Reagan football coach Harry Colon knows there’s no way to improve on a 100-percent graduation rate except making sure it doesn’t decrease.

That’s a big reason the former NFL player is so high on the Play It Smart program, a National Football Foundation initiative aimed helping student-athletes succeed in the classroom.

“It’s a very successful program that should be implemented in every high school,” Colon said at a recent Touchdown Club of Houston luncheon. “With football coaches having so much on their plates, it’s very helpful to have another coach focus on the players’ individual academic needs and the progress necessary to be successful athletes.”

Colon has his wish, at least in Houston ISD.

After the program led to wildly successful results at Reagan, Furr and Milby, Houston ISD has implemented in each of its 23 high schools.

One hundred percent of Reagan and Furr’s football seniors graduated last year, and all applied for college. Eighty-five percent of Milby’s graduated.

HISD hired academic coaches for all of its high schools last May, earning money to pay for the program in 2008-09 through $1.365 million in federal funding and an additional $400,000 from both the National Football Foundation and the Touchdown Club of Houston.

NCAA president Myles Brand praised the organization during its national conference two weeks in Arlington.

“High school graduation rates and college enrollment rates are going down. You’re making them go up. You’re bucking the trend,” Brand said. “If you do well on your academic courses in high school, you’re going to do well academically in college.”

“Having a prominent national figure like Myles Brand come to the Play It Smart Conference means a lot on so many levels,” said National Football Foundation President and Chief Executive Officer Steve Hatchell. “With more than 200 Play It Smart participants playing major college football and thousands more attending college, the program is clearly having an impact nationwide.”

Play It Smart was created with six goals in mind: Improving grade-point averages, increasing the number of students taking SAT and ACT exams and improve scores on those tests; enhance life-skills development; increase opportunities for community services; increase parental and family involvement; and increasing graduation rates and opportunities for higher education.

Academic coaches serve as a mentor, coach and counselors.

Colon played for the New England Patriots and Jacksonville Jaguars and had two stints with the Detroit Lions in his six-year NFL career, which was cut short during the 1997 season after a neck injury disclosed a congenital narrowing of the spinal canal.

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