Prep school for life.(THE GOODNESS OF AMERICA)(John Massey's Redemption Christian Academy)

Back in 1965, John Massey, then a 17-year-old basketball star at Philadelphia's Southern High School, lacked focus. He was a young black man with neither a goal nor a game plan for his future, so he dropped out of school.

"I quit school, eventually joined the Navy and went to Vietnam," Massey said in an interview with the Record (Troy, New York). "Education wasn't a priority to me then. It was a huge error in judgment and now l focus on helping young people avoid making the mistake I made."

The now-Rev. John Massey found his calling in transforming the lives of young people when, as pastor of the Redemption Church of Christ, he was struggling to pay the tuition for his own children to attend Loudinville Christian School. He saw the need for a boarding school that would provide an affordable, quality education for black youth who faced some of the same challenges he had as a boy. He envisioned a school where he could provide guidance and direction and a total education--spiritual, mental, and physical. He envisioned a school that could combat the widespread epidemic of drugs, crime, and illiteracy among young people. So in 1979, along with his wife, Joan, Massey founded Redemption Christian Academy in Troy, New York.

Redemption was not intended to be a school for misfits. "The kids aren't a bunch of thugs and, above everything else, education comes first," Massey told the Record. "We are in the business of preparing young people to succeed academically, spiritually, socially, and athletically." Yet, Massey said in the same interview, "We do take in kids who are a risk, but they have to conduct themselves in a certain way here or they will not be part of the program, l believe everybody deserves an opportunity to succeed. That's what we provide at Redemption."

With his background playing basketball, the sport is a natural part of school life at Redemption, and Rev. Massey coaches the team himself. His players have done remarkably well for a small school whose average enrollment is around 100 students from elementary to high school. Redemption graduates are found on the teams of such colleges as Sacramento State, Alabama, West Virginia, St. John's, and Southern Indiana, and they are on the NBA's Los Angeles Lakers and Milwaukee Bucks.

For Rev. Massey, basketball is a means to an end, not an end in itself, however. He stresses that for a student to make a favorable impression on him and succeed as a Redemption student, the student must want to make something of his life. Athletes have no special privileges and must follow the school's strict disciplinary code. Like all students at Redemption, they must achieve academically and participate in school and community service programs.

Students that other educators might have been afraid to accept provide some of the best testaments to Rev. ...