Spring and summer, or AAU, basketball is painted by the media as an evil, selfish, greedy business devoid of any possible positives. The words and phrases that have become associated with it are: entitled, shoe money, scholarship, handler, glom on, one on one, street ball, open gym, exposure, etc. Words and phrases that should be used, but rarely are: court time, competition, skill development, different voice, experience and fun. Yes, fun. There can be a positive outcome from playing AAU. There are though a few major flaws that I'd like to look into briefly and maybe even drop in an opinion or two. This brief essay is based upon things I have read, heard or seen during my last 7 years on the AAU circuit. I have broken it into a few subject headers, or chapters: Program, Player, Parent, Tournament Jockey, College Coach, Recruitnik.
PROGRAM-
AAU basketball teams are organized by any number of different factions of people. They range from local groups organized by a parent to large, regional programs. The focus of this section will be on large programs. Programs could also be divided into the private vs. non-profit and the funded vs unfunded. I'll keep it simple for now and group these all into one.
Success for a program is generally defined one way in AAU basketball: scholarships. Not just scholarships though, even those are ranked. How many D1 players do you have? How many high major players do you have? Where are your former players playing at? It is how potential players are recruited to programs. I'm not sure they have any other choice. Is it the right way? No. Programs should, in theory, tout their ability to develop a players skill. That, in the end, is why a player should choose to play basketball in the off season. The problem is that nobody, not players, parents, shoe companies, college coaches, NOBODY, talks about the ability of an AAU program developing skill. So, the program directors are stuck playing to the crowd. Do they take it too far? Of course. Too often programs do glom onto the successes of their best players. It has become a self fulfilling prophecy for AAU programs. To compete they need the better players. To get the better players they need to promote their former players. The better the former players, the farther they go, the more success they have, the better the future players the program can recruit. Something seems circular here. A program ought to have two goals, fun and development. The rest will take care of itself. I fear that those goals have been buried by the greed associated with scholarship athletics.
PLAYER
The player is often left out of the AAU discussion and is to be seen a pawn. In fact, I would say that the player is the lynch pin, and holds as much power in this game as any other participant. Players are not bystanders. They, along with their parents (next chapter), have taken control of this game. Program directors fawn over these young athletes like they are the second coming of Atlas. They send them gifts, text messages, facebook em, twit em, call em, take them to lunch, etc. All for the chance to coach a player that may or may not be any fun to coach. All in a hope for another scholarship player. And don't mince my words, that is exactly why the player chose the program they play for. They are all about the scholarship too. Fun? "Whatever" Development? "Are you saying I'm not good enough?" Players are venturing down the same dark path as the programs. There is no other option. Focus on the scholarship or get lost in the shuffle, and become...oh no...UNDER-RECRUITED! That has become the plague of AAU basketball. What if I don't get enough exposure. I better play for program A or B because they WILL get me a scholarship. The unfortunate part is there is a third party in this equation that decides who gets offered scholarships. They don't work for the programs though. They work for institutions of education. They choose. Nobody else. Players should never be led to believe that a scholarship is the only outcome worth playing for. If that is the goal, then why play?
PARENT
I will make this brief. There are two kinds of AAU parents. The "get it" group, and the "nut jobs". Let's focus on the nut jobs, because the "get it" group doesn't need a pat on the back from me. They get it, remember. Nut job parents: stop it! It is not about you anymore. Probably never was, but now it really isn't. Parents see through the most biased eyes the world has ever seen. Their child IS the best player, DESERVES more playing time, and SHOULD get a scholarship. Arguing those facts is like throwing a tennis ball at a brick wall. I actually think that some parents are living in a fantasy world. Like a parallel universe type fantasy world. They cannot see what the rest of the world sees. And, they too have become greedy participants in this game. They too seek the holy grail of basketball. A scholarship.
TOURNAMENT JOCKEY
AAU tournaments have become the wild, wild west of basketball. Some have rules, some have clocks, some have age requirements, some have refs and some don't. Some charge college coaches (who are being pimped by these jockeys) hundreds of dollars for packets full of misinformation. The college coaches have to come to see the players. The tournament jockeys know that. They go out and try to "load" their event with talented AAU teams. These teams bring in more coaches. The coaches help bring in more AAU teams. They also give the illusion to the parents that their child is being exposed. Ah, another cash word, exposure. The parents have to watch their child (and see how many coaches are sitting across the way), so they pay too. Some of these events cost more than NBA games. Once again, dog seems to be chasing his tail here. There really should be some AAU tournament governing body. The only organization in the world that could make real and positive change in the tournament portion of this game is the NCAA. Needless to say, the beat will go on.
COLLEGE COACH
Of all the participants in this game that I have sympathy for it is the college coaches. Thanks to the AAU explosion they get to spend virtually every weekend in gyms all across the nation watching game after game after game. Trying to evaluate one or two players in a sea of players. It is an arduous and unenviable task. Then after they narrow it down to the player or handful or players they too have to begin the "dance". The dance for them includes the same things as it does for the Programs. Calls, texts, emails, in home visits, unofficial visits, official visits, unofficial official visits. It is nauseating. None of that is why I have sympathy for the college coaches though. That is the life they chose, the bed they made, their career choice. What I have sympathy for is that after the college coaches successfully dance the dance and get their player, they have to deal with everything that has happened before that point. A player that has transfered three times in high school and changes AAU teams five times probably wont make it through year two. They have to deal with players that are used to a system that manipulates for them. All of a sudden they walk into a college coaches gym and bam! Man or mouse time. No parent, no AAU coach, no glommers, nothing but a ball and a game. And you had better be damn good at it or you wont play. You know why? No, it's not because the coach doesn't like you, it's because he or she has to win. If they don't win they get fired. If they get fired they have to find new employment. As a coach that usually means moving a family to some other town and starting over. And over. And over. That is why I have sympathy for them. They lend their own part to the greed of this game, but they are also stuck with the results this game produces. There is one point of contention that I will expound on further at a later date, and that is the condescending tone some college coaches speak to AAU coaches with. That is just poor class and worse business. For a later date.
RECRUITNIK
Mr. Information. The recruiting bloggers, writers, rankers and reporters have taken their place at the table. They are right in there. They know who is going to play for what team, who is being recruited by who, and somehow, who is better than who. Most of the information is regurgitated. Like the masses are a bunch of baby owls. The recruitniks go out and gather fodder, edit, and shove into our mouths. And, damn it if we don't love regurgitated information. It doesn't even have to be true. We can know it to be false, but it's juicy and we love it. Basketball gossip is a million dollar industry and is growing every day. We want to know that there is some kid in the class of 2020 that is ten years old and 6'9 and his uncle was the best friend of a former NBA player. That is news. Again, I cannot blame the recruitniks because they have simply cut out a small piece of the AAU pie.
Thanks for reading. As I make changes to this draft I will post them. I love basketball. All basketball. AAU can be a wonderful opportunity for basketball players, if they approach it correctly and are aware of their surroundings.
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