The Dropout Who Made Good

Joe Sorrentino has 25 scars on his hands to prove that he was one of the best street fighters that Brooklyn's tough Fort Hamilton neighborhood ever had. By the time he was 20, he had flunked out of high school four times, had been booted out of the Marines and had lost 30 jobs. That was ten years ago. This month Joe Sorrentino, now 30, was valedictorian of Harvard Law School. "It has been a long journey to this honor," he told the commencement audience, in what was almost certainly the year's most moving graduation address, "and not what social scientists would have predicted."

His father was a New York City Sanitation Department street sweeper who never went beyond the second grade. The second oldest of seven children, Joe always wanted to be "an achiever," and in Fort Hamilton, an achiever had to be handy with his fists. A veteran of more than 100 rumbles, Joe was put on probation by a juvenile court after one particularly bloody street fight. "When I was in my first year, I failed out of Fort Hamilton High School in Brooklyn," he said in his address. "Not long after, I enrolled in Bay Ridge High School at night. I failed there also. I tried a third time at Bay Ridge, but could not last the term. Then I attended Washington Irving at night, and again could not finish."

Tired of Responsibility. At 14, Joe Sorrentino began trying his hand at various jobs, achieving "a record of distinction for failing which even surpassed my scholastic career." On his first day of work at a bleach factory, "I attempted to carry ten gallons of bleach to a truck we were loading. We lost all ten. At 16,1 worked in a sweater factory, where I had the embarrassing experience of being awakened from a nap by the president of the company." He failed as a longshoreman. "My next opportunity came through a furniture company's ad in the New York Times: 'Want ambitious young man who seeks responsibility.' After a month of aligning wheels of teacarts, I got tired of responsibility."

Joe was briefly with a Wall Street firm--as a messenger. At a shoe factory, his job was so lowly that "even the office girls wanted me to address them by their last names." He even worked for 20th Century-Fox, where he sent complimentary tickets for premieres to dignitaries. "I now would like to apologize to former Mayor Wagner," said Joe, "whose ticket I gave to my grandmother."

At 18, Joe enlisted in the Marines, but could not stand the discipline and "rebelled, fighting with recruits, rioting in the mess hall, trying to run away through the swamps of Parris Island" boot camp. Judged an incorrigible, he was sent packing with a general discharge. Back in Brooklyn, he was a hero to his old street-gang buddies. But somehow within himself Joe felt ashamed. At 20, he came to realize that "my only chance for a better life was through education." So he went back to high school, for the fifth time, at night, working days in a supermarket. After two years, he graduated from Erasmus Hall High School with the highest average in the night school's history.

Blemish on the Record. Despite only fair college-board results, his grades won him admission to the University of California at Santa Barbara. At first, Sorrentino felt he had nothing in common with the suntanned college youths who "talked about summer vacations, beach parties, things I knew nothing about." But he stuck it out and in his senior year, was elected president of the student body. After graduating magna cum laude, Joe went back into the Marine Corps for two years, feeling that "I had a blemish on my record and wanted to make up for that." He did. "This time I became platoon leader, highest scorer in athletic competition and changed my general to an honorable discharge."

As Harvard Law's valedictorian, Joe Sorrentino has received several offers to work for major U.S. law firms. Instead, he wants to serve a term as an assistant U.S. or state attorney in California. Concluding his valedictory address, Joe said: "Do not look for love, tragedy or trauma to explain this change. It was simply resolution from within"--and, he added, proof that "in America such things are possible." As he told a TIME correspondent last week, while studying for the California bar exam: "Many people say the U.S. system is a fraud. But this country is fair and generous. It comes closest to satisfying man's ideals."

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