High School Basketball "Academies"

[SoCalDukeFan]

I am trying to understand what I will call high school basketball academies.

One is Findlay Prep (http://www.findlayprep.com/) in Nevada that played Kyrie Irving's team last week. Evidently Findlay Prep is comprised entirely of the basketball team. They travel all over. I assume that the education revolves around basketball. The educational component is provided by Henderson International School. My guess is that the player/students lives revolve around basketball and Henderson provides teachers/tutors so that the kids can get a diploma and go to college.

John Wall went to Word of God Christian Academy (http://www.privateschoolreview.com/school_ov/school_id/21284). It appears to be different than Findlay. Here is the enrollment
Kind - 17 students
Grade 1 - 28 students
Grade 2 - 16 students
Grade 3 - 16 students
Grade 4 - 15 students
Grade 5 - 16 students
Grade 6 - 11 students
Grade 7 - 7 students
Grade 8 - 12 students
Grade 9 - 5 students
Grade 10 - 6 students
Grade 11 - 7 students
Grade 12 - 16 students

What exactly is going on here?

My first reaction was to puke. But for some time there have been tennis (http://www.imgacademies.com/nick-bollettieri-tennis-academy/) and golf (http://www.leadbetter.com/junior_golf.html) academies that provided exceptional training in the sport and a high school education of sorts.

I am trying to get information not just opinion. Are the best high school tennis players and golfers going to these academies? Will basketball be next? What is the educational component?

Thanks
SoCal

[RainingThrees]

Soccer outside of the US has been using academies for many years. Players contract rights are acquired in their early teens and they are sent to developmental academies, they then train and work their way up till they are signed by a pro team to a contract that pays. You never here what happens to those that don't make it and it is a shame because they probably don't receive formal educations in these academies.

[BlueintheFace]

Soccer in the U.S. too. See- IMG

[UrinalCake]

SI did an article on the Bolletieri (tennis) academy several years ago. Yes, families do uproot themselves and move to Florida, and spend tens of thousands of dollars to enroll their child with the hopes that their child will become a professional. Actually, one of the great ironies mentioned in the story is that the ultimate goal for a lot of the parents is for their kid to earn a college athletic scholarship, yet they're paying more than the cost of college tuition to be at the Academy.

The Academy openly admits that their coursework is secondary, only to meet the minimum requirements, and that the kids are there for sports. I guess you could think of it like a kid being home-schooled and then taking an equivalency test at the end of the year (not trying to put down anyone who is/was home-schooled, just making the point that the coursework is not structured in a typical manner). I guess there's nothing "illegal" about it, because everyone knows that they exist. And I believe a fairly large percentage of the Americans who are ranked tennis professionals came from the Bolletieri Academy.

I would think it'd be most frustrating to the kids who go to normal schools and have to play against these guys. Tough to compete with someone who gets to practice several hours a day, receives professional nutrition and fitness counseling, etc.

[lpd1982]

I would think it'd be most frustrating to the kids who go to normal schools and have to play against these guys. Tough to compete with someone who gets to practice several hours a day, receives professional nutrition and fitness counseling, etc.

In eastern block countries they have always had select schools for students who show promise in chess. Over the last thirty years a number of individuals who trained in these academies have moved to the US where they established themselves as chess tutors and began chess schools and camps for the kids who compete in US chess each year ( A number surprisingly in the tens of thousands). A good number of the best chess kids in the US start home schooling so they can devote many hours a day they believe they need to study chess.

Just as you said, it is toughest for the talented chess kids who DONT decide to home school when they compete against those who do. Several years back, through luck or design, Duke had 5 of the top US chess players on campus at the same time. I think they came in Number two in the Pan Ams, it was quite an amazing group,but then some of them started graduating since they weren't all in the same class.

[Mr Blue Devil]

I have often wondered more about that myself.

My brother actually had the opportunity to visit Findlay's facilities and he was quite impressed.

I'll get to see Findlay in action this weekend in the Montverde Academy Invitational in Montverde, FL.

[roywhite]

http://www.ausport.gov.au/ais/about

Look what Australia does.

[johnb]

Let's say a couple hundred guys want to attend these basketball mills in hopes of getting into the NBA (and, for many of them, a somewhat incidental opp'y for college). It's not like they were choosing between Word of God and Andover; they were generally choosing between Word of God and some school that was bigger but probably not much better.

And as for the fact that a handful of bball players don't finish college, well, their junior high classmates aren't even matriculating in college, and their peers in baseball (and a bunch of other sports) generally don't even think of college.

[davekay1971]

You can't really assume that, because a school is small (ie: Word of God) and has a great basketball team, that the school isn't legitimate academically. My high school had about 10-15 kids per year. My freshman year we hired Harold Gaither, well known in the DC area as a longtime assistant coach for the Washington Bullets and then as a high school coach. We immediately drew basketball talent and went from a sorry basketball team to a very good team (ultimately producing former Duke great Tony Moore...don't be mean - Tony was a good guy). The kids who chose our school because they wanted to work with Gaither were a good, smart, productive group and didn't diminish the school's academics in any way I could perceive.

I don't know anything about Word of God's academics, but I would just hesitate to assume that a small private school with a great basketball program is sacrificing academics for hoops glory.

[Bluedog]

When I was 14, I went to Harry Hopman Tennis Academy at Saddlebrook in Florida for about a week and a half by myself (not to enroll, I took an extended Spring vacation) and to play with all the academy juniors. It was quite an interesting experience. When I was there, I would play in the morning (approx 9-12) with adults and instructors on one site of clay courts while the academy kids (as they would call them) were in school. I'd grab lunch and then head over to the courts (mostly hard) where the academy practiced at around 1. At that point, they were already done with school! We'd have drills from about 1-3, then an hour of fitness/running, then play for about 2 hours more (mostly matchplay) and finally get dinner. So, the academy kids played about 4 hours of tennis each weekday and had one hour of fitness. While I was there for the 10 days or so, I played about 7 hours of tennis a day and had an hour of fitness. Needless to say, I was exhausted by the end of it! The weekend schedule was different, but I don't recall the specifics..I may have even taken one day off!

Now, here was the interesting part to me. Honestly, for playing that much, the majority of the players/students weren't that great. I was better than a considerable percentage of them. Sure, there were some really good standouts, but I'd think everybody would have been amazing since they're playing 4 hours a day. Maybe it's different for basketball schools that recruit, but a lot of the players in this tennis academy did NOT show that much promise in tennis, or anything, and their parents sent them in hopes that they would excel at something. In fact, I vividly remember one guy who had been there about 8 months and had only played tennis for ONE month before enrolling at the academy. I thought it was insane, but apparently, his parents wanted him to show great dedication to something, whether it be sport, academics, or what have you. He certainly got a LOT better in those 8 months. After dinner, everybody would just hang out in the room (and common areas); it was pretty much a dorm atmosphere in the middle of a really nice world-class resort.

Some of these players certainly had aspirations to play high DI tennis or even go pro (I also hit against one of the top 10 female juniors from Colombia), but a surprisingly large number were there just to be in a strict structured and scheduled environment that mandates they show determination and dedication to a facet in their life (in this case, tennis). The academics definitely came off as secondary, but I suppose parents didn't care that much.

Again, maybe it's different for basketball. I mean, in tennis, probably only 1-2 American male player end up going pro per class year, so clearly these academies can't be flush with pro-level talent. (It's really the foreign players that come to the academies that tend to dominate a la Maria Sharapova). It certainly was interesting and I was glad I went for a week and a half; but I could NEVER imagine going there full-time. Certainly, not a good academic/sport/social balance and it's a particular odd environment (no offense to those who attended academies).

[YourLandlord]

and their peers in baseball ... generally don't even think of college.

That's not really true, many high level prospects go to college for 3 years.

[SupaDave]

That's not really true, many high level prospects go to college for 3 years.

They are also among the few that can be drafted in high school.

And I don't know how you guys could forget Mt. Zion in Durham...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Zion_Christian_Academy

Basketball Academies are hardly new.

[goduke_gray]

My dad is a head coach at a ski academy that is basically the skiing version of Oak Hill Academy. I can tell you from what I see at this academy that education is second to the sport. I will say however that there are students here going to Brown, Harvard, MIT, Dartmouth, Middlebury, Bates, Cornell and many more top notch academic schools.

I also realize that there is a difference in that ski racing is prodominantly a more upper class sport meaning the kids at the school are coming from well off families, and are for the most part already intelligent people.

I wouldn't get all upset over the size of the schools. The smaller the school, the more one on one you can get with your teachers (no basketball pun intended).

Incase your wondering, Burke Mountain Academy is the school.

Also Bolletari's name was brought up, he does an overweight camp here at BMA (funds it I should say, he has only made an appearance twice probably). He is a class guy, and I would expect any of his schools to have good academics as well.