Hoops Coaches Going after Younger Kids

Pat Forde of ESPN.com recently had a rather eye-opening and disturbing article about a not-so-new trend in college basketball these days: the tendency for top programs to get verbal commitments from players in Jr. High and even elementary school. The article starts out by telling the story of Ryna Boatright, a basketball playing eighth grader who has verbally committed to USC after he graduates from high school in 2011. Other coaches at programs around the country have been going after very young players, some even have been approached by coaches while still in fourth grade.

Forde goes through some of the obviously negative aspects of this trend. Basically, he doesn’t like that the prospects still have plenty of time to prove unworthy of a scholarship, and that the verbal agreements are so easy to get out of that they’ve become almost meaningless. But here’s my question: Won’t these verbal agreements get into a young player’s head? I mean, if I’m Joe Good Eighth Grade Basketball Player, and I’m already set to play at USC, why would I listen to my high school coach, care about getting good grades or even at improving my game? I think getting players that young is counterintuitive.

Too bad, though, that we can’t got to StubHub.com to start buying USC Trojans basketball tickets to games in 2011 so that we could see, maybe, Ryan Boatright.

Permalink - Posted in General on July 12, 2007 - Post a comment