Khaleed's field of dreams? Try the classroom at URI

Athletics at New London High, proud and prideful, are nonetheless a blessing and a curse. There's no way to measure the joy, camaraderie, memories and lifelong friends that have developed in proportion to all the big, green banners.

But how many young kids in the city, who see the Friday Night Lights and Kris Dunn dunking, might think sports are their only path to college?

It's a foregone conclusion what many in the community believe, particularly the burbs, where New London is "the athletes' school" and "athletics is all they have."

Which is what makes Khaleed Fields such an important young man. Fields, a senior, has no idea the power and significance of the decision he just made. Maybe he will one day. Maybe he'll realize that stereotypes come down like the Berlin Wall did: one chunk at a time.

Fields will be a college student next fall. He didn't need sports to get there, although he is an all-state wide receiver and starter on the defending state champion basketball team. The coaches at the University of Rhode Island contacted him about being a cornerback.

Fields, however, has decided not to play.

He'd rather focus on his major, civil engineering.

Once again: In a city like New London, the significance of the previous two sentences is boundless.

"I've been playing football since I was eight," Fields was saying Monday night after the Whalers dusted Hyde of New Haven, a school that should be renamed "Hye," because no one there was interested in playing any 'D.'

"There's no way to describe how much I love football," he said. "But there's something more important. I know I'm not going to the NFL."

Whoa. Imagine a kid with more wisdom than many parents out there, all of whom are convinced their kids are going to the NFL, were it not for that nitwit coach.

Fields continued: "Civil engineering is hard and it takes a lot of time. I know everyone always wants to go to college to play sports. But my parents always told me academics are more important."

Fields said he's heard from several outposts, which want him to rethink his decision and balance academics and athletics.

"I gotta do what I gotta do," he said.

Fields, who said he splits his academic time between the high school and magnet school, is another story you'd find at New London if you really wanted to. They really do open books there.

"People only hear about the bad things we do," Fields said. "You don't ever hear about the good. We have phenomenal kids. Everyone's focused on sports because we're New London. That's fine. But I'll put (classmates) Greg Castronova, Samantha Lake, Zack Johnson and Chris Baker against anyone. They'd be top kids at any school they went to."

Fields even said his education at the magnet school will give him an advantage in college against his other civil engineering majors.

"Revit," Fields said.

He was talking about a computer-aided building information modeling program that uses 3D objects to represent real physical building components such as walls and doors.

Even if other schools use the program, Fields walks into any college classroom with a degree of assuredness his high school gave him.

Khaleed's dad is an accountant. His mom is Lawrence and Memorial Hospital's program coordinator for community education. Clearly, they have done well in raising their son. And their son's ability to think for himself gives life to the educational system in the city.

See? Here's an athlete who is a student first.

There are plenty of great students in the place. Sometimes, though, it takes athletes, any school's most visible representatives, to tell the story best. If it wasn't Khaleed Fields on Monday night in Conway Gym, it was Tyson Wheeler, still the king of the place, who came to watch. The same guy who went back to Rhode Island after his playing days to finish college.

Hope all the kids in the city absorb this.

Almost as much as the people creating the stereotypes. Khaleed Fields might design the bridge your drive over one day. Aren't you glad he's so smart?

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro.