For high school seniors that are basketball players, most of you just started the last year of your high school career. Many of you don’t understand the impact the next 6 months will have on your life, but everyone knows hindsight is 20/20. As a senior on the South High basketball team in Minneapolis Minnesota in 2013, I had no idea what I was doing. I thought I was the best thing to grace a basketball court since Naismith created the game. Throughout my four years I was good enough to start most of my games on the freshman team, JV as a sophomore, came off the bench my junior year, and then a captain and a starter my senior year. In these four years, I never put up spectacular numbers on the court, I wasn’t athletic, nor was I very coachable. Yet for some reason I was always waiting for the D1 and D2 letters and phone calls to start flowing in. As I look back at it now I was humorously delusional, but I never had anyone to push me to the next level, no one to put me on an AAU team to get any looks, no one dragging me to the gym. By no means am I saying that this is needed to get to the college level, but almost all the elite players have this support system of advisors always in their ear during their high school years. Neither of my parents played collegiate sports, and they had no idea how to get me to that level, so it fell mainly on me, an ignorant, stubborn 17 year old kid who could barely touch the rim and was failing english.
The point of this post is not to get my story out there, so don’t get it twisted. I want kids to be more aware and avoid the route I took. My main inspiration for this post is my brother, who is heading the same way I was at 14, just satisfied being the best player at the park on that given day. Many of you may think you’re at the top of the ladder, but I’m willing to bet theres a kid, maybe even at your school, whose better than you but can’t play because he couldn’t make grades. I see it all the time, and let me tell you right now, I know coaches that won’t even look at a kid if they don’t have a GPA better than a 2.6, regardless of his skill level, just because they don’t have time to deal with the bullshit that comes with a kid who can’t make grades. Ive been at the same Division III school for three years now, and I’ve seen about 15-20 in and out the door in less than a year, just because they couldn’t handle the grind that is college athletics. (And were just talking D3 here) So I’m here to tell you, do your research before you decide that this is for you.
My advice here: If you’re a kid in high school and you think you’re skilled enough to play in college, and really feel like you can be committed enough, find other people that push you past your comfort zone. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable, because thats what you’ll be for the first couple months with the college game. Immerse yourself in a lifestyle that is basketball, because once you’re in, you’re in. Watch basketball every single day, no matter what, take notes, do what you have to do to become as familiar as you possibly can with the game itself, learn the ins and outs, the dos and dont’s. It may sound corny, but the older you become, ball really does become life, and if this doesn’t sound appealing to you, college basketball is not for you. I’ve seen skilled players not get any offers, and I’ve seen players that have no business getting offers go to big time D1 schools. This is all because of the intangibles. So to all the young players out there, my final words, work hard in practice and in workouts, don’t argue with any of your coaches (or parents). Go harder than the guy next to you and be the loudest guy in the gym. Coaches will take the guy who puts in more effort than the next guy, talks on defense, boxes out, and most importantly dives on the floor and takes charges. This is what I told my brother going into tryouts, and I feel it goes for every basketball player in the world no matter what age. I love and respect this game too much to not educate the younger players around me, and give them the advice that I never got, so they can take their game further than I ever will.
“Argument(s) for: Athletes should be able to make their own decisions and control their own likeness. For some, college is all risk with relatively little reward—one freak injury can end a career and they aren’t paid so much as a monthly stipend for their services. Rookie contracts are often structured to minimize risk for teams, which hurts athlete earning power—college can double the amount of time spent between high school and that lucrative second contract.
Argument(s) against: Coming out of high school, most athletes possess neither the maturity nor the physical tools required to play at a high level professionally. Playing at the collegiate level solves that problem, preparing players for the pros while establishing a work ethic and (ideally) keeping them out of trouble, which improves the overall quality of gameplay and their chances to succeed long term.”
Tyler Peterson's D3 Basketball Survival Guide 