While many Washington Redskins fans turned away from their televisions Monday night, Nov. 18, 1985, defensive end Dexter Manley faced his quarterback and looked inward.
"When I saw Joe Theisman go down, I knew he had something to fall back on," Manley said. "When I saw Joe Theisman get on that stretcher, I made a decision that I was going to change my life and I did that Monday night."
Despite graduating from Oklahoma State University and later winning two Super Bowl rings with the Redskins, the former Pro Bowl defensive end didn't read until he was 30 years old.
"I couldn't learn the football plays for the first two years so we used to walk through them at practice," Manley said. "We walked through plays before and after practice and I picked it up through repetition.
"On one hand, I got cheers for my athletic accomplishments, but in my personal life, I really hurt inside," Manley said, in a keynote address at the Literacy Council of Northern Virginia's 42nd Annual Meeting and Awards Ceremony last Thursday, June 24.
<b>MORE THAN 129,000</b> adults in Northern Virginia are functionally illiterate, according to the Literacy Council, meaning they read on a fifth-grade level or below.
Last year, the Literacy Council assisted nearly 2,000 adults in Northern Virginia, although more than 130 still are on the waiting list to be matched with a tutor.
The Literacy Council trains volunteers to tutor adults who need to develop basic reading, writing and English-speaking skills.
The adult ESL education programs works with people who need to develop survival English skills. Approximately 30 percent of residents in Northern Virginia speak a language other than English in their home.
Victor Armando Orturo and Jacqueline Orturo, of McLean, moved from Bolivia in 1993. Their family was matched with Virginia Yates, of McLean, who they still meet with once a week.
"She's become a part of our family," Victor Orturo said. "It makes a big difference in our lives, it opens a lot of doors and helps us in our jobs."
They said it also helps them understand what's going on in their son's school.
Rena Baker, of Vienna, started tutoring around the time of the fall of Saigon in 1975 when there was a large influx of Southeast Asian refugees. She's volunteered ever since and received a 30-year anniversary service award last Thursday night. "The need has continued, so I continued," she said.
<b>LISA NOVIC, WHO</b> moved four years ago from the former Yugoslavia, says her tutor, Judy Sapienza, of Herndon, is the "person who gives me hope for a better tomorrow."
"My English was very, very poor. I was very quiet," she said. "It's a great advantage to learn with a tutor who can pay attention to us students."
Over half of all unemployed adults in Virginia are functionally illiterate, according to the Virginia Department of Education.
"If each person who can read and write teaches one person who can't, we can wipe out illiteracy in this region," said Patricia Donnelly, executive director of the Literacy Council. "We still have a long way to go."