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College Recruiting Gone Mad!

by Kevin Hunter on June 21st, 2008

What were most of you doing when you were in the eighth grade?

For some of us (especially me), it was an awkward time of trying to fit in with the cool kids or any kids for that matter who share some of your interests and awkwardness among other things. Dating was starting to become a reality as well as other things like facial and chest hair, change in voice and zits.

And if you were developing athletic skills of any kind, all you wanted to do was make it to high school, and playing anywhere beyond that was a dream at best no matter how talented you were.

Not so anymore today folks.

For some insane reason, some college basketball coaches are becoming so desperate that not only are they recruiting high school underclassmen, now they are hitting up the junior high and middle schools for commitments too.

Choosing a high school with a decent basketball program is difficult enough, now college basketball coaches want you to decide where you’re going to before you attend your first high school dance or beaten up by your first high school senior.

According to the Associated Press, Michael Avery, an eighth grader from Ascension Lutheran School in Thousand Oaks, CA has already committed to the University of Kentucky. He was recruited by Wildcats Coach Billy Gillispsie, who was scouting an AAU event Avery was playing in Akron, Ohio, making him the youngest player ever to be recruited by the Wildcats.

The 6-foot-4 Avery is likely to grow more and get even bigger. But who knows where his mental attitude will be by the time he gets to his senior year? And for that matter, who knows where Kentucky will? Kentucky has had problems with the NCAA before, and if it happens again or if they happen to stink up Rupp Arena by the time Avery is ready to enroll, rest assured he and his parents will do everything they can to get him out of that commitment and into another school.

On Thursday, the National Association of Basketball Coaches (that’s NABC for all you acronym junkies) said it is opposed to eighth graders committing without completing their sophomore year of high school and wants this to stop. NCAA rules stipulate that coaches aren’t even supposed to contact players before mid-June following their sophomore season.

According to the AP, the NABC board of directors said that the decision was made in part, because younger athletes had not yet “demonstrated sufficient academic credentials” to be admitted to school.

So you mean those eighth grade sewing or print shop classes don’t count towards enrollment into schools like Florida, Connecticut, North Carolina or Kansas?

To make matters worse, this isn’t the first time college coaches have made recruiting trips to middle schools. In 2006, USC Coach Tim Floyd got Ryan Boatright and Dwayne Poole Jr., both from the Southern California area to commit before entering high school.

But I digress. Even though the idea of recruiting kids before they hit high school may be a little silly (and a little weird), if I can get Floyd, Ben Howland at UCLA or Mike Krzyzewski at Duke to come and take a look at my kid and offer him an early scholarship that would be great.

My son is four years old and over three and a half feet tall. He as wicked ball handling skills and has been dunking on his Playskool basketball hoop since he was two and a half. My wife and I already have a college fund set up for him, but if he can get a college scholarship now, we can blow his college money on that trip to Europe we’ve always wanted to take, an HD television or on gas.

We’re paying well over $4.50 a gallon out here in Southern California!

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POSTED IN: College Recruits