Can the system be fixed?

Sometimes e-mail is more than spam -- and this extended exchange between publisher Clay Kallam and correspondent Brian McCormick covers a lot of territory. The trigger was the publication of McCormick's new book, 'Cross Over: The New Model of Youth Basketball Development (Lulu, $14.98, 85 pages), and an excerpt that appeared on the site.

Clay Kallam: So I've been thinking about your book and the system, and it seems the driving force in American basketball is the college scholarship. There are probably 1,500 scholarships of one sort or another available in basketball, and a full scholarship could be worth $150,000.

Brian McCormick: Agreed.

CK: First, you could remove scholarships, but what impact would that have? On the women's side, athletes would peak at 17, since without the lure of scholarship you would see only a small percentage play in college.

BM: I would argue girls already peak around 17 years old.

CK: The recreational athlete would gain little, as few women play in recreation leagues after they quit playing in high school and college, and there would probably be fewer recreational athletes because the total pool of female basketball players would shrink. It might not shrink much (or it could shrink a lot) but there would be fewer players overall.

If all college athletic scholarships were eliminated, only the very elite athletes would stick with any sport, and though that might not change the makeup of the national team, it would certainly impact interest in the sport from fans and the media. If only basketball scholarships were eliminated, the elite athletes would migrate to other sports.

So I don't think eliminating college scholarships would help grow women's basketball. So, accepting the reality/necessity of college scholarships, how can we modify the system to better serve the athlete?

BM: Getting rid of scholarships wouldn’t work. However, it's sad that is the motivating reason for playing, but I think that is the first step; an acknowledgement that we need an athlete-centered, not a coach or adult-centered model.

CK: My first thought is not to allow any college coach to see any player prior to the summer before her junior year in high school. That would give players and coaches two full summers and two full high school seasons (if needed) to evaluate each other, which would seem to me to be enough time.

BM: I like moving back the recruiting window to junior and senior year. I'd also like to have more of an emphasis on recruiting during the high school season. I don’t care if it’s harder on the college coach -- they get paid well, it should be harder on the college coach than the high school player.

CK: That would free the lower age groups to work on developing players, since you would want to present a complete package of skills as a junior.

BM: Two issues; (1) Colleges recruit potential, not finished products; (2) Wouldn’t this require better teaching from youth and lower level coaches?

CK: How you looked in eighth grade, or at an AAU tournament in your freshmen year, would be much less important than it is now. No formal evaluations would be taking place, and no letters would be sent, or contacts made.

BM: I like this because too many players acquire a reputation when they are young and bigger, stronger or faster than other kids and they either hang on based on their reputation or feel the pressure to live up to the hype, which is unfair to a 13-year-old kid.

CK: Some youth coaches would still focus on winning, and there would be lots of players going to their strengths, but I think there would be less emphasis on working on your strengths and more on working on your weaknesses.

BM: Agreed. Players need to get out of their comfort zone to improve.

CK: At the same time, the NBA/WNBA could insert itself into the process prior to that junior year window, with developmental camps and high-profile coaches and players constantly reinforcing the idea of working on weaknesses and improving skills and developing overall athletic ability.

I've felt for years that USA Basketball and or the NCAA should sponsor four (or six or eight) regional showcases during the summer for juniors and seniors, with scholarships available for those who can't afford to get to the events. That would be the sum total of the summer exposure and kids would be limited to attending only one of the showcases.

BM: Brilliant.

CK: All other evaluation would be during the high school season, but again, that works against the interests of the membership of the NCAA. If USA Basketball were to broaden its scope to focus on encouraging participation rather than winning world championships (but why would it?), then it might be able to bring some pressure to bear on the NCAA. 

BM: Agreed. As much as I slam shoe companies and sneaker pimps, they fill a void created by the NCAA recruiting calendar. The NCAA legislates everything. But there is no legislation for youth basketball. AAU basketball is an out of control monster nobody has the authority to regulate. So the shoe companies and NCAA work hand in hand. The NBA is culpable because it refuses to spend any money developing its future.

  CK: The shoe companies have absolutely no obligation to do anything except make a profit -- and if they don't, they'll be bought out. The NCAA only is involved insofar as these issues impact its membership, which does not include high schools or youth teams. So USA Basketball is really the only group that would seem to have an interest in developing the sport and players, but it is primarily focused on the elite, not recreational, players. The NBA, thanks to David Stern, is moving in the right direction, but that league really has little motivation either because the great players will still be great no matter what youth leagues are like.

BM: Yes, I believe USA basketball needs to care for there to be change. I don’t understand its reluctance; it’s as though the NBA and USA Basketball conspired to undermine this generation in order to aid development worldwide and create bigger profits. If the USA still beat everyone by 50 points like the 1992 Olympics and there was no need to find a Dirk Nowitski or Tony Parker, would kids growing up in Germany or France even think about basketball?

CK: And right now, USA Basketball is heavily indebted to the NBA, which supplies a lot of money, and is totally focused on winning at the international level. As far as I know, they have never even thought about developing the sport at the grassroots level.

BM: When I emailed them while researching my book, I was told their mission is to organize teams for international competitions, which seems like a very small mission for such a potentially powerful organization. However, one could even argue that developing basketball at the grassroots level is a part of organizing national teams, as without development and grassroots basketball, who plays for USA Basketball in 2020?

Beyond the negligence of USA Basketball, the NCAA and NBA, the overarching problem is adults imposing their values on kids too early. Kids play sports to have fun, be social and be active. But, as soon as they join an organized team, adults teach them to have different values, namely winning. Then, once a kid shows any measure of ability, parents dream about college scholarships, etc.

CK: A crucial point -- but the fear over letting kids out to play in an unsupervised setting (driven by TV journalism (if it bleeds, it leads)) has changed the way youth culture works. In my youth, back in the '50s, we were shooed out of the house in the morning and expected to stay outside, unsupervised, all summer (the same after school during the school year). Now, few parents will just let their kids go down to the playground and play basketball, or football, or whatever.

So adult organization steps in, first to guarantee some kind of safety, and then to provide competition -- which kids love. Kids want to play games, especially against kids from other areas. Girls especially aren't going to play pickup; they need some kind of organization or they won't play at all because they don't want to beat their friends and threaten the consensus of the social group.

BM: Adult organizations are not the problem. The execution is the problem. If adults get a gym and run an open gym and get out of the way, it's great. If they micromanage every activity, then it is interference. We have to remember youth sport is about the youth, not the adults. It's about what is important to youth, which, initially, is fun and friends.

Now, to keep kids interested, they need to develop skills and show improvement. However, they need fun and the social part too. And they need to play because that's the whole reason behind everything else.

CK: So true. But few adults are willing to just open the gym and do nothing. And few adults understand what it means to just let kids play.

BM: Four things need to occur. First, keep youth sports fun.

CK: Exactly. For girls, it's even harder.

BM: Next, provide more and better experiences for kids. Once a kid realizes she is not going to get a scholarship, she should not quit playing; there must be an attempt to keep recreational players active beyond the 12-year-old age range. Asians do this with Asian leagues, which are great community builders and give numerous kids an opportunity to play.

CK: But the Asian leagues fall apart a couple years later anyway. And it's very difficult to get affluent kids to just go down to the park and try to organize a pickup football game or soccer game or basketball game. They have a lot of other options, and their parents aren't excited about unsupervised play. At athletic clubs, the adolescents don't play at all (at least in my experience) because they aren't organized enough to all arrive at the same time, as the adults are, and they don't want to do something they're not that good at.

BM: Around here (the Sacramento area), lots of high school kids play Asian ball and many don’t play high school ball. It’s very popular in L.A. and San Jose too.

CK: One of my high school players plays for a team from San Jose (about 40 miles away), but now that they're in high school, it's harder to keep it going. The boys' leagues might be a lot stronger.

BM: Actually, I primarily know girls who play Asian ball. They have a strong tie to their Asian teams; again, the social and fun aspect of sport is important.

If a kid is cut from a basketball team and joins the track or wrestling team (teams that typically do not cut), that is awesome. But if she gets cut or quits because its boring and sits on the couch watching TV all day, we have created a societal problem: a bored kid is less likely to excel at school, more likely to get in trouble and more likely to get fat and require greater medical care.

CK: But what teams can a high school kid join? There's certainly not much in this area for non-high school athletes. I never could find a place to play when I was in high school -- college was a revelation because of intramurals and open gyms. 

BM: Why can’t there be high school intramural teams or B and C teams?

CK: High school PE crashed and burned when school districts couldn't afford towels any more, and there's certainly no money, or constituency, for intramurals or lower-level teams.

BM: Or a local recreation league during the high school season aimed for kids who get cut from their high school team? I have kids with no aspirations of playing for their high school next year who still want to work out because they love basketball and want to get better. Just because I’ll never have a platinum album does not mean I should not take lessons to learn to play the guitar better and maybe even start a band in my garage for fun.

CK: Very true. There's one league for non-high school players in my area, and it has about five teams in it, I think. My guess is leagues like that would be a lot more successful in inner cities. The suburban kids who don't make a team (and there are so many teams and sports it's hard not to make one if you're at all interested) are less likely to get involved.

BM: I think the problem with high school recreation leagues is there is somewhat of a stigma attached. Since we believe basketball is played to get a college scholarship, why would a kid play if he got cut from his high school team and therefore is never going to see a scholarship? If we remove the stigma by creating fun leagues and change the motivation from the scholarship to playing for the love of the game, maybe more kids continue playing.

CK: A great idea, but who will pay for it? As you are well aware, gym space is at a premium.

And who coaches? One of the big problems in every sport is finding people to coach who have a clue. So I guess an important step is to provide better coaching education for all coaches.

I think the NBA may be moving in that direction. That's certainly something they can do without a huge investment.

* * * * *

Part II of this conversation will be published soon -- but the more people who get involved in the discussion, the better, and the more likely necessary changes will be made.