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.