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NCAA's latest ruling sends right message

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By Ron Jackson, Staff Writer Updated 5:59 PM Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Such college basketball coaches as Billy Gillispie of Kentucky will not be chasing eighth- and ninth-graders next May and offering scholarships.

In response to an appalling trend in college basketball, the NCAA has banned contact with middle-school players. Great. It sent the wrong message. The insanity had to be stopped before coaches started attending Chuck E. Cheese birthday parties.

The NCAA Division I legislation is aimed at prohibiting boys basketball players from being recruited before they enter high school. It's a step toward purifying the game.

"That's where the landscape was," said Steve Mallonee, the NCAA's managing director of academic and membership affairs. "You got into this mentality where, 'If I can benefit from it, and if there is nothing to stop me, why shouldn't I?' '"

Players are now nationally ranked at 10 years old and attend camps for elite middle-school players. Gillespie offered Vincent Zollo, a ninth-grade forward from Greenfield, Ohio a scholarship. Zollo accepted the offer. He also offered eighth-grader Michael Avery. Kentucky is not the only one.

In the mid-1980s Bob Knight raved about an eighth-grader named Damon Bailey and eventually signed him.

"It's probably not the right thing because, with these kids, a lot of things can happen in four or five years before they get there," Bailey told the Lexington Herald-Leader. "In certain cases, it probably gives false hope. I don't think it's a good thing."

It makes it difficult for a player to maintain a healthy perspective.

Clark Francis is editor of Hoop Scoop, a recruiting service that ranks elementary school players. His service costs $499 a year.

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