May 17, 2000 1:45 PM AP

By BARRY WILNER

AP Sports Writer

Even though she never set foot inside a classroom at River Oaks Academy, Tara Lipinski will graduate from the Houston high school on Thursday.

The youngest figure skating gold medalist at the U.S. and world championships and the Olympics, Lipinski earned her diploma through tutoring. She will march in the graduation procession with the rest of the seniors at River Oaks.

"I didn't go to any classes recently," the 1998 Olympic champion said, "but I have done it half and half, going to regular school until the fifth grade. I still remember public school and Catholic school, and I had a chance to experience that and I'm glad I did.

"But when I moved away for skating, I began having tutors and private teachers and it was all monitored. It was not me doing the work whenever I wanted to do it."

Lipinski spent four hours each day doing schoolwork - even in Nagano for the Olympics, or Lausanne for worlds or Nashville for nationals.

"That was different, because for me everything was always after I did a worksheet or a test, I sent back it back to school," she said. "I had deadlines for the assignments, no matter what I was doing. I couldn't just take my time. So if I had to skate four hours at practice, and then do my schoolwork, or go to nationals and try to make an Olympic team and make a four-hour commitment to school each day. Oh, wow! But I'm really glad I did it this way."

Michelle Kwan, who was Lipinski's rival for three years before Lipinski turned pro, currently is enrolled at UCLA. Lipinski, who will be 18 next month, also would like to attend college, but it won't happen soon.

"I definitely want to go to college, but I also want to do it the right way and take the classes I want to take," she said. "It's hard to do with skating at the same time - one of them will suffer. And I'm not going to take any basket-weaving classes. I won't do it halfway. I want to take real classes, challenging subjects."

Lipinski prefers the sciences to literature. The earliest she might take college classes would be in the summer of 2001.

Until then, she wants to continue touring with Stars on Ice, in which she headlines with Scott Hamilton, Kristi Yamaguchi, Ekaterina Gordeeva and Ilia Kulik, and do more acting.

Lipinski recently read for several film roles. She previously has appeared in the soap opera "The Young and the Restless," as well as on "Veronica's Closet" and "Touched by an Angel." She even costarred in a television movie, "Ice Angel."

But on Thursday, she simply wants to be a typical high school graduate, complete with cap and gown. She won't look back at the proms and clubs she might have missed.

"I am sure I would like to have been social in schools, but I did not lack it because of all the friends I have had at the rink and all the friends I have now," she says. "I always had the sleepovers after (skating) practices and traveled a lot and was able to do things and go places with my friends from skating."

The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast or redistributed without prior written authority of The Associated Press.