September 17, 2005
Kayla Pedersen lives in Fountain Hills and goes to high school in Mesa , but she hasn't spent much time in either place lately.
Over the past five weeks, while classmates went to the movies or worked summer jobs, Pedersen has been about the business of basketball - specifically, her quest for an athletic scholarship to the university of her choice.
At events from Anaheim to Atlanta , she laced up her sneakers and played before college coaches and scouting services that widely acknowledge her as one of the country's 10 best female players in the Class of 2007.
Pedersen is an exceptional talent. But even for accomplished high school athletes, the odds against obtaining a college athletic scholarship are long and the competition is fierce. There is pressure to stand out from the pack during their junior and senior years.
Virtually any sport's season is year-round now, and playing for the high school team is less than half of it. Athletes work with sport-specific personal trainers and participate on club teams. They fan out to "exposure" camps and tournaments to be seen and evaluated, particularly during the summer.
If Pedersen is feeling any anxiety from this, she isn't showing it. But then, she has spent July on the road for three years running.
"I'm very determined," she said. "It's probably something I don't share very much with others. I know what I'm going to do and how I'll get it done."
According to the National Collegiate Scouting Association, about 6 million high school athletes of both genders are vying for 72,000 available scholarships in NCAA Division I, the highest level of college athletics. That means only 1.2 percent will make the cut.
And of an estimated 3,000 girls who play high school basketball in Arizona , fewer than 1 percent will go on to Division I.
Pedersen, 16, has been on colleges' radar for a while. With superior skills to go with her size (6 feet 4) and smarts (4.2 grade-point average), she is now considered a lock to play Division I women's basketball. A spot on the 2012 U.S. Olympic team or a WNBA roster even seems within reach.
The coming school year, which begins Monday for her at Mesa 's Red Mountain High, will be huge. Colleges finally will be allowed to initiate limited contact by mail (once a week) and phone (starting in March). She will begin to winnow her list of possibilities.
Among the marquee schools already in pursuit: Stanford, Texas, Duke, Tennessee, Louisiana State, Southern California, UCLA, Arizona State, Kansas State, Florida, Virginia, Notre Dame and Ohio State.
The recruitment of prized female athletes can be as intense as it is for their male counterparts.
"She has 18 (scholarship) offers now, and she had them at the end of her sophomore season of high school," said Kenny Drake, Pedersen's trainer, who has served as an intermediary between the athlete and her army of suitors.
"She's the total package. She doesn't bring a lot of arrogance. She's a great kid and is very aware of her teammates."
Little did Gary and Kelli Pedersen know that this would be the laser-focused direction chosen by their baby girl, who weighed 7 pounds 8 ounces and measured 20 ½ inches at birth.
Gary, who sells commercial real estate, is 6 feet 7 and played small-college basketball in Michigan . Kelli is 5 feet 11. When 8-year-old Kayla made a hoops team of 10-year-olds, the family realized that something special might be in the works.
"I just loved it," Kayla said. "I also played soccer. I was playing (sports) just to have fun up until 12, and then I started taking it seriously."
The family bought season tickets to Phoenix Mercury games and Kayla shifted into overdrive, mimicking the pro players' moves and charting her own dribbling drills.
"When she was little," Kelli said, "we'd stop and ask her, 'You're doing this because you want to, right?' We're the ones who make her take a rest."
Bonnie Barbee, Kayla's teammate at Red Mountain and also in the Arizona Elite club program, said Pedersen is "a thrill to watch play" and marveled that she never has seen her angry.
Drake said that even with all of the acclaim, Pedersen hasn't reached her potential. Most of her pressure seems to be self-imposed.
"She loves to practice," Drake said. "With some kids, you can tell right away, within their first few minutes in the gym, that they don't want to be there.
"The great ones, the big-time players, are different from everybody else, and I can see that in her."
Pedersen wants to study sports medicine or physical therapy in college. She enjoys writing, and for months she has authored a diary for a local Web site devoted to high school sports.
On Sept. 1, the mail from colleges will start pouring in and the courtship of Kayla officially will be under way.
"It's already been crazy, and it's going to get worse," Drake said. "It's going to get really wild.
"She doesn't need exposure (to college coaches) anymore. They're not evaluating her. They already know she's good enough. She's top-shelf."
