The Asbury Park Press in New Jersey has a look at a tie that binds Kade Weston, Knowshon Moreno, and Clifton Geathers. The MAC Testing, Inc. SAT prep center has worked with all of them to improve their SAT scores and hopefully get Moreno and Geathers qualified to enroll at Georgia and play football. The system was successful for Weston last year, and word seems to be getting out about the success Dr. Jean D’Arcy Maculaitis has had with her program.

It’s good that these guys have found what seems to be a legitimate system to improving their academic credentials, and sometimes some structure like this is exactly what’s been missing from their approach to schoolwork and the SAT. Still, you’d hope that kids with college aspirations, athletes or not, get this message earlier and realize how important it is to find this kind of struture and discipline before the last minute. For someone like Geathers who has had an uncle and a brother go through this process before en route to the NFL, it’s almost amazing that he’s just now getting this wake-up call.

Sweating the SAT and the NCAA’s minimum standards is not a very fun way to spend the last months of high school. “Oh, man, that was tough being inside all day like that,” Geathers said about spending his time cracking down on the SAT instead of enjoying the South Carolina springtime. Welcome to real life.