High school sports as big business has positives, negatives

I don’t really quite know what to make of this. I had the chance to broadcast a game this week between the No. 1 and No. 2 high school boys basketball teams in the nation. They met in Atlanta on the campus of Georgia Tech in a sponsored tournament.

There is no question the best of the high school football and basketball teams are drawing national attention in the press. We now see weekly rankings of the best of such schools in the papers and on television.

That means the interest in the schools that can mount such teams also grows. Kids want to play for those schools and the cycle grows in intensity.

For some time many have wondered if high school-age kids are ready for the attention that comes from such publicity. Are we just spoiling them, making them the future rap sheet people of sports?

Or is it the opportunity to excel against the best in the nation and give the kids a chance to move on to major college programs and maybe keep the pro dream alive?

There is of course no easy answer to this.

College scouting of players now exists at the junior high level. There is tremendous pressure on college coaches at the major sports programs to come up with winning recruits year after year.

The coaches will search the earth for the players to make the programs winners. In turn, the money for the coaches is enormous if they can succeed.

The commercial sponsors of high school camps and tournaments aren’t there for the heck of it. In high school sports such efforts are now known as the LeBron James search.

NBA star James is a marketing prize onto himself, pursued from his junior high days. Every athletic shoe and clothing maker wants to find such players before anyone else does and get them on their side of the sponsorship battle.

Befriending the players when they are in high school, and befriending the coaches of the elite high school programs, is part of that search and capture mission.

There is no question that the elite high school sports programs are just that. Kids move in with anyone to be able to attend such public schools, or they chose private schools where all you have to do is enroll.

If you are good enough, there are scholarships available at the private schools, supposedly based on academics, but it doesn’t hurt if you can shoot 3-pointers.

There is also no question that as the publicity of high school sports grows and the money and under-the-table dollars along with it, we are going to hear horror stories.

It’s not that the stories haven’t been there for a while; it’s just that they were bypassed while the high school sports scene was seen as being on the periphery of sports news.

That is no longer the case.

For better or worse, high school sports is becoming big business. That will mean lifetime opportunities for some and lifetime damage for others.

Old Town native Gary Thorne is an ESPN and ABC sportscaster.