rynesandbergfan23
Bench Warmer
Randy Hill
FOXSports.com
Four years is an eternity.
For example, in four years, a car that was worth an arm and a leg may turn into a screaming pile of trade-in disaster. Paris Hilton can finish an entire six-week jail sentence in 48 months. Roger Clemens can earn about $80 million for pitching two dozen games in four years.
Kobe Bryant can change his mind about eight times in four hours. That translates into approximately 70,080 flip-flops in four years. Give or take.
Four years from now, Ryan Boatright may be preparing to enroll at USC. How do we know? Well, on Sunday, Boatright — a high school freshman-to-be from Aurora, Ill. — made a verbal commitment to accept a basketball scholarship offer from Trojans coach Tim Floyd.
As an irritable club and high school coach, I believe such premature matriculation could be at cross purposes with a national movement toward very important summer-time skill development. We'll have more on that later.
Anyway, Floyd took some time off from stalking Los Angeles-area maternity wards in search of future talent to make the offer after young Boatright participated in the USC basketball camp.
This is the second time in as many years that Floyd has received allegiance from an eighth-grader; in 2006, Dwayne Polee Jr. gave him the word before enrolling at L.A.'s Westchester High.
Don't blame Tim for these early talent seizures. As the first Chicago Bulls coach of the post-Michael Jordan era, Floyd remembers being unable to woo players despite having gobs of cap space. As long as the rules don't forbid it, he should grab talent any way he can.
And Floyd didn't exactly invent the idea of making offers to eighth-graders. The first verbal commitment that I can recall from a pre-high-schooler occurred four years ago when Taylor King gave the thumbs up to UCLA.
Two years later, point guard Cully Payne from Burlington Central High outside Chicago verbally committed to DePaul. Last year, Jereme Richmond committed to Illinois before attending his first class at Chicago's North Shore Country Day School. It should be noted that Richmond may be transferring to Waukegan High for his sophomore year.
Instead of enrolling at UCLA, King — a McDonald's All-American — has signed a letter-of-intent with Duke.
Boatright, a 5-foot-10 point guard who plays his club ball with the Chi-town Mixers, still must choose between being an Aurora East Tomcat or Aurora West Blackhawk. He also must prove that he belongs on the varsity at either school.
Although both schools have rich hoop traditions and plenty of talent, he must fit in with juniors and seniors who wouldn't mind receiving an offer from Loyola or Northern Illinois. He'll have to battle opponents with extra incentive to take on the kid who received a USC offer long before receiving a learner's permit.
Maybe this will be the right decision for Ryan Boatright, who — according to the Chicago Sun-Times — has been a fan of USC and North Carolina for a while. Carolina makes for-a-while sense, but USC really didn't provide much inspiration for basketball recruits until Floyd arrived and began turning the Trojans into a power in just two years.
In four years, with elite recruits such as O.J. Mayo (2007) stepping in for potentially limited time, Floyd and his new arena may really do some damage.
Or maybe Floyd will receive the next coaching offer from the Orlando Magic (let's hope Tim remains in college, where he'll have a huge impact on the sport).
Maybe Boatright will continue to improve and begin seeing himself as a Tar Heel. Or maybe he doesn't improve that much. I hope he does continue to get better, but what if his progress stalls over four years and USC is committed to a point guard who isn't the equal of about a dozen playing high school ball within 10 miles of its campus?
The recruiting slope may become more slippery than ever. Instead of working in a sport where talent development is easier to project than in football and baseball, college coaches — hoping to snag a prospect before the competition sees him — will be attempting to assess the futures of 14-year-olds. That's when it becomes dicey.
The potential college-level doom is obvious. But what about the long-term impact on basketball at the lower levels?
Most of the eighth-graders being wooed were first spied while playing for club teams in national tournaments. And club basketball — especially at the upper levels of high school — should be given a great deal of credit for wrecking the sport in our country at all levels.
Please note that some club programs have highly qualified coaches who take the time to teach team concepts while not forsaking the development of skills like shooting, passing, rebounding and defensive footwork. But the majority of club programs stockpile talent for the purpose of participating in national tournaments where club coaches can rub elbows with salivating college coaches. To the good, this is where players receive initial exposure that leads to scholarships.
Exposure can be just dandy; but when talented high school kids who still have glaring weaknesses play about 100 club games during the spring, summer and fall, when does the skill development occur? After the United States failed to win another international competition, a few basketball big shots and sneaker-company sharpies decided to deflect criticism from guys like me and turn tournament-style access to players into skill-development camps.
It's a fine idea. As long as they don't allow LeBron James to teach shooting at the Nike-sponsored LeBron James Skills Academy.
But the fine idea of taking the time previously spent on tournament play and using it for drills loses considerable steam when club ball makes junior high kids visible to high-profile college coaches.
Maybe Boatright managed to develop tremendous skill and tight fundamentals while playing club ball. But not all kids may be as gifted. For every Ryan Boatright, there may be a thousand kids whose parents think they're as talented as he is and deserve an offer before entering high school.
Almost all of them are wrong. Unfortunately, their kids may spend an inordinate amount of time in club tournaments instead of working on the things they don't do well.
What can be done to break this disturbing cycle? Well, make sure your son or daughter plays for a club coach who spends at least half of his or her practice time developing the skills of the players.
It also wouldn't hurt if the NCAA required college coaches to hold off on unloading scholarship offers until high school prospects finish their sophomore years. If the NBA can wait, so can Roy Williams or Tim Floyd.
In the meantime, don't be surprised if recruiting sites such as hoopscooponline begin posting their lists of the top 100 zygotes for 2007.
FOXSports.com
Four years is an eternity.
For example, in four years, a car that was worth an arm and a leg may turn into a screaming pile of trade-in disaster. Paris Hilton can finish an entire six-week jail sentence in 48 months. Roger Clemens can earn about $80 million for pitching two dozen games in four years.
Kobe Bryant can change his mind about eight times in four hours. That translates into approximately 70,080 flip-flops in four years. Give or take.
Four years from now, Ryan Boatright may be preparing to enroll at USC. How do we know? Well, on Sunday, Boatright — a high school freshman-to-be from Aurora, Ill. — made a verbal commitment to accept a basketball scholarship offer from Trojans coach Tim Floyd.
As an irritable club and high school coach, I believe such premature matriculation could be at cross purposes with a national movement toward very important summer-time skill development. We'll have more on that later.
Anyway, Floyd took some time off from stalking Los Angeles-area maternity wards in search of future talent to make the offer after young Boatright participated in the USC basketball camp.
This is the second time in as many years that Floyd has received allegiance from an eighth-grader; in 2006, Dwayne Polee Jr. gave him the word before enrolling at L.A.'s Westchester High.
Don't blame Tim for these early talent seizures. As the first Chicago Bulls coach of the post-Michael Jordan era, Floyd remembers being unable to woo players despite having gobs of cap space. As long as the rules don't forbid it, he should grab talent any way he can.
And Floyd didn't exactly invent the idea of making offers to eighth-graders. The first verbal commitment that I can recall from a pre-high-schooler occurred four years ago when Taylor King gave the thumbs up to UCLA.
Two years later, point guard Cully Payne from Burlington Central High outside Chicago verbally committed to DePaul. Last year, Jereme Richmond committed to Illinois before attending his first class at Chicago's North Shore Country Day School. It should be noted that Richmond may be transferring to Waukegan High for his sophomore year.
Instead of enrolling at UCLA, King — a McDonald's All-American — has signed a letter-of-intent with Duke.
Boatright, a 5-foot-10 point guard who plays his club ball with the Chi-town Mixers, still must choose between being an Aurora East Tomcat or Aurora West Blackhawk. He also must prove that he belongs on the varsity at either school.
Although both schools have rich hoop traditions and plenty of talent, he must fit in with juniors and seniors who wouldn't mind receiving an offer from Loyola or Northern Illinois. He'll have to battle opponents with extra incentive to take on the kid who received a USC offer long before receiving a learner's permit.
Maybe this will be the right decision for Ryan Boatright, who — according to the Chicago Sun-Times — has been a fan of USC and North Carolina for a while. Carolina makes for-a-while sense, but USC really didn't provide much inspiration for basketball recruits until Floyd arrived and began turning the Trojans into a power in just two years.
In four years, with elite recruits such as O.J. Mayo (2007) stepping in for potentially limited time, Floyd and his new arena may really do some damage.
Or maybe Floyd will receive the next coaching offer from the Orlando Magic (let's hope Tim remains in college, where he'll have a huge impact on the sport).
Maybe Boatright will continue to improve and begin seeing himself as a Tar Heel. Or maybe he doesn't improve that much. I hope he does continue to get better, but what if his progress stalls over four years and USC is committed to a point guard who isn't the equal of about a dozen playing high school ball within 10 miles of its campus?
The recruiting slope may become more slippery than ever. Instead of working in a sport where talent development is easier to project than in football and baseball, college coaches — hoping to snag a prospect before the competition sees him — will be attempting to assess the futures of 14-year-olds. That's when it becomes dicey.
The potential college-level doom is obvious. But what about the long-term impact on basketball at the lower levels?
Most of the eighth-graders being wooed were first spied while playing for club teams in national tournaments. And club basketball — especially at the upper levels of high school — should be given a great deal of credit for wrecking the sport in our country at all levels.
Please note that some club programs have highly qualified coaches who take the time to teach team concepts while not forsaking the development of skills like shooting, passing, rebounding and defensive footwork. But the majority of club programs stockpile talent for the purpose of participating in national tournaments where club coaches can rub elbows with salivating college coaches. To the good, this is where players receive initial exposure that leads to scholarships.
Exposure can be just dandy; but when talented high school kids who still have glaring weaknesses play about 100 club games during the spring, summer and fall, when does the skill development occur? After the United States failed to win another international competition, a few basketball big shots and sneaker-company sharpies decided to deflect criticism from guys like me and turn tournament-style access to players into skill-development camps.
It's a fine idea. As long as they don't allow LeBron James to teach shooting at the Nike-sponsored LeBron James Skills Academy.
But the fine idea of taking the time previously spent on tournament play and using it for drills loses considerable steam when club ball makes junior high kids visible to high-profile college coaches.
Maybe Boatright managed to develop tremendous skill and tight fundamentals while playing club ball. But not all kids may be as gifted. For every Ryan Boatright, there may be a thousand kids whose parents think they're as talented as he is and deserve an offer before entering high school.
Almost all of them are wrong. Unfortunately, their kids may spend an inordinate amount of time in club tournaments instead of working on the things they don't do well.
What can be done to break this disturbing cycle? Well, make sure your son or daughter plays for a club coach who spends at least half of his or her practice time developing the skills of the players.
It also wouldn't hurt if the NCAA required college coaches to hold off on unloading scholarship offers until high school prospects finish their sophomore years. If the NBA can wait, so can Roy Williams or Tim Floyd.
In the meantime, don't be surprised if recruiting sites such as hoopscooponline begin posting their lists of the top 100 zygotes for 2007.
