(This column was originally published by Catholicsportsnet.com)

As the dog days of summer slide into the beginning of another school year, I have a question for parents of youngsters who are gifted enough to play varsity sports – especially those whose sons and daughters are talented enough to draw the attention of college recruiters.

Where do you stand on the subject of balance?

I ask that because this summer I gave four lectures to some of the students enrolled in the Governor’s Scholars program at Bellarmine University (similar programs were held at Centre and Murray State), and didn’t encounter a single recruited football or basketball player.

The reason, I’m sure, is that most of them were off honing their athletic skills in some AAU or shoe-company camp. It seems that today’s best players spend the entire summer away from home, doing little but working to get themselves noticed by the recruiting pimps who put out the rating systems.

But what about their intellectual development?

The Governor’s Scholars are the best and brightest of our high school seniors-to-be. They come from all 120 Kentucky counties. They come from private and public schools. The main requirement is that they are serious students willing to devote a part of their summer to improving their minds and broadening their academic horizons.

Under the direction of Aris Cedeno, a former University of Louisville professor, the curriculum for the Governor’s Scholars program is open, unorthodox and conducive to a kind of learning they don’t get in their schoolrooms.

For example, my four lectures were about why Muhammad Ali is important, the integration of sports in the Deep South, an insider’s look of The Courier-Journal and Sports Illustrated in their heydays, and why basketball is virtually a religion in Kentucky.

I’m sure other guest lecturers drew upon their first-hand experiences to teach lessons the students won’t find in their textbooks. Trust me, if the program is an enriching for the students as it is for a guest lecturer, and I believe it is, the Governor’s Scholar program is something Kentucky is doing right in the educational field.

But I wonder what might have happened if, say, a five-star basketball recruit went to his parents and said, “You know, instead of going to the Nike Superduper Camp in Las Vegas, I’d rather be a Governor’s Scholar.”

I’m sure there are some parents who would have thought that was a terrific idea. But I’m just as sure the majority would have been horrified because how can Junior moved up in the HoopScoop Ratings or draw Coach So-and-So’s attention if he doesn’t strut his stuff at the summer camps?

Back in the day, I did several Sports Illustrated pieces about the swimmer Mark Spitz, who was to win seven gold medals at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. He was a nice kid, I found, but totally without dimension, depth, or intellectual curiosity.

It wasn’t his fault. It was because his father, who was Earl Woods before there was an Earl Woods, believed his son was a superior human being who would become the greatest swimmer ever. Mark reached that goal, but at the cost of neglecting his development in other important areas. He was a one-dimensional character.

I daresay that we all know an Arnold Spitz or an Earl Woods. They live vicariously through their sons and daughters. They spare no cost at pushing their children to be the next LeBron, the next A-Rod, the next great thing. But all that many succeed in earning is the child’s resentment. They lose their child at some point because they lose their balance and perspective.

In the summer of 1959, before my junior year at Lexington Henry Clay High, Jeff Mullins was the No. 1 basketball prospect in the nation. He was a Catholic kid who wound up in Lexington when IBM transferred his dad.
Instead of going to Lexington Catholic, which had a weak basketball team, Jeff enrolled at Lafayette to play for Ralph Carlisle, one of the greatest coaches in the state’s history.

In that summer of ’59, when he was being recruited by Kentucky’s Adolph Rupp and all the other top college programs, Mullins didn’t go on the camp circuit because there was no such thing. Instead, he played pickup games at Woodland Park with players from the other local schools and even some non-athletic nobodies such as yours truly. He also dated, went to movies, and hung around the pool.

That could not happen today, and that’s sad. Kids no longer can be kids. At increasingly younger ages, they become commodities to be packaged, marketed, and sold to the highest bidder. And the really said thing is that parents, instead of resisting this effort to warp their kids’ values, often are the ones who push the kids into the clutches of the recruiters.

I will tell you this: If I were concerned about my child’s character development, I would much rather put him or her in the care of Aris Cedeno for the summer than any college recruiter I can name. What we know for sure about college recruiters is that many of them cheat, lie, and do whatever it takes to get a “commitment” from a prized recruit.
College recruiters are apt to introduce a child to the likes of Worldwide Wes, the notorious flesh peddler. Aris Cedeno – and others like him around the nation – is apt to introduce him or her to accomplished musicians, business leaders, and community leaders.

I also deplore the fact that, instead of being allowed to play several sports at the varsity level, young athletes are forced to pick one at an early age and specialize in it. Seldom, if ever, will be see the likes of Wallace “Wah Wah” Jones, who made all-state in four different sports at Harlan High School in the 1940s.

A few years ago, I had a clash with Hal Mumme, then the UK football coach. In order to get a commitment from Derek Smith, a talented multi-sport athlete from Highlands High, Mumme promised that he would allow him to be a walk-on for the Wildcat basketball team when football season was done.

But when Mumme got Smith enrolled, he reneged on his promise. By telling Smith that his participation in basketball would reduce his playing time in football, he forced the young man to make a choice between the sports – and then like about it. Although he wanted to play basketball – as he acknowledged later – Smith told the media that he had decided to concentrate on football.

We have forgotten that sports are games and that games are supposed to be fun. If a kid is good enough to play two or three sports in high school or college – and he or she wants to do it – then why not allow it? The answer is that many parents and coaches join forces in order to protect their investment in their commodities. Who cares about balance and perspective when there’s so much glory and money to be had?

Just as the concept of academic integrity has become has outmoded as Chuck Taylor hightops, so have scholarships become something other than what they’re intended to be. In the sports world, they should be for academic grants for students who also excel in sports. Instead, they now are seen as little more than tickets to “the league” or “the next level.”

The only time academics are mentioned on sports talk shows is in a discussion of players who athletic eligibility is threatened because of academic deficiencies. You never hear any mention of whether a recruit belongs to the National Honor Society or what his or her extra-curricular activities (Student Council, etc.) are. Likewise, you never hear a recruit saying that he or she picked so-and-so university because of the chemistry department or the music school.

Too often parents are willing participants in turning their children into one-dimensional characters with warped values.

Where do you stand on the subject of balance?