Athletes blossom in ‘off-season’

Interscholastic sports hold a special place in Maine, as an opportunity for kids to succeed in a competitive environment, and as an opportunity for communities to share in those quests.

But several notable events in recent weeks suggest that the interscholastic sports arena doesn’t hold exclusive rights on fostering individual and team success among the athletic elite, both here and beyond.

Consider this year’s Senior League World Series, and the Canadian champions from the Whalley Little League in Surrey, British Columbia.

These players from the Vancouver suburbs have no high school baseball in which to develop their skills. But they have achieved considerable success through their local youth league, success that has propelled kids from that area not only to the SLWS for the second time in four years, but also to the 2007 Junior League World Series in Taylor, Mich.

And such sporting dreams realized haven’t been confined to the amateur ranks – that area’s baseball alums include reigning American League MVP Justin Morneau of the Minnesota Twins and Colorado Rockies lefty Jeff Francis, who is 13-6 this season.

AAU basketball also has produced its share of success stories. Jon McAllian, a shooting guard who will be a senior at Bangor High School this fall, recently made a verbal commitment to accept an athletic scholarship from the University of Maine – despite the fact he saw limited playing time during Bangor’s postseason run to the Class A state championship last winter.

But a strong “off-season” in the AAU ranks, capped by his performance with the Maine Hoops team at the junior boys/17-and-under AAU National Championships in Orlando, Fla., generated increased interest from scholarship-level college programs in the 6-foot-6 McAllian. And with that interest came the opportunity to accept a scholarship from his home-state university.

Another Maine team in that same AAU tournament, Maine Basketball Report, finished 11th among 153 teams nationally in the 17-and-under division – the best finish by a Maine program since AAU basketball came to the state in 1991.

Coached by Bangor’s Carl Parker, the team – which included such area schoolboy standouts as Derek Libbey of Mattanawcook Academy of Lincoln, Lee Suvlu of Bangor and former Calais star Brandon Tomah – finished with a 7-2 record and a new level of respect from the college coaching community that descended on Disney’s Wide World of Sports, host site of the event.

That respect was represented in an increased following with each victory in the tournament, and increased scholarship potential for several of the participants – potential that didn’t necessarily exist before this team made its mark.

These examples are in no way meant to diminish the value of the interscholastic foundation of sports in our part of the world. It’s just to point out that there are other ways to spawn achievement, too.

And while I’m not smart enough to say for certain that one way is better than another, I do know there are flaws in every system.

I also know that with increasing budget pressures on all things educational, it’s not out of the box to think that the future of interscholastic sports isn’t guaranteed.

For now, the public and private sporting sectors should live together as best they can, for coexistence seems to provide more opportunities than competition.

Ernie Clark may be reached at 990-8045, 1-800-310-8600 or eclark@bangordailynews.net