Recruiting 13-year olds? Sounds great

Choosing where to go to college is a momentous decision for anyone, especially a student… Choosing where to go to college is a momentous decision for anyone, especially a student athlete. After years of balancing school, work and athletic activities, talking to coaches and visiting schools, the time finally comes to pick a college. But why wait all those years and do all of that tedious stuff? If you’re a male basketball player, you’re in luck. Last week the NCAA passed a ruling that changes the definition of a prospect from a ninth-grader to a seventh-grader. Finally, 13-year-olds can be properly recruited by college basketball coaches. They can go for official visits, talk to coaches on the phone or even sign a national letter of intent to play for a school ‘- in only five years! Because, really, what better bar mitzvah gift can a boy ask for than to commit to playing for Kansas five years down the road? Clearly, this seems extreme. But the NCAA felt the change was necessary because some college coaches were running camps for elite seventh and eighth grade basketball players, giving those coaches a leg up on the recruiting process. Since those seventh and eighth graders weren’t considered prospects, the NCAA couldn’t regulate the camps. Hopefully, nobody has to worry about coaches turning to camps for fifth and sixth graders, since an elite player at that age is basically one who can fully lift the ball over his head and take something resembling a jump shot, opposed to the ‘hoist-n-chuck’ method everyone else uses. So while the rule change was done to help clean up recruiting, it still feels dirty. These kids are 13. It’s ridiculous. There’s not only plenty of time before college, but in those five years, much of one’s physical and mental maturation takes place. The average 13-year-old probably isn’t even tall enough to check off his name on the dry-erase board in the Oakland Zoo, if he planned on coming to Pitt. Plus, what 13-year-old is ready to even start considering where to go to college? When I was 13, I still thought I had an outside shot at growing up to be a Transformer. Now, that might not say much for me, but I’ll bet I wasn’t the only 13-year-old who based his career path on Saturday morning cartoons. It’s hard to blame a 13-year-old for going along with the recruitment process, though. To them, it’s probably cool to have the attention of college coaches. It all depends on the coaches and parents ‘- you know, adults ‘- to not let this get out of hand, which in all likelihood probably won’t happen. Still, a move like this can easily have negative effects on children. It seems like it’s just going to add more unnecessary pressure on these kids. Sorry to come off like an episode of ‘Outside the Lines,’ but it’s absurd that kids so young are going to have these options. If the NCAA wants to make seventh and eighth graders prospects in an attempt to stop coaches from holding camps just to get an advantage when recruiting these kids, fine. That sounds reasonable. But make a ruling that says they can’t sign a letter of intent or verbally commit until 10th grade, which is still a year too early, but much better than seventh grade. The way it is now, what’s to stop a kid from signing a letter of intent in eighth grade, then just coasting the next four or so years until college? He won’t improve his game, and he’ll be fairly useless once arriving on campus. Or let’s say a kid is so upset because he gets his first whisker of a chest hair before a call of interest from a college coach, so he just quits playing. It’s quite possible neither of those situations will happen. Then again, would I bring up such hypothetical circumstances for no reason? This could lead to an increase of kids pulling an Elena Delle Donne, a former basketball player whose name shall be used as a verb until the reference is no longer relevant. Donne was last year’s Naismith National High School Player of the Year and thought to be one of the top basketball recruits in the nation. She opted to go to the University of Connecticut, one of the nation’s top women’s basketball programs. After taking some classes over the summer, Donne left and returned home. Shortly after that, she left Connecticut altogether. She now attends the University of Delaware, playing for the volleyball team. In the numerous interviews she’s given since leaving Connecticut, she claimed to be ‘burnt out’ from playing so much basketball while growing up and wanted to try something new. Considering such young kids as ‘prospects’ just seems like it can cause this horrible chain-reaction of additional pressure on them to stand out from their peers at an early age. After playing under such intense pressure from a young age, it will lead more kids to pull an Elena Delle Donne, or if you prefer, Donne-ing it. While the NCAA ruling partly seems like a good idea, it’s also something that could make crazy parents put even more pressure on their children to become great athletes, whether the kids want it or not. Who knows? If my parents didn’t force me to go to school and college, I might be shape-shifting into a sweet truck right now. And yes, I’m still holding out hope.