Making the grade.(Brief Article)

The Wildcats have only one taskmaster--aspiring teacher Eugene Edgerson. But even he admits the team's clowning has kept Arizona from drowning in its sorrows.

Eugene Edgerson took last year off from basketball to student-teach at a Tucson kindergarten to fulfill his requirements for his elementary education degree. Now, he's working on a master's. One of his hobbies is reading children's literature. With his bushy Afro, kneepads and high, striped socks, Arizona's senior power forward is called old-school. But that should be changed to "all-school."

Which is why class clowns have a nails-on-the-chalkboard effect on Edgerson.

"Gilbert Arenas, man," Edgerson says shaking his head, "he's the worst. Always clowning. He thinks everyone should be loose, but I don't agree with his theory."

Flipping on and off the lights, jumping on Edgerson when he's resting, tossing Edgerson's neatly folded clothes around, and removing the peephole from a door and spraying a fire extinguisher into a room are just a few antics that make Edgerson wish he could make Arenas go sit in a corner. But Arenas isn't the only one. There aren't enough corners to hold the Wildcats, who live up to the first part of their nickname.

You have sarcastic Loren Woods. Richard Jefferson is the guy who's always grinning and gabbing. Jason Gardner delivers his wit in sneaky ways. "Most teams have one or two guys who keep everyone loose," Jefferson says. "We have five or six."

Woods disagrees. "We have 13 or 14. The only one who is serious is Gene, the kindergarten teacher. We're always trying to lock him in the bathroom so we can have our fun without him getting on us."