Entitlement problem with high school basketball players

Basketball Recruiting College Basketball Editor's Picks General NCS Basketball43

This is a great article from Dave Telep. I have a feeling Gott is facing some of these issues. When you recruit the McD AAs you have to be very good at managing egos.

A few points Telep made.

I asked the staffers at Elite 24 who’d been part of the game for the past seven years and they said last year’s crop was the most entitled bunch of players they’ve seen.

Those of us who cover basketball from the grassroots level share many similar opinions on the state of the game, and the college guys bend our ears daily with tales from their end. Something has to change, but change isn’t easy.

About Rick

1992 and 2002 graduate from NCSU. Born and raised an NCSU fan. I remember the good ol' days and they weren't in the last 20 years.

Basketball Recruiting College Basketball Editor's Picks General NCS Basketball

43 Responses to Entitlement problem with high school basketball players

  1. john of sparta 04/29/2013 at 11:21 PM #

    geezers.
    all of you.
    try 14:
    http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/highschool-prep-rally/seventh-woods-14-old-freshman-hoops-highlight-reel-202145885.html

    sports is just a division of the entertainment industry.
    talent and timing beats rules and regulations.

  2. Gene 04/30/2013 at 2:15 AM #

    I like the comments in the article.

    Telep’s part of the problem. They hype / media attention surrounding high school players is orders of magnitude greater than it was 20 years ago.

    Unless you were plugged into the high school basketball scene, you really didn’t keep track of recruitment.

    Now, thanks to Telep and others, there are dozens of articles on the Pack Pride or other teams websites, everytime a kid the school is recruiting has a good game, takes on official visit, etc.

    With that kind of media attention focused on them, I don’t expect the same kind of humility to exist.

    ESPN exacerbates the problem by not only filling air time with high school games, which used to be unheard of, but by hyping those games as having some sort of greater significance outside of the limited fanbases most high schools have.

    There’s so much that’s corrupted high school basketball over the last 15 years or so, that you’d have to tear down the whole structure of AAU ball, the subscription fan sites like Rivals and Scout.com, and rebuild from scratch, if you want to improve the game.

  3. Alpha Wolf 04/30/2013 at 2:44 AM #

    To get your head around how hoops has changed since the old days when Brick Oettinger was on WPTF’s Sportsline as essentially the only reporter covering recruiting, I humbly suggest reading http://www.amazon.com/Sole-Influence-Basketball-Corporate-Corruption/dp/0446524506 by Dan Wetzel. In the book, Wetzel lays out a compelling story of how the basketball camps have changed the game of recruiting forever.

  4. TMD11 04/30/2013 at 6:43 AM #

    Some reference that baseball requires more skill than basketball…?
    Not hardly.

    Actually baseball requires the least skill and least coordination of fine motor development in sports other than football.
    (exercise physiologist)

  5. wolfman1 04/30/2013 at 8:32 AM #

    Reality check…the system isn’t going to change re: basketball adopting the baseball rule. So perhaps our coaching/recruiting strategy needs to adapt. How many scholarship players were on the Wolfpack team last year? How many unfilled scholarship slots did we leave unused? And we had no depth. How many walk ons did we have that we never played except in closing seconds of a game? I wonder how many McDonald AA players go to Butler, Gonzaga, even Marquette, or FGCU. These were teams with depth. Miami this season, purely by accident had what…6 seniors?? How rare is that?
    When we chase the McDonald AA player, our coaches are working the same kids that dozens, or hundreds of other coaches are chasing, making promises to etc. Little wonder there is a fallout rate of these stars…and if they are going to bolt, it is going to happen after their freshman year.

    Alternative strategy: I’m thinking of the MoneyBall baseball strategy of the Oakland Athletics. They defied the approach used by every other baseball team in assessing talent, and drafted players other teams overlooked. Maybe our recruiting strategy needs to be modified a bit to include in every class one or 2 kids that are willing to accept the likelihood that they are not going to see minutes until their Junior year or Senior year. In 3 to 4 years we’d have 4 or 5 seasoned upperclassmen that have had their skills developed, grown into their bodies, had the right mental outlook. That would be 4 or 5 more guys on the team that do not have the talent drop off of walk ons, that will give the team depth beyond 6-7 players, that will come in the game and give you all they’ve got. In other words, have selection criteria other than chasing the guys that every other coach in America is chasing. If our coaches know what to look for when recruiting, going to high school games and AAU games across the country, they can spot the kind of kid they want…maybe the sons of HS coaches, or kids with good skills and smarts but need to build strength, kids that will stay 4 years and give you all they’ve got when coach subs them in…no bad attitudes.

  6. JasonP 04/30/2013 at 8:53 AM #

    “Hell in a hand basket I tell ye…Hell in a hand basket!”

    We’re all hypocrites really. Telep, the NCAA, all major programs and every single fan that holds coaches’ feet to the fire if they don’t win! win! win! True, it starts with the parents but we all play our part eventually. We might recruit and enroll some SOBs, but they’re our SOBs dang it!

    A true farm/minor league system needs to be developed outside of colleges and universities for basketball and football, and then schools can go back to being schools. But that’s fairy tale land. In reality nothing’s going to change until the important folks start losing money.

  7. Warrior4NCSU 04/30/2013 at 9:23 AM #

    The Head coach should set the tone if you want a kid to accept the fact that he’s “just another player” on any team, you have to start to treat them the same from day one. When, during the recruiting process, the head coach shows up at the kid’s house and tells him that he’s special and he’s needed, blah blah blah. What do you expect that kid to feel like? Kids know they’re talented and or special by the results of their play. But the buck has to stop somewhere. Lots of people hold the keys to this; from Debbie Yow calling Calvin into her office for lunch and not every student athlete, to Alumni/Students going nuts whenever Rodney Purvis goes somewhere to push him to commit to NC State…to the guys at 247 sports who call these kids ALL the time to get their college choice updates. Attention makes you feel special and at some point it turns into a feeling of entitlement unless someone puts them in check. Sometimes the parents or lack there of are to blame as well. But the same people who make these kids feel extra special don’t hold the moral weight to put them in check. Whether it’s the parents, coaches, friends, teammates, etc…it has to be done but that person can’t ride the fence. Head coaches need to stand their ground and stop boosting a kid’s ego to get him to sign and then wonder why he thinks he’s super man when he does join the team. From day one you have to let him know that he’s a great player, but no matter what, he’s just another player.

  8. rtpack24 04/30/2013 at 9:54 AM #

    The players are a product of their environment. If they are on an AAU team that they do not like their coach or another player they go to another AAU team. High School they transfer around like it is no big deal. Many of these kids have played for several high schools so when they get to college and something is not going their way, they want to transfer. One thing that needs to be done is do away with the graduate transfer rule that is adding to the problem. Also the NCAA needs to put recruiting back in the high school not the AAU like it is set up now. That will not happen because the AAU circuit is supported by the big shoe companies.

  9. nova_pack 04/30/2013 at 10:00 AM #

    I find it appalling that it’s 2013 and fans of my Alma mater think that forcing adults to choose between immediately jumping into a career or becoming what amounts to indentured servants to a University for the sole purpose of entertaining fans of their sport is a an acceptable solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. Maybe some of you should gain some perspective before dictating what heavy handed approaches should or shouldn’t be taken in order to keep human beings tied to a non-professional athletics program run by a tax-exempt institution whose sole purpose should be educating its students.

  10. Gene 04/30/2013 at 12:21 PM #

    “A true farm/minor league system needs to be developed outside of colleges and universities for basketball and football, and then schools can go back to being schools. ”

    Since the popularity of the college game is what drove the creation of the NFL and NBA, it’s hard to return things to the way they were over a hundred years ago, before collegiate basketball and football became big-time businesses.

    Thanks to cable television, shoe deals, and other tie-ins there’s just more money sloshing around big college athletics than in the past, but the amateur nature of athletics pretty much ran up against a brick-wall a long, long, long, long time ago, when coaches first started recruiting talent and handing out scholarships.

    A different angle to change this is to do away with the rookie salary cap/structure in the NBA. The down-side risk to NBA teams signing crappy, immature players is pretty low because the salaries and length of contracts are capped. This creates an incentive to gamble on unproven players.

    With the one-and-done rule NBA teams get the bonus of being able to speculate, while a college coach takes the down-side risk of weening out crappy, immature players for them.

  11. JasonP 04/30/2013 at 12:50 PM #

    “Since the popularity of the college game is what drove the creation of the NFL and NBA, it’s hard to return things to the way they were over a hundred years ago, before collegiate basketball and football became big-time businesses.”

    That’s fine but I’m not making a ‘glory days’ argument as I understand you can’t turn back time. College and universities should be focused on education, not the maintenance of a semi-professional minor league for any sport. Colleges accept the risk you describe because of money and all of the things that come with it. The tipping point will occur when the risks outweigh the rewards for colleges. Money is and will be the deciding factor; not the kids’ well being or whether they’re prepared for life after college. I would argue that reaching that point is not going to happen anytime soon, as recent news from over the hill has shown to anyone who can see it.

    The cynic in me says that Telep only wrote this article to get hits during a down time in college sports. He’s not going to do anything about it, nor will his editors allow it. They have skin in the game too.

  12. Gene 04/30/2013 at 2:03 PM #

    “That’s fine but I’m not making a ‘glory days’ argument as I understand you can’t turn back time. College and universities should be focused on education, not the maintenance of a semi-professional minor league for any sport. ”

    But when was the last time college athletics wasn’t semi-professional?

    Maybe prior to the Jim Thorpe-era?

    I’m just saying we’ve all been rooting for a semi-pro system for generations. Maybe now with all the money that’s going to coaches, administrators and facilities people are really noticing that it’s less about the school than it is about the money; but there was always a balancing act between schools interests to have some academic integrity and the interest to win and grab money.

    EDIT: I really think the biggest differentiation between college athletics now and in years past is the money involved. Now that the money’s flowing into AAU ball, you really see things warping in ways that weren’t there before. I’m not really sure how to push the money out of the system, as the demand for the product – college men’s basketball and football – is still strong.

  13. tjfoose1 04/30/2013 at 3:40 PM #

    “In many ways, what makes a player great is knowing that they are better than everyone else. ”

    WTF? Beam me up, Scotty.

  14. tjfoose1 04/30/2013 at 4:18 PM #

    Self entitled high school athletes? Really?

    It’s not limited to athletes. Athletics is just he last bastion to fall. The one time rugged American culture of hard work, self reliance, and self determination now coddles itself in the blanket of the nanny state.

    It’s not limited to youth. Look around.

    Occupy Wall Street, EBT cards, Free Cell Phones, unearned college degrees, SEIU, corrupt (leadership of )education unions, Muslim terrorists living on the public dole, US Food Stamps marketed in Mexico to Mexican citizens…

    They’ve all taught us this country is no longer about hard work, self reliance, self-determination, and success. Those attributes are scoffed at, ridiculed, and punished.

    Unless their wealth is made in entertainment or politics, the successful did not rightfully earn it. They obviously cheated and stole it from the “99%”

    Though it disgusts me, I can’t really blame some young punk from developing such an outlook when growing up surrounded by a society that promotes a pop culture that equates hard work and self determination with being a chump.

    I’m entitled, it’s mine, I exist so it is owed to me. Gimmee, gimmee, gimmee, gimmee mines! Enougth of that, now give me my EBT card, I gotta stop by the strip club on my way to the casino after I finish playing my Xbox.

    See ya, suckas!

  15. tjfoose1 04/30/2013 at 4:28 PM #

    “I find it appalling … what amounts to indentured servants to a University for the sole purpose of entertaining fans…”

    Funniest thing I read all day. Well, except for the N&O’s piece on u*nc’s Coastal “Championship” rings.

    http://blogs.newsobserver.com/uncnow/unc-welcomes-acc-coastal-division-championship-rings

  16. TheCOWDOG 04/30/2013 at 6:48 PM #

    EDIT: See below

  17. TheCOWDOG 04/30/2013 at 7:10 PM #

    Thanks ‘ Foose. I had not the time nor energy.

    Except for the hard right turn into poli sci, you stated some necessary corrections.

    Oh, there is one completely irrelevant to the topic that I’m compelled to make.

    Regarding baseball as requiring far less development of the fine motor skills :
    TMD11 left much ambiguity as to qualifying credentials.

    However, thru the likes of Dr. Peter Davis and Dr. Janet Starkes, two well known and published sports kinetic, exercise physiology professionals, we learn that baseball indeed requires a far greater mastery of fine motor skills. Don’t make me do your homework.

    Or…one might just take Dr. Cowdog’s extensive experience on such matters.

    At any rate, many reasonable takes reside in this thread. Nice to see again.

  18. tjfoose1 05/01/2013 at 5:07 PM #

    “Except for the hard right turn into poli sci, you stated some necessary corrections.”

    I hear ya, ‘Dog. Slight, accidental venture.

    But one thing I should clarify, that I think some misunderstand.

    My attitudes should not be equated with Republican politics.

    I’m a “gov’t leave me alone” conservative. Government has a needed role, but it long ago surpassed those boundaries. The subject discussed on this thread began in earnest when husband and daddy became an optional accessory replaced by Uncle Sam.

    I believe in, and support, many liberal ideas. Something that I practice in life, not in words only (unlike many in the outspoken crowd, on both sides of the political aisle). I just don’t think government, and its inherent and ever growing power, should be the mechanism that implements them. It’s bad for all of us.

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