Y'know, there's been a joke that keeps coming up, usually around the time of the NBA draft, that eventually NBA executives will start scouting junior high students looking for the next LeBron James. We all laugh at it and go about our lives. We think, "No one's ever going to be that stupid. The kid doesn't even have pubes yet."
In tennis, junior high-age students routinely turn pro, but that's a mostly European sport. Who cares about tennis? American interest faded again, right after Serena realized that she didn't need this crap. Then, in American soccer, Freddy Adu, a then-14 year old, signed a multimillion dollar deal with a professional team. Michelle Wie, a then-14 year old female golfer, started playing with the men's golf tour, with everyone somehow forgetting the fact that she's never won a tournament at any level.
I've always thought that was kind of stupid for Michelle Wie to be allowed to be paid to continue a losing streak, or for Freddy Adu to be paid millions when he's not going to see the inside of a game. And anyone who knows me knows how i felt about high schoolers in the NBA. I was almost hoping they started letting high schoolers in the NFL, just to see how quickly they stopped jumping when the first four or five of them died from being beaten to death by grown men.
But USC Basketball coach Tim Floyd has recently gotten a 14 year old freshman to commit to USC, even though he hasn't even played a high school game yet. And while I can see why he did it, and I'm sure he knows more about the kid's talent level than I do, something seems wrong with college coaches trolling the local junior high for potential talent. I think it's kind of creepy, actually. He might as well have been staking out the playground with a fistful of candy, dressed in a trenchcoat.
Yeah, he hasn't actually devoted any funds to this kid, and technically, he hasn't done anything wrong, but USC is a big-time school, and basically, Tim Floyd is paving the way for the aforementioned joke to become reality. All it takes it one. Soon, college coaches all over the country will be watching highly touted 10 year old kids, who barely even have their coordination down, looking for their next recruit. I know it sounds like I'm panicking, but...it's not too far-fetched. After all, it wasn't that long ago we were just joking about this kind of situation in general.
It also wasn't that long ago that high schoolers were a rarity in the NBA. Or that high school games would have never been considered to be broadcast on ESPN. Or that the idea that high schoolers might have the chance to enter the NFL Draft. All ridiculous notions at one time.
Kevin Garnett opened the floodgates for high schoolers in the NBA. He wasn't the first, but he started the current trend. The hype around LeBron James started the trend of airing high school games. Now, it's commonplace to see ESPN cameras at high school games. And if Maurice Clarett had been successful in challenging the NFL's rules, there would have been hundreds of idiot high schoolers, thinking that they could play with the big boys. Only the CFL or NFL Europe could have benefitted from that. Just one success, and everyone thinks that they can do it, too.
I guess what's funny to me about it is, Tim Floyd recruited a kid that he might not even get to see play. Now, I don't know what USC's record has been since he's been coach (mainly because I rarely pay attention to schools outside the ACC), but I do remember his performance in the NBA. He coached almost three years for my Beloved Bulls, at the behest of Jerry Krause (which is a sure-sign that he's not very good), and was fired after one year in New Orleans, because he ran a team into the ground that wasn't that bad before he got there. Yeah, the college game is different, but that right there is a sign that he might not be AT USC in four years. I know I expect him to be fired. I don't know what he did at Iowa State (the school he was coaching before Chicago), but I know in the pros, he developed a tendency to piss off the locals. Usually, for sucking. Hard.
I can't blame the kid for accepting, though. He and his parents must be thrilled, and rightly so. At 14 years old, their son's college education is secured. All because of one coach's desperation. It all might work out, but not because he was smarter than everyone else. It would be more of an accident, like the discovery of penicillin or the fact that UPN stayed on the air as long as it did.
The worst thing that could happen is that it works. I'm not sure I could properly deal with college coaches scouting my 12 year old nephew.
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