FAST TRACK

Academics aren’t enough. Today’s college-panicked parents must master many challenges. School shopping, outside tutoring, test coaching, and tuition fees are a fine beginning. Then comes the realization: Good grades and test scores aren’t all it takes to get your kid into college. That’s the fact. What colleges really look for is something else, something more elusive (something that sounds almost scary, in terms of today’s teens). They want to see passion.

Christoph Guttentag, director of admissions at Duke University, calls it impact.

“We use it because it’s a broad enough term to encompass all kinds of different kids with different interests and different manifestations of those interests,” Guttentag says. “The student who has the best chance of getting admitted is the student who’s had the opportunity to follow up on his or her interests and who has the dedication and commitment to follow through. We’re looking for energy, enthusiasm, impact. That’s why it’s so important for a student to follow what they’re interested in and not what they think we’re interested in.”

He’s not talking about Nintendo. Before kids can follow an interest, they have to find one. That’s not a problem. There are more extracurricular activities, particularly sports, available to chil-dren now than ever before. Today’s college-bound kids-even in elementary school-have two careers: one in the classroom, and one on the field, in the gym, or in the studio. Colleges don’t care so much what activities or sports students play as long as they’re involved in something, passionately. They’re looking for the student who is self-motivated and committed. Sports and the performing arts are the most-frequented proving grounds because they’re the places kids fall in love-with acting, golf, baseball, tennis, soccer, or dance,

“Passion is the most important quality a college recruiter can sense in an applicant,” says Bill McCumber, director of college counseling for St. Mark’s School of Texas. “Passion makes your bell-shaped curve lopsided. It makes you stand out.

“By definition, selective admission means rejection,” he says. “At most colleges, numbers are a given. It’s the personal stuff that makes you memorable, recognizable.”

McCumber recommends that parents encourage their children to experiment, to try participating in different activities until they find one that lights a spark, and then encourage kids to follow their passion as far as possible

That means parents are in charge of the extracurricular curriculum, so to speak, and that also means parents are faced with a thousand questions. When do you start your child in sports, acting, music? What kinds of scholarships are available? What are the odds of success? Where do you go for the best instruction?

But most importantly: How far do you-should you-let your child follow a dream? Can you tell when your child has stopped pulling you and you’ve started pushing your child?

Dallas is a jock culture-lots of kids in Dallas start playing a sport as soon as they learn to walk, in pee-wee leagues for everything from hockey to soccer. The need for structured after-school time, the gospel of fitness, and the idea that surviving, if not winning, in competition is the life skill we all need most has fueled the rush of toddlers to the playing fields. But, says Carol Cohen, one of the few certified educational and college planners in town, “by and large, kids in Dallas and in the South, generally, aren’t prepared to compete nationally in varied areas.”

In Dallas, football still rules. “Piano High is a microcosm of the state of Texas,” says Cohen. “A school like Piano has a huge population that fields one football team, so only a few kids get to participate. Everything from band to theater to football is affected. When you have one senior play and 600 kids trying out for it, how many kids get to shine? With so few fields to compete in, there are no slots open on sports teams for most kids. How many kids get to play on that champion Highland Park baseball team? Maybe 20 out of three grade levels. Not that many kids get much of a chance. A student in Maine might have taken archery and crew in public school. There’s more opportunity.”

Only a handful of sports are offered in DISD, and area private schools don’t do much better. “Other public school systems train their students,” Cohen laments. “Very tew kids here attain the expertise kids do elsewhere-here we have to resort to outside programs and private training.”

Basically, there are two categories of athletes in high school: Those students who are good enough, at anything from fencing to football, to be recruited for revenue-producing teams. And those who aren’t.

“Whether a student is recruited by a coach is a significant factor in whether a student will be admitted or not. If a coach says to the admissions office, ’This is a student that’s going to make a difference for the team,’ we’re going to take that very seriously,” says Guttentag.

Parents know this. That’s why they start jockeying for positions as soon as their kids are playing sports, even at the preschool level. There’s a tremendous competitive feeling between parents, who are afraid that if they don’t enroll their children in the right camps and evening leagues, with the right coaches, they’ll fall behind. Tangible, not personal, success is the goal. And the ultimate goal isn’t winning the game, it’s winning the match-making it to Hollywood, to the pro league, to the Olympics. Or cashing in to college. We’ve all seen the stagestruck mother and the baseball dad, living out his unfulfilled dreams of the majors via his son’s BBI (Boys Baseball Incorporated) team.

“Athletics at its best should be focused on the goals and desires of the child,” points out Dr. Mary Ann Little, a Dallas psychologist. “It should be pleasurable for them. I’m not sure we should invest highly in the pursuit of it beyond that. It’s easy to confuse dreams of children with dreams of parents, make winning too central, and extinguish love of the game.”

Kids dream of stardom. Parents dream of scholarships.

Mary Link, an independent college counselor in Dallas, is cautious about encouraging hopes of athletic scholarships, and not just because they’re hard to get. They’re also hard to keep. “Things change so rapidly-tomorrow the kid could wreck a knee. If that’s your main selling point to a college, a blown knee could blow your chances,” she says. “There are so many variables- the coach changes, the guy who recruits you isn’t the guy you work with, the pace is more than you can handle. You should aim for a combination of sports money and merit money if you can, because the sports money can disappear.”

And in the end, the scholarship pot of gold may not equal the credit card bills required to get it. Hayden Hodges is a superchamp tennis player with real scholarship possibilities. A junior at Highland Park High School, Hayden started playing tennis when he was 8 years old. He trains six days a week and was part of the HPHS team that won state last year. His dad, Herschel Hodges, is realistic about college athletic scholarships. “It’s wonderful for your kid to be courted by schools and coaches,” Herschel says. “It shows that the work ethic pays off. But if you support a kid’s sport from an early age like this, you pay for the coaching, the club memberships, the special camps, the junior development. You buy a pair of tennis shoes a month for 10 years. You pay for travel and equipment. It may take $9,000 to $ 12,000 a year. I’ve already paid for college.” (And his son’s school team ends up the winner. Lots of school teams in Dallas benefit from parents’ investment in private sports instruction.)

“Nobody gets a free ride with these sports,” reminds Link. “Parents seem to have the illusion that they’re not going to have to pay anything. It all depends on how good you are.”

And what you’re aiming for. A girl coming from Dallas may be able to make the crew at a school where the sport of rowing is new. Chances would be slimmer for her male classmate applying at a Northeastern school.

Counselors recommend that students hoping to catch a college coach’s eye prepare separate resumes for academic and outside interests, which brings up another advantage of an ongoing extracurricular activity: Kids who play sports (or play piano, or take dance) spend hours and hours with their coaches. Parents entrust their child to a coach in a more intimate way than they would a classroom teacher. Usually, kids have a tighter relationship with their coaches than they do with their advisors. Effective coaching, as ESD girls’ soccer coach Rusty Trenary points out, requires a personal knowledge of the psychology of each player. “You have to know how each one is motivated,” he explains. “If you’re direct and confrontational with some girls, they just shut down. Coaches and players really get to understand each other.” As David Dillman, director of admissions at Austin College, says, “When you have a kid who’s excelled in a sport, they have a coach in their comer. A coach’s recommendation is worth a lot.”

Some “splinter” sports-fencing, wrestling, volleyball-do add punch to a college resume and make a kid stand out in the cutthroat college competition. And participating in those sports may actually result in scholarship money-especially, right now, for girls.

After 20 years of legal battles, Title IX of the Educational Amendments Act is finally in full force. Colleges must spend equally on men’s and women’s athletics, so women’s sports are expanding at the college level. At the University of Miami, for instance, the men’s crew was taken down to the club level so dollars could be put into recruiting the women’s rowing team. There were two female recruits this yean next year, there will be 10 scholarship slots. The University of Texas also has an aggressive crew program. Next year, Miami is adding a women’s soccer team, which will create 40 positions for women. At Virginia, women’s crew is a funded varsity sport-it’s the men’s crew that’s holding the bake sales to raise money.

Even Duke, a school that has been fairly committed to women’s sports, has found it necessary to add more to comply with the NCAA requirements. The school didn’t have a women’s lacrosse program until two or three years ago. On the men’s side, there are no new varsity sports, But this year, the school is adding a new women’s crew program. “The opportunity for girls to be recruited as athletes is going to be increasing fora while,” says Guttentag. As a result of Title IX, more and more girls are playing these sports in high school.

Dillman notes that girls’ soccer is growing by leaps and bounds, as is girls’ basketball. For men, baseball has made a comeback at the college level. In fact, there’s a broader range of college sports than ever before. The Sears Director’s Cup, the measuring stick for the National Association for Collegiate Directors of Athletics, tallies points based on a school’s NCAA finish in up to 20 men’s and women’s sports (with no extra points for performance in conference play). This year, the cup was awarded to Stanford (again) because of its strong finishes in cross country, volleyball, swimming, and diving, as well as fencing, women’s golf, and women’s softball. It’s a good exampie of the advantages of breadth in the sports arena.

In the unmonied category, a kid may play anywhere on a huge spectrum of ability and passion. Colleges do take a close look at secondary sports experience, but they ’re less concerned with evaluating a student’s skill than determining their athletic commitment. Being captain of the swim team, for instance, can mean very different things in different schools in different parts of the country, making it hard for college admissions personnel to gauge it in terms of impact on the student and the community. Sara Lennon, director of college counseling at Hockaday, says her students are recruited, even for Division III play. “They won’t get into a school on the basis of the sport alone,” she says, “but other things being equal, it might push them over the edge into getting a place.”

Athletics are important whether or not a student is scholarship material. Colleges look for what an extracurricular activity reflects in the character of the kid. “Parents worry that time spent on extracurricular activities is time that could be spent studying,” says McCumber. “They worry that scores and grades may suffer when a child is spending a lot of time at soccer practice, say. Occasionally a parent comes in and says, ’My son’s grades are bad, so I want him to drop the football team’ or whatever. I tell them that’s the worst thing he can do.”

It turns out that kids who are involved in extracurricular activities are more likely to be successful students. “They’re generally motivated to do the schoolwork that allows them to keep doing the activity they love,” says McCumber. “Outside pressure may result in burnout. But self-pressure they can endure.”

Link says that dedicated kids who have to give up a sport can lose interest in other things, too. “You have to make sure a child is not so consumed with an activity that if the sport is gone, they lose their whole identity,” she says. “The child has to feel comfortable with everything else about school. They do have to specialize, but kids need an identity above and outside of sports. Because it will go away eventually.”

“Commitment” is the winning word to coaches and teachers. In ice hockey, that may mean midnight games and 5 a.m. practices. In acting, it may mean school-night rehearsals until 11 p.m. Weekends are consumed with travel, and the whole family ends up “committed” to one child’s sport. Doug Theodore has two serious hockey-playing sons. “You can see that your family is giving up a lot financially,” he says. “But we didn’t focus on that. We focus on supporting our children as best we can and trying to help carve out the path. You do have to keep the commitment in some kind of balance with other aspects of family life-it consumes your budget, your social life, your time. The sports commitment becomes a 12-month deal. That’s not only hard on the siblings and the family, it’s also bad for the boy.”

Extracurricular involvement doesn’t have to be a sport, says Lennon. All children should be exposed to various things and allowed to discover and develop their own interests and passions. Guttentag’s point is that a student’s activities should exhibit impact-it could be in sports or it could be in drama, community service, or even religious activities. Consistency is the corollary of commitment. Link recommends that students take up just one extra activity at a time and keep it up for several years. It does not impress colleges to see an extracurricular list filled with one-year stints. To succeed in athletics or the arts requires real work and dedication.

That’s why sports and arts are interesting to colleges. You can join the French club and the environmental club and do a lot of community service your senior year in high school, but you can’t make a team or get a part in the senior play without a background of hard work. The student who can maintain high grades and devote time to following a passion is the student who wins.

The reason? “There’s a great deal of self-knowledge to be gained from participating in sports or any extracurricular competition-like pushing yourself when you’re tired,” says Mary Ann Little. “It builds self-esteem and self-confidence.”

The important thing, Lennon agrees, is for a kid to “become an interesting person, someone who can contribute something. Kids who have texture, who look outside their high school experience, are the most successful. Colleges are looking for kids who can balance with their studies a commitment to things other than academics.”

Because, however successful they are at their particular endeavors, they learn something valuable about themselves in the course of following their dreams.

HOW TO FIND THE RIGHT ACTIVITY FOR YOUR FAST-TRACKER

From acting to tennis, match your kids to their interests.

TENNIS

Tennis has lost the spotlight nationally, but in Dallas everyone plays tennis. Don’t they? It’s no surprise that there’s an enormous range of instruction available, from expensive private professionals to citywide public programs.

Most pros recommend that kids start private lessons when they’re 6 or 7 to develop their stroke production and confidence. It’s not good to put them in a group program until they have the basic skills because they don’t get individual attention. (This isn’t a team sport, remember.) Once kids have had some private instruction, and show some talent, put them into a program and see how they stack up to the other kids in their age group. The problem with many tennis clubs is that the goal is to make the programs bigger instead of better, so ideally you should combine a program with a private coach.

Some parents try to leapfrog the local competition by sending their kids to nationally recognized camps (such as Nick Bollettieri’s in Bradenton, Fla., Rick Macci’s in Tampa, or John Newcombe’s in New Braunfels) that attract junior-level players from all over the world, but kids often get lost in the shuffle at such camps.

Dallas Tennis Association, 972 279-0389. DTA oners a variety or tennis programs, including a free junior program for inner-city kids, and a school program with 100,000 kids participating. They also have teaching pros who work one-on-one with young players, trying to spot the achievers. DTA offers 32 player’s scholarships to Elite programs each year.



Top 5 Tennis Teaching Pros:

Dick Stockton, T Bar M : $50/hour members. $60/hour non-members. 972-233^444.

Bill McGowin, T Bar M: $50/hour members, $60/hour non-members. 972-233-4444.

David Anderson, Brookhaven Country Club: $42/hour members, $46/hour non-members. 972-243-6151.

Craig Kardon, USTA National Coach: S70/hour.

972-233-8335.

Mike Estep, Ridglea Country-Club, Fort Worth: $52/hour members. $62/hour non-members. 817-732-3174.

TOP 3 JUNIOR DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS:

T Bar M, Dallas. Junior programs start at $l30/session; Pee Wees start at $30/session. 972-233-4444.

Brookhaven Country Club, Farmers Branch: Junior Academy programs start at $l05/session. 972-243-6151.

Fretz Park Tennis Center, Dallas: Junior programs start at SI30/session. 214-670-6620.



CREW

Starting with the basics isn’t always easy. For crew, the sport of team-racing boats, you need water, Then you need a boat. So it’s not surprising that crew is an infant sport here, supported primarily by Dallas private schools. (St. Mark’s has its own boathouse at Las Colinas.) Both the Dallas and Fort Worth clubs require adult accompaniment for rowers under 18. Some Dallas parents send their kids to summer rowing camps in other parts of the country. One of the best is in Craftsbury, Vermont.

The United States Rowing Association is the national governing body of rowing in the United States. For information, call 1 -800-314-4ROW.

Dallas Rowing Club: Located on Shorecrest, on the south side of Bachman Lake (northeast of Love Field). Basic sculling classes are offered one weekend each month from April to October. Membership: $100. 214-357-0814.

Fort Worth Rowing Club: There’s no boathouse-this club stores a dozen boats on the Trinity River near downtown Fort Worth. On the first Saturday of every month, at 10 a.m., you’re welcome to row free if you can swim. The next two lessons, coached by members, cost $10 a row. After that, you decide whether to join the club.

GIRLS’ BASKETBALL

Basketball, of course, is the big success story of women’s athletics. Recruiters say that Texas is the basketball hotbed of the country for scouting talent. School basketball programs are bursting at the seams because so many girls want to play at the college (and now pro) level, so an elite team system (like soccer’s) has developed in which teams compete locally and also travel to play other elite teams.

Basketball Congress International/Team Texas: 972-574-2400. BCI is a non-profit, elite program for girls ages 15-18. The organization scouts area junior highs and high schools for talent, invites girls to try out, and places 45 percent of the kids who try out on a team-the only reason they don’t all get to play is a lack of coaches. This is an NCAA rules program of 200 teams from all over Dallas-Fort Worth, with 2,000 members-the highest membership in the United States. The team fee is $125; uniforms and travel costs are divided among the team and run about $200 per player per year.

Texas Shooting Stars: 817-534-5281. A city wide program of 200 teams that compete locally and nationally. There’s a $45 participation fee for play thai runs after school; the season is mid-March through the first week in August. Uniforms and league play costs average $200 per child.

The team of 18-year-olds won the AAU and BCI National Championships this year. There’s a smaller program (50 teams) with four groups from ages 15 through 18. They scout area schools and invite players to try out. Once they make a team, the team has a $125 fee (split with parents), and the uniforms and travel costs are split with parents.



GOLF

Tiger Woods has inspired kids the way heroes always do- with a rush to imitate. Everyone has always said golf is a lifetime sport-now the golf life is starting younger, with parents putting their kids on the links the same time they send them to school.

Randy Smith, the head golf pro at Royal Oaks Country Club, started coaching Justin Leonard when he was 8, coached him through a 1997 British Open victory, and continues to coach him. Half of Smith’s clients are kids under 14, and he warns against putting a kid into a program at too early an age (5 or 6) because their bones aren’t developed and because he’s seen too many kids burn out on the sport.

“Sports like hockey, baseball, football, have a small window of opportunity,” says Smith. “By the time you’re 30. if you’re lucky enough to have made it to the pro level, your career is over. Golf is different. Because you can play longer, the rush to develop kids too early causes them to burn out faster. The ideal time to start a kid playing golf seriously is in junior high or high school because their learning curve is in front of them-it peaks at the college level, enabling kids to get scholarships and then continue to develop.”

Smith also says that, contrary to its image, golf isn’t strictly a country club sport. You can rind great players on city courses, too. The Norlhern Texas PGA provides junior development placement information, scholarship fund information, and tournaments for kids 7 and up. 972-881-4653.



TOP JUNIOR DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS:

Hank Haney Golf Ranch, McKinney. Offers four-day Junior Development Camps that run about $225. Private instruction per hour is $65-$250. 972-542-8800.

Keeton Park Golf Course, Dallas: Two-day session is $70. Private instruction for 17-under is S25/hour. 214-670-8784.

Sherrill Park Golf Course, Richardson: Year-round four-day camps cost $75. Private instruction is $40/hour. 972-234-1416.

Top Five PGA Golf Instructors for Junior Development:

Hank Haney, Hank Haney Golf Ranch. McKinney: $250/hour. 972-529-2221.

Eldridge Mills, Gleneagles Country Club, Piano: $100/hour. 972-867-8888.

David Price, Bent Tree Country Club, Dallas: $75/hour. 972-931-7326.

Randy Smith, Royal Oaks Country Club, Dallas: $75/45 minutes. 214-691-0339.

Dan Strimple, Irving Golf Range, Irving: $100/hour. 972-513-0004.

GYMNASTICS

“If a kid can skip by the age of 3, it’s a good sign,” says Debbie Bonds, owner of Dallas Gymnastics Center. Coaches can tell by a preschooler’s body shape and coordination if there’s a gymnast behind that baby fat. Kids who are serious about it work out 30-35 hours a week and travel to compete; gymnastics is a sport that requires a lot of parental time and money. And it’s only worth it if you’re a girl.

Men’s gymnastics programs at the college level are almost defunct. Women’s programs are growing by leaps and bounds. However, getting a young gymnast into college requires a marketing program involving both parents and coaches writing letters, sending videos, and communicating constantly with college coaches so their child is remembered. There is no “clearinghouse” for gymnastics (like there is in other sports)-no central agency to go to for information. So it’s up to the individuals and coaches.

TOP PROGRAMS:

World of Gymnastics, Fort Worth: $90-$225/month. 817-581-7767.

Dallas Gymnastics Center, Addison: $85-$ 185/month. 972-248-9950.

Infinite Bounds, Piano: $50-S200/month. 972^91-1916.

World Olympic Gymnastics Academy, Piano: $140-$200/month. 972-985-9292.

MUSIC

Altogether, 335 kids participate in the Dallas Youth Orchestra, after taking part in a series of auditions in the spring. The DYO is often a child’s first experience with an orchestra; it also gives young musicians the chance to work with different coaches, conductors, and soloists. Tuition covers the cost of music, music covers, and concert hall rental. There are five different orchestras, at varying age levels and degrees of expertise.

The YPO is designed to be a child’s first experience playing with an orchestra. For kids who have been playing a stringed instrument only a year or so. Tuition: $200 per year.

Members of the Dallas String Ensemble have been playing a little longer, so the technique is a little more complicated. Tuition: $250 per year.

The Sinfonietta is a chamber-size, strings only, intermediate-level group. Tuition: $250 per year.

The Philharmonic is a full orchestra with woodwinds and brass. It plays original, but simpler, scores. Tuition: $375 per year.

The Greater Dallas Youth Orchestra plays the same music as any full symphony orchestra. Tuition: $450 per year.

For information or referral to music teachers and other programs, call 214-528-7747.



HOCKEY

Hockey starts with the basics of ice skating, of course, and that’s the first problem with a Northern sport gaining popularity in Texas. There are only five pads of ice in the city for 2,000 fervent young hockey players, and there is a proportional dearth of qualified coaches and instructors. The fact is, hockey in Dallas can only take you so far. Success for a Dallas hockey program is measured by the number of kids they lose to Northern prep schools.

Dedicated and talented high school hockey players in Dallas have several choices: 1 ) Relax and stay here; 2) Go to a Northern prep school with a good program; 3) Try out for the junior program sanctioned by the USA Hockey Association, (this allows a kid to go to a city with a junior team-imagine unpaid minor league baseball- live with a family there, attend the local high school, and play hockey hard); 4) Play for an Elite club hockey team. Northern cities have high-level clubs sponsored by local businesses. Again, kids live with a family and go to a local school.

Dr Pepper StarCenter: 211 Cowboys Pkwy., Irving, 972-868-2890.

Ice-o-Plex: 15100 Midway Rd., Addison, 972-991-7539.

IceBound: 4020 W. Plano Pkwy.. Plano, 972-758-7528.

All offer basic instruction in skating and skills and can guide kids into a recreational league, where they play for the first couple of years. If a youngster thinks he’s Gretzky and wants to go on, he starts working his way up through the league system, much like soccer. Ice is so over-scheduled that a 5 a.m. practice or weekend game is not unusual, and mid-level kids may play at midnight.

SOCCER

Often, a child’s first experience with soccer is with a YMCA team, generally playing with a fun-first attitude. (It’s not about winning; it’s about how you play the game and how much fun you have playing the game.) A child who loves the competitive aspect of soccer usually moves on to one of the select leagues affiliated with the North Texas State Soccer Association. NTSSA is the nonprofit umbrella organization for all soccer played above the line that could be drawn from Nacogdoches to Midland-Odessa. NTSSA signs up new leagues and administers both adult and youth programs ( 130,000 kids and 20.000 adults are registered with NTSSA) in accordance with FIFA, the worldwide governing body of soccer.

Currently, it parents 120 separate soccer organizations, both recreational and competitive. Recreational teams (and all teams under the age of 11 ) are selected by draw; competitive, or select, teams are assembled by sometimes heartbreaking tryouts. The North Dallas Classic League for boys and the Lake Highlands Classic League for girls are two of the strongest competitive leagues in the country. UIL (University Interscholastic League, the body that governs all high school interscholastic activities) prohibits playing club soccer and school soccer at the same time. NTSSA: 972-323-1323.

PERFORMING ARTS THEATER

Most community theaters offer classes, and it’s hard to outweigh convenience when it comes to extracurricular activities-closer is always better for the carpooler. But some programs stand out in the city as the best. If your child is serious, it’s worth the drive.

Dallas Children’s Theater. DCT is a nationally recognized children’s theater. Its season of plays and musicals is produced for children but features adult and child actors- this isn’t just kiddie theater. Classes for kids from age 3 through high school are process-oriented, based on the philosophy that theater is the strongest foundation for acting.

DCT offers after-school classes and a summer program at the theater and also runs on-site, after-school drama clubs in 18 elementary and middle schools. The Crescent Player group is an audition-only performing group for teens. Classes start at about S125 a semester.

DCT is partnering with Dallas Summer Musicals to create a summer musical conservatory for teens and adults. 214-978-0110.

KD Studios: Lots of parents picture their kids on camera. When they think acting, they think Hollywood first. KD offers theater and camera training for children. Dallas is an excellent place for young people to start-there’s not as much pressure as in L.A., but there’s plenty of opportunity in print and film. Dallas is becoming a favorite destination for general casting calls because the talent here is fresh and unjaded.

Parents need to be careful when choosing where their child takes classes; the studio should be registered with the state and bonded. The Texas Talent Agency Act prohibits an agency from having a school or charging their talent for any kind of portfolio or training, but KD helps kids get agents. (Ten to 30 percent commission is an agent’s normal fee.) Kathy Tyner, president of KD Studios, cautions. “It’s tough to tell a parent not to push a child. But it’s a tough, hard world, and I would not encourage a kid to try acting at a young age unless the kid just loves it.” 214-638-0484.

DANCE

Etgen-Atkinson School Of Ballet

This is the oldest ballet studio in Dallas, and the little waiting room in Park Cities is lined with moms who have driven their ballerinas in from distant suburbs to take from “Miss Ann” (Etgen) and “Mr. Bill” (Atkinson), who have been teaching for 25 years. One 14-year-oid moved to Dallas for the summer to dance here. The School of American Ballet, the Pacific Northwest Ballet, and other major companies hold auditions at Etgen-Atkinson. Lessons are offered for all different levels, all year, and there’s an intensive summer program every day for five weeks. 6815 Hillcrest Ave., 214-361-0278.

Powerhouse of Dance

Hip hop. creative movement, jazz, ballet, tap, drill team, power stretch, lyrical, modem… Powerhouse is relatively new to Dallas, but the variety it offers is unequaled. This studio has nine teams that perform in dance competitions and at community service events. Owner Sheila Sattler directs 15 full-time staff teachers, all professionals. 12300 Inwood Rd., 972-960-2484.

WRESTLING

The University Interscholastic League finally recognized wrestling this year. That’s a good thing, says Rick Ortega, the St. Mark’s wrestling coach who has led the school’s team to three state championships. (It’s a bad thing for his team because private schools can no longer compete in slate championships.) Right now, he says, there are about 150 schools with varsity wrestling teams; in the early ’70s, there were close to 300 programs at the Division I college level. So scholarships are hard to come by. although it is the top-tier schools like Princeton, Duke, and Vanderbilt that have Division I wrestling. And it’s a sport that adds luster to a resume for Division II and Division III schools.

People think of wrestling as a brute sport, but Ortega says that wrestling is 90 percent technique. So, surprisingly, brains can win over brawn. Check with area schools for coaching information.

Row, row, row that boat: Cathy Dunnet

“I didn’t even know what ’crew1 was,” Cathy Dunnet remembers. When 13-year-old Cathy entered Episcopal School of Dallas in 1991, two new sports for girls had been added to the athletics program: field hockey and crew. To an inland-bom and land-locked Dallasite like Cathy, crew sounded fun, simply because it was something you did on the water. If you could find any.

She made the junior varsity crew her freshman year. Soon, Cathy was moved up to the varsity team. It turns out she had an undiscovered knack for rowing a boat. “The coaches have always been impressed with her ’erg’ times.” explains Cathy’s mother, Barbara.

There’s no tradition of rowing in the South, even though the climate allows for more water practice. But Cathy’s done her share of weight-lifting and “erging” (known to health club habitues as the rowing machine), both basic training for rowing,

Cathy is small for the sport-only 5’8/:” (most women rowers are at least 6 feet tall)-but skill and enthusiasm make up for size. At the West Coast Junior Development Camp, she was introduced to sweeping, rowing with one oar instead of sculling with two. There are eight people in the boat, all facing the coxswain in the stern, which is why, besides strength, a rower needs a talent for cooperation. Rowers must move together in tight rhythm, like a Temptations dance routine. “There are no stars on a crew,” says Cathy.

Finding competition is a big challenge for Southern crews, so teams have to travel often. Cathy competed in two regattas in Indianapolis and rowed in the Stotesbury Cup in Philadelphia her senior year.

Unlike hockey, there’s no regional advantage to crew. even though there’s more crewing in the North than in the South. It takes a certain upper-body strength and size to start rowing, and kids below the age of 13 or 14 don’t have it.

“Ergattas,” back-breaking erg competitions, fill the winter months. During the spring semester, a regatta nearly every weekend kept Cathy from attending the prom, even the Athletic Awards banquet.

The Dunnets put their kids in private schools to offer them a broad range of opportunities, including a variety of athletics and good college counseling. In Cathy’s case, it paid off. Recruited by the University of Washington, Boston University, and University of California at Berkeley, she ultimately chose the University of Miami because it offered both an athletic scholarship and an art merit scholarship?- making her the school’s only fine arts major on an athletic scholarship. She likes the weather, too. You can row outside every day-and she does, starting at 5 a.m.-off Miami Beach, with the dolphins following the boat.

ICE ICE BABY: Miles And Parrish Theodore

Miles Theodore never needed training wheels. He always had a natural sense of balance,” says his mother. Pamela. So when Miles became fascinated by hockey, no one was surprised thai he took to the ice so easily. He spent every spare second learning to skate at the Galleria, and when he was 12, he started playing hockey. “That was before the Stars were here.” Pamela recalls. “And even before The Mighty Pucks came out.”

Only 90 kids were playing ice hockey in North Texas in 1992. Now, there are almost 2.000. Miles liked getting good at something other kids didn’t know much about yet. and Miles’ parents quickly became involved with the growing sport. In less than a year, his father, Doug, was managing Miles’ hockey team; not much later, he went on the board of the Dallas Amateur Hockey Association.

“When have you stopped supporting your kid”s dream and started supporting your obsession with their dream? That’s the question parents have to keep in mind,” Doug says now. “It was hard forme to separate Miles’ vision from mine. There were times when, no doubt. I was dragging htm behind me as I found the best path to go in youth hockey here. And you have 10 remember thai you’re looking for a track that leads to opportunity- it won’t necessarily lead to success.” In the sport of ice hockey, as Miles and his father found out, you have to accept that the path is longer and harder from Dallas than from Detroit, for instance.

When you grow up with snowless winters, it’s tough to catch up with kids who started playing pond hockey when they were 2 years old. Miles went after it hard, practicing constantly. He worked his way up the league system in Dallas. Seeking stronger competition, he started playing for leagues that traveled all over the country. He even went away to school-Culver Military Academy-for hockey’s sake.

A junior varsity team sub his first year at Culver, Mites later played on the JV team, then the varsity B team. But he was still a few steps behind kids from the North. Miles gave it all he had. but after three years he decided to return to Dallas for his senior year at Highland Park High School.

“i wasn’t ready to hear it.” his dad admits. “But Miles decided on his own that he’d gone as far as he could with hockey and it was lime to round out his life.”

Miles is attending the University of Georgia this fall, and he doesn’t see hockey in his future except as a fan or an amateur coach. And he’s happy about that. One thing following his passion gave him was self-confidence. “He knows the answer to what if?’” says Doug.

Miles’ younger brother Parrish is following on the ice Miles cut for him. Although a childhood accident left him with sight in only one eye, Parrish started playing goalie when he was 6 1/2 years old. He’s had the opportunity to play on higher-level, more experienced teams than Miles did because the sport has expanded and competitive opportunity is broader, Parrish is a freshman at Culver this fall, “I have a child with vision in one eye whose dream is to be an NHL goalie,” says Pamela. “What can you do but let a kid follow his dream?”

STAGESTRUCK: Ann Brown

You try to make decisions for your children. “I started Ann in dance-tap and ballet-when she was 5, so she could develop balance and rhythm because I just knew she wanted to be a cheerleader,”says Susan Brown. “Like me.”

Ann had rhythm, all right. By the time she was in second grade, she was dancing at the same level as the high school girls. Her mother tried to interest her in pee-wee cheerleading, but “dance was it? Susan says. “And I knew less than nothing about it.”

The Browns, who live in Granbury, enjoyed the benefits of living in a small town near a big city until little Ann discovered the performing arts. Now her mother has become a willing shuttie service, manager, and secretary to Ann, whose lessons, auditions, and performances require her presence all over Dallas and Fort Worth.

The pressure sounds horrendous for both child and parent. “If this was going to go on the rest of my life.” says Susan, “I’d die.”

Ann won her third consecutive role in Radio City Music Hall’s Christmas Spectacular this year. So she is living out of town this fall, but she’s still planning on graduating from G ran bury High School. The first two years she traveled in theater and dance. her education was up to her and her parents. Ann lugged around the books and the assignments, attending school by correspondence. Now she gets on-Iocation tutoring (it’s mandatory in New York, California, and Florida). Her mother worries that this kind of education means no real science or lab work, then assures herself that Ann is learning in another kind of lab. Ann auditioned three times for the School of American Ballet before she got in. Ballet is a work ethic.

Her mother knows Ann is chasing an elusive rainbow. Her dad, James, wonders sometimes why someone as bright as Ann would do something as uncertain as dance. “You make it and lose it before you’re 30, and then what?” says Susan. “It’s scary to watch your child play with their future, I still ask, ’Are you really not going to want to be a cheerleader when you’re in high school?’

“But she’s maturing fast. She already has ideas about college. I’d like her to get a degree in liberal arts, literature or something. But it’s her decision.”