Kevin Hunt Video

Quick, name the best 7th grade basketball player, boy or girl, in your town.

If you replied to me out loud or in your head, “Why?” then we’re on the same page.

Why does it matter? It’s 7th grade for crying out loud. Well, apparently it matters to the NCAA. As a post last week from FOX Sports titled “NCAA classifies 7th graders as prospects” indicates.

I get that they are doing it for a reason. They needed to change the definition of a prospect from 9th grade to 7th grade – for men’s basketball only – to try and control how some Div. I college coaches are working with 7th and 8th grade boys at private, elite camps and clinics. The NCAA says it can’t regulate those camps because those boys fell below the 9th grade cutoff. The good thing is that it will limit how often coaches can contact those boys.

Administrative concerns aside, and the fact that “prospect” status really only applies to a select few 7th and 8th grade boys for now, I think it was already pushing it to think some 9th graders deserved to get attention from major college coaches.

Think about all that can change from 9th grade (not to mention 7th or 8th) to a prospect’s junior year in high school:

• Their talent drops off, or they stop putting in the practice time
• The talent  – and height – of their teammates and opponents pass them up
• Their family situation changes (divorce, finances), making a hometown college choice more (or less) of a possibility
• They lose focus in school and their grades make them ineligible
• They end up excelling at another sport

That list just scratches the surface.

It seems to me to be a waste of time for a major college basketball coach to invest more than passing interest at a list of “elite” 7th and 8th graders. Wouldn’t you rather focus on the sophomores, juniors and seniors who are more likely to make a difference?

What I’d hate to see in all this is that the parents of 7th and 8th grade boys start asking people like me to shoot video of their son’s games, solely for the purpose of sending the video off to college coaches – at any level – as one of my “College Prospect” videos.

If they do, my answer is… no thanks.

When I shoot video at middle school – and younger – basketball, baseball, hockey, soccer, etc… games, it’s to capture the highlights for the parents, and that player, to watch years from now when the memories have faded. Or, as footage for a team highlight video that I will produce that a team watches at their season-end party that tells their story, no matter how many games they won or lost.

Let’s celebrate the talent of 7th and 8th grade players, in any sport, but let’s not get caught up that somehow a kid who averages 30 points a game in 7th grade is any more likely to be a college prospect at any level than the kid on the end of the bench.

I’m sure you’ve got a story here too, but out of the starting five on my 6th grade travel basketball team just one of them was even on the varsity roster in my senior year at Blaine High School.

Let’s realize that the goals of youth and school sports are to encourage dedication to a cause, promote leadership and teamwork and the importance of giving your best effort no matter what your current talent level is. If they’re good enough to catch a college coach’s eye, that’s great. If not, they still learned the valuable lessons that youth and high school sports provide.

And, get it all on video. So your kids can watch it with their kids.