Thursday Must Read
April 9th, 2009 - bySports Illustrated’s Phil Taylor on ESPN, Nike, private basketball teams and what it could mean to the future of high school sports. He writes about the first ever ESPN Rise National High School Invitational Basketball tournament. The tournament was won by Findlay Prep, which isn’t even a high school. It is a team of elite basketball players that live in a mansion, travel the country playing basketball, collect free gear from Nike and take classes at a nearby private school. They also receive funding from a UNLV booster and its top player has committed to, drum-roll please, UNLV! Some of the highlights:
Anyone who wandered into the Hanley Center at Georgetown Prep expecting the innocence of traditional high school 
hoops would have seen the ESPN cameras and all the sponsorship signs for Nike, Gatorade and the U.S. Marines, and known he was in the wrong place. The eight-team tournament, won by Findlay Prep on Sunday, represented the NCAA tournament sensibility brought to high school, and though the participants certainly considered that a positive development, others aren’t so sure.
The National Federation of State High School Associations has a constitutional provision preventing members from competing in national championships, and most state athletic associations endorse that position. One reason for that is to avoid stretching the season interminably and to limit its intrusion on class time. (Findlay Prep’s last game, for instance, was more than a month before the start of the NHSI.) “Our perspective is that a national tournament would not fall under our educational mission,” says Bob Gardner, the COO of the federation.
It’s no surprise, then, that some coaches from other high school programs question Findlay Prep’s approach. “You just wonder if we’re heading in the wrong direction,” says Hurley’s father, Bob, who has coached at St. Anthony’s in Jersey City for 37 years. “When you’ve got a kid from public housing and you’re trying to push him to do the right thing even if it means things are tough at times, what do you say to him when he sees an easier way to do it, a way where everything is given to you for free?”
Would 50 more Findlay Preps really be good for high school basketball? Given the direction that television and corporate forces are pushing the game, like it or not, we may soon find out.
My opinion is that any potential recruit with an option to further his opportunity to earn a college scholarship should take it. However, getting good grades from a real school needs to be part of that equation. If privately funded schools like Findlay can supply that environment, than more power to them. The real question looming around the horizon is will the NCAA feel about arrangements like this?
