It's a school with an entrance exam like no other. The successful applicant has to be the devil reincarnate with the potential of being downright dangerous. Successful applicants must have the proper references. Court orders are preferred, but a teacher's referral labeling the kid an extreme risk will suffice.

If accepted, the student will be given one thing, and one thing only - hope. It is up to that individual to turn this hope into reality and claim a life that is rightfully his or hers. This is the promise the people at The Chi Chi Rodriguez Youth Foundation in Clearwater make to every kid who crosses their threshold, and for most, this is the only place they can find this offer.

These are the kids who are more familiar with abuse than love. Somewhere in their short lives they were taught self esteem is for losers and have been lead down a path to nowhere. When they reach the doors of the foundation, they have a new experience. Someone puts an arm around them without trying to take something out of their pockets. For most, this is their first experience with kindness. Love and understanding awaits.

"We want to raise the kids self esteem," says executive director Bill Hayes. "Most important we want them to feel love. They're good people. Maybe they had bad things happen in their life. We tell them that those things have already happened, and the best thing is to forget them and try to live one day at a time."

This is the basic mantra of the Chi Chi Rodriguez Youth Foundation. It is a way of life for the dedicated people who make all this happen. These people aren't there for the money - they are truly there for the kids. It sounds corny, but these people define goodness and the best part is - the kids buy into it. The success ratio is 99 percent and has been since they started over 20 years ago.

"It's funny how the story has changed through the years," laughs Hayes. "I've read that it started with Chi Chi and I and two kids in my rust-eaten old car. It wasn't a new car, but I kind of liked it. In the last story I read, it referred to me as a PGA Tour tournament winner and Chi Chi as a golf course architect. I like that one. Actually, I was a professional golfer, but I got injured and had to stop. This is where I landed."

Chi Chi recalls those days as well. "Bill had this car and I had a thousand dollars, so we decided to try to help two kids. Then someone gave us another thousand dollars and we tried to help two more kids. Things kept growing and growing and here we are."

Rodriguez is Hayes' number one fan. He knows the executive director more than just landed at the foundation. The foundation is a focal point of his life.

"Bill Hayes is a brilliant man," says Rodriguez. "He could have easily made a million dollars doing anything he wanted, but he dedicated his life to the kids and the foundation. He's always been around for troubled kids. He started in a detention center for kids where he was the warden."

Rodriguez' involvement is more than a name-lending arrangement. For years, a major element of the golf clinics he gives around the world is the involvement of kids. His message to the kids has always been that if they have a problem to call him and he will help. At times, he and his message have seemed too good to be true. No one and no program could be this good. It doesn't take 10 minutes at the foundation to dash those thoughts.

The central point of the program is the lodge. This is where the kids get to interact with each other. It's also a learning center. There's a fully-equipped computer center where the kids are introduced to higher forms of technology. They even have their own retail store where clothes are sold or bartered and an occasional experienced golf ball may be on sale. Lessons in retailing, accounting and advertising are taught first-hand. It's all part of the learning experience. It's a living classroom in the truest sense of the word and it's managed by a bundle of energy and love named Gerry Hazinski, the education director.

"We're all family here," she says of the relationship between staff and kids. "We've crossed the line. The kids are comfortable and that's the starting point. They know the people here really care about them. We tell them they need a good attitude and that we expect the best from them and from us."

Just looking around the lodge, one realizes the truth in her statement. The place is spotless and the kids are taught to take pride in their place. Hazinski keeps it simple. They do their work first and can play later. There's often another bonus. She has a recipe for killer cookies with an aroma that could inspire the building of skyscrapers for a chance at a second helping.

But the Chi Chi Rodriguez Foundation is not all cookies and cream. Nor is it all textbook learning. The format is a living classroom. The curriculum is learning how to live and how to get along. The learning tools at times run the gamut from driver through putter. For you and I, golf is a game - for these kids, it's a means to a positive life-style.

Mike Richardson is a volunteer at the foundation. In real life he's a teacher in Pinellas County. His daytime students are kids who have been expelled or suspended. By working at the foundation, he's helping to cut the size of his future classes by getting the younger kids on the straight and narrow before they wind up being assigned to him. There's no mystery as to what makes the foundation work.

"Golf is the vehicle that makes this work," says Safety Harbor's Richardson. "It's the focal point. It's not just the athletic side, but it provides some of the things these kids miss in their daily life - things like discipline, courtesy and self reliance. Golf is not a team sport and it fills voids in these kids lives."

Working at the foundation has given Richardson a new appreciation for the game.

"I know it's a great game," he says, "and I know how hard it is to play. Here, they make it easy to start playing. My own perception is these are good kids and I felt if they could build their character, they could have a good life."

Richardson knows about the travails of the game of golf. Not only does he play, but in a former life, he was a corporate pilot. His passenger? Jack Nicklaus. It's somewhat ironic that Richardson should find himself at the Chi Chi Rodriguez Youth Foundation because his former boss has spent some time at the foundation, as have a lot of other Tour pros.

"I would say of all the pros, Jack Nicklaus has done the most here," says Rodriguez.

The walls are filled with reminisces of "Chi Chi and the Bear" fund raising tournaments that have helped fund the foundation. Moreover, a keystone of the complex is the Nicklaus Center, a huge one-room building in the middle of the complex that houses all communal functions. There is just one picture of the Nicklaus', Barbara and Jack. It hangs above the sink, a place Barbara felt it most appropriate for her picture.

In addition to Nicklaus' involvement, Paul Azinger has become a major fixture at the foundation. The big annual fund raising tournament is now "Chi Chi and the Zinger." Not surprisingly, it's a huge success. The golf world loves Chi Chi and the entire world loves kids. Add the two together and mix with the sweat of a hard working staff headed by Cary Stiff and you have success in the $200,000 annual range.

That's money and it takes cash to keep the foundation going. Two things you won't find at the foundation are rich people or closed books.

"Our books are open to anyone who wants to look," says Chi Chi. "We know that 82 percent of every dollar we take in goes right back to the kids. It's money well spent because we have a 99 percent success rate. We're all proud of that. I'm sure all the people here could make more money somewhere else, but they're all dedicated to the kids and the foundation."

The kids - it always gets back to the kids. For sure, everyone at the foundation laments the one kid out of a hundred that ends up in jail or in the street. But, it all becomes worthwhile when one kid makes it. They know they've given a kid a chance to make it and the inspiration to grasp the program.

If there's any doubt in anyone's heart, it disappears when they see the smile and hear the voice of Shawntini Jackson. Before she came to the foundation, let's just say she didn't have very much. Once she arrived, she had something that would never leave - she had the love of everyone around her.

"If it wasn't for the foundation," she says with quiet intensity, "I'd be in the streets right now selling drugs or something worse."

Shawntini is in the streets, but they're not the streets of Clearwater or Pinellas County, they're the streets running from building to building on the campus of Talladega College in Talladega, Alabama. She's gone from a road to nowhere to a college scholarship. It was earned in the classroom and on the golf course.

"I was at the foundation for 13 years," the 18-year old freshman says. "To me, the foundation is my second family. They helped me with a lot of family problems. I lived with my grandmother who was in a wheelchair and the people at the foundation helped her a lot. They gave us turkeys at Thanksgiving and presents at Christmas. They were really good to us. After school, they'd give me the extra help and tutoring I needed. They took the time to help me and that made a difference."

When she entered school, her future was going to be steered by a history and pre-law major. A second thought, shed the light of reality on her future's path.

"I've already changed my major," she says sheepishly. "I'm going to major in social work. I still go back to the foundation and I love working with kids. I want to make that my life's work."

Jackson is just one of the many success stories at the foundation. There's an attitude that goes with these success stories. They're not trophies - they're people. People are a big part of the operation and it's not just the staff and volunteers. The Chi Chi Rodriguez Golf Course that surrounds the foundation is a busy public golf course. People - golfers - are in and out all day. They intermingle with the kids who are working at every station of the operation. Little do they realize, the kid who's working the register was probably closer to robbing a convenience store than making change before he arrived at the foundation. Little does the general public realize they're being watched by these kids and are, in effect, role models.

"Everyone is being watched by these kids," says Stiff. "These kids don't miss a thing. They see how people act. This is how they learn."

They also learn a lot more.

"They learn retailing by working in the pro shop," explains Stiff. "They learn a lot about ecology and the environment by working on the course with the maintenance staff. They learn to play golf from the professional staff and they get all the benefits the game has to offer."

Unfortunately, the educational bureaucracy doesn't deal with hands on education, they look for test results. If it's test results they want - it's test results they will get. Dave Schmitt was the first principal of the Modesta - Robbins School in 1992 and 1993. It's the only privately funded public school in Pinellas County and is the academic curriculum program of the foundation

"In my two years," says Schmitt, who is now the principal of the Oldsmar Elementary School in Oldsmar, "I saw a huge difference in the children. They made great strides in their day-to-day motivation. There was a city councilman at the time who thought the program wasn't working and wanted to cause a problem, but he looked at the standardized tests and the results were astounding. These kids who came in at the bottom of the barrel were academically up to and beyond the national level.

In a perfect world, this is the part of the story where you would read that the day will come when the Chi Chi Rodriguez Foundation will go out of business because of a lack of need. This is not a perfect world.

"It's not going to happen," says Chi Chi. "People will always think that crime pays. What we need is an endowment that will carry the foundation on after Bill Hayes, Cari Stiff and I are gone. We're working on building that endowment. We need eight million dollars to make this come true. Hopefully, there's a corporation out there that will help make this happen. These kids are worth it."

There's a definite atmosphere at the Chi Chi Rodriguez Youth Foundation. When you walk around the grounds, you sense a certain feeling you can't identify, and as you head down the road after your visit it hits you. The atmosphere is composed of honesty, love and goodness. These kids who were dealt a hard hand to play in getting their life in order have drawn the winning cards. Here the tough luck kids are lucky after all.

Copyright 1996, 1997 Impact Interactive, Inc.