Upward Bound Making a Fast Break Out of the Ghetto Bob and Aline Doss use basketball and academics to prep inner-city girls for college

By JAMES TABOR

In front of the Ralphola Taylor Community Center in the tough Newfield district of Bridgeport, Conn., Bob Doss gazes down at a slashed cat somebody killed just for fun. Nearby, sullen men eye a fence hawking boom boxes. The Taylor Center is home court for Doss's Upward Bound Academy basketball team. "Not a pastoral setting," says the 6-ft. 6-in. Doss, 40, who grew up in a Bridgeport housing project. "But then, we're not a pastoral academy."

Perhaps not, but his academy's results are beautiful indeed. Doss created it in 1986 to get inner-city girls into good colleges. After only one full season of academics and athletics, colleges are queuing up, scholarships in hand, to woo Upward Bound graduates.

One key to the school's success is Doss's limitless energy. An insurance agent, he doubles as academy director and head basketball coach. The combination keeps him running at fast-break pace. On this typical Saturday, after a 5:30 a.m. radio station interview, he'll work until past midnight without even meal breaks, fueled by oatmeal cookies and lime Kool-Aid.

That energy is matched by his knack for mobilizing essential resources -- like classrooms. After a short drive from the Taylor Center, he parks before the Holy Trinity Lutheran Church. "They're leasing us ten unused rooms for $1," Doss beams, before rushing off in his battered Olds wagon to a meeting with fund raisers.

What makes Bob run? Partly it's real-life Rabbit Angstrom anguish over his own flunked future. A high school basketball star with genuine pro prospects, Doss entered Connecticut's Fairfield University on a full scholarship. Academic disaster: he lasted two semesters.

In 1982, after naval service and stints at three colleges, Doss returned to Bridgeport with a wife, family, and a B.A. from Roosevelt University in Chicago. All went well until his daughter Daria began to speak of many friends dropping out of Bridgeport high schools.

"I just had to do something," Doss says. He decided to create an "urban prep school," blending academics, athletics and inspiration to transform high school dropouts and going-nowhere graduates into irresistible college prospects. He focused on girls, because colleges already lavished aid on male phenoms.

In 1986 Doss assembled his first Upward Bound squad. He and his wife Aline, a teacher, created tutorials focused specifically on college entrance requirements. In the CASE (College Academic Skills Enhancement) curriculum, students work with computers to boost SAT scores. The G.S.A. (Graduate Student Athlete) program helps recent graduates better their chances with choosier schools. With curriculum designs complete, Doss spent $25,000 of his own money for court and classroom rentals, team travel, textbooks, uniforms, computers and software.

To achieve maximum visibility for his players, Doss decided to bypass high schools and compete, instead, against junior colleges. The decision keyed Upward Bound's remarkable rise to national prominence. Besides valuable travel for the girls, it meant exposure to college scouts and tough, skill-honing competition. And, Doss grins, "I knew we could beat 'em." As he'd learned the hard way, nothing succeeds like success.

Upward Bound opened its first regular season on Dec. 22, 1987, against New York State's Rockland Community College (21-3 and a National Junior College Athletic Association division champion in 1987). Many expected a blowout, but Upward Bound stuffed the predictions. Rockland eked out a last-second win, 64-63. Thereafter, Upward Bound went 11-11 against the best junior colleges in New England. In July at the Amateur Athletic Union National Junior Olympics held in Florida's Dade County, it beat all-star teams from Kentucky and Ohio before finally losing to players from the nation's fourth-ranked junior college.

Estelle Christy typifies the benefits of academy athletics. Before joining Upward Bound, the 5-ft. 9-in., 130-lb. guard had labored anonymously for a public high school team with a lamentable 4-78 record during four years. Playing for Upward Bound brought High School All-America honors and inquiries from almost 100 major colleges. "Coach Doss," she says, "really changed my game. I'd never be the player I am now without him."

The academy has winning academic ways too. About 40 girls are involved in CASE studies, 15 in the G.S.A. program. Classes are held Tuesday and Thursday evenings and Saturday mornings, with Doss, Aline, assistant coach Thounsa Kearse and several volunteers from Fairfield University serving as tutors. Star outside shooter Patrina Blow, 17, a poor reader, benefited from a special remedial program. She now reads fluently and is pursued by schools like Rutgers, UConn and Georgetown. Christy and Blow are far from unique. One hundred fifty universities have made serious inquiries about other Upward Bound players.

Joan Bonvincini, head coach of women's basketball at perennial power California State, Long Beach, likes Upward Bound's results. "Bob Doss gets into college inner-city kids who wouldn't ordinarily make it," she says. Chris Weller, the University of Maryland's head coach, agrees: "Upward Bound is simply outstanding."

Upward Bound students are equally enthusiastic. Coleta Brown, 17, sought by St. John's, Florida, U.S.C., and others, says, "None of this could have happened without Upward Bound." Blow concurs, "Bob Doss talks to us a lot about life, not just basketball. He taught me to study as hard as I play."

Doss practices a mean work ethic himself. After the meeting with fund raisers, he critiques game films, takes a conference call from Upward Bound girls on campus visits, and works on funding proposals in his living room. There's a curiously unfinished look here: unpapered walls, some exposed studs, sparse furniture. When a cash crunch hit the academy, he and Aline diverted second-mortgage money intended for remodeling and refurnishing. "Hey," he shrugs, "it'll get fixed someday."

That afternoon, following an airport run to greet returning players, he meets with a distraught girl. Huddled in the Olds' front seat, she tells a sad tale. Her unstable mother has threatened her with a knife. She's afraid to go home, reluctant to call the police. A struggling student, she lacks money for needed books. And she'd like to play for Upward Bound, but fears the humiliation of failure.

Doss listens for two hours, then calms her with soothing reassurances. A contrast to his courtside bellow, they're a tribute to his sensitivity -- and flexibility. Doss is a brilliant, demanding coach. During practices and games he blasts anyone -- players, coaches, officials -- whose performance is suspect. But this girl needs help, not harangues, and Doss delivers: a friend's apartment for temporary shelter, a call to healthworkers about her mother, an invitation to Upward Bound practices. At the last, she demurs fearfully.

"Hey," he says, "have I ever lied to you?"

"Never," she says softly.

"Believe me: you can play with the best. We'll see you Thursday."

"O.K.," she says, finally smiling.

Dropping her off, he presses his last $20 into her hand. "Get those books," he orders.

Home again after midnight, Doss settles down with a videotape of Upward Bound's Junior Olympics wins.

"Look at Estelle's 360 lay-up!" he whispers. "They talked about that all week!"

Onscreen the girls run and jump in fluid harmony, a dream quintet, the ball floating from their fingers like a great bronze bubble before dropping off the tip of its arc and diving, over and over, through the blaze-orange ring. When the buzzer brings them one victory closer to golden futures, their coach doesn't hear. Sound asleep in his chair, Bob Doss is finally finished running.