different feel this year.

''Last year, it just seemed like the students were in control,'' said senior Chanel Paulk, a cheerleading co-captain. ``You could walk around, do whatever you wanted to do. This year, discipline is a big deal. They're making you go to class, they're making you wear your uniform, making you wear your ID, making you focus on school work.

``You see the principal in the hallways; you see the assistant principals. They care.''

Fallout from the scandal led Crew to develop requirements for students involved in athletics and extra-curricular activities, including a limit to tardies (10), absences (20) and suspensions. Included were a mandatory two hours of tutoring for students failing to meet academic requirements.

At Northwestern, the only school in Dade on probation under Crew's new rules, those requirements are more stringent, and Hankerson has taken them to an even higher level. He requires all students in extracurricular activities to participate in tutoring sessions Tuesdays and Thursdays after school and before practice, and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to noon.

John Drummond, 27, a teacher and junior varsity assistant football coach who has been at the school for only two months, says he can already tell ``this administration bites, it doesn't bark.''

''From all the stories I've heard from other people who were here, this is a totally different place,'' Drummond said. ``If a student doesn't have a uniform on, they get taken out of class no questions asked. If somebody talks back to a teacher, they call security immediately. Nobody slides.''

ATTENDANCE UP

Hankerson said attendance at Northwestern has already improved, up from 88 percent last year to 93 percent this year. Since school began, he says, he can count on one hand the number of suspensions he has had to hand down. And he says the football team, whose trip to Dallas to battle for the No. 1 ranking was nationally televised, has been trouble-free.

Northwestern alumni president Larry Williams, who went to Dallas to watch Northwestern defeat Southlake Carroll 29-21, said he has been impressed with Hankerson and the resilience Northwestern's football team has shown under new coach Billy Rolle.

''Academically, the school is moving in a positive direction. Mr. Hankerson is doing a great job,'' said Williams, who said he plans to organize parades this year not only to celebrate a potential second straight state football championship (the Bulls are 4-0) but improved FCAT scores as well.

The trip to Dallas showed a changed team, Williams said.

''You cannot put enough accolades on the character of this football team and how they presented themselves on and off the field in Texas,'' Williams said. ``They played with class and dignity. We even got e-mails from Texas saying how great our young men were.

``No matter what has been said about us recently, we're going to show the Miami community that Northwestern has always been a class high school. Just watch.''