Just Too Young
By Ryan Brown
Birmingham—Kentucky basketball coach Billy Gillispie has apparently never seen a junior high game he doesn’t like. The Big Blue hoops coach has been on the road recruiting. His prize catch: an eighth-grader and a ninth grader. That’s right. The committed future of one of the proudest programs in America is currently in the 14-15 year-old age bracket. They can’t drive or vote but they can make a life changing decision about where they want to spend four years of their life.
Michael Avery is an eighth-grader from Lake Sherwood, California. On a recent trip to Indiana, Gillispie convinced him to commit to the Cats. I know the question in your mind right now, how did Gillispie find Avery in Indiana, not California? That’s because Avery’s family was in Indiana searching for a high school for Michael to attend. Yes, the kid has committed to a college before he has even found a high school.
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Avery stands 6-foot-4, which makes him an anomaly in the eighth-grade. Gillispie is obviously banking on him growing over the next four years and being an inside force. I am sure a coach with Gillispie’s resume would never consider a kid at Kentucky who does not exhibit a high basketball IQ. The Kentucky coach found Avery at an AAU camp in Indiana, which means Avery was using that IQ against players that were bigger, more experienced and certainly older. He must have been impressive.
Vinny Zollo is a ninth grader in Greenfield, Ohio. Zollo is 6-foot-8 which makes him the tallest person in most ninth grade class pictures. Zollo has also given his commitment to play for Kentucky. He is not searching for a high school, his family appears settled in Ohio.
Neither Avery nor Zollo were beyond the ninth grade in education when they committed to play at Kentucky. There are two natural questions that go along with these commitments. The first: How do you know Billy Gillispe will be the coach when it is time to move to Kentucky? Four years is a long time in coaching. Gillispe’s name was tied to jobs in this off-season, just one year into the Kentucky job. The Wildcat faithful say Lexington is the destination. Coaches don’t leave Kentucky. I guess that’s why Rick Pitino is the coach at Louisville.
The second question is this: At the young age of these two, can they handle the pressure of being a future Kentucky player? Not only will Avery and Zollo bear the pressure of their respective high school teams, they will bear the pressure of Kentucky fans watching their every move for four years, the four years before college. This does not even take into consideration the taunting and jeering these two will receive from opposing fans of their high schools and opposing fans of Kentucky.
Commitments at this young of an age is an exception but not new. The most publicized case was that of Indiana high school wonder boy Damon Bailey. Bailey was a point guard for Bedford North Lawrence High School in Indiana. All he did was take one of the greatest high school basketball states and set it on its ear. For his career, Bailey became the states all-time leading scorer, was named first team all state four consecutive years and was Indiana’s Mr. Basketball as a senior. For all of those accolades, Bailey caught the eye of coaching legends like Jim Boeheim and Bob Knight.
By then, Boeheim had things rolling at Syracuse but apparently thought he needed a point guard…in five years. The Syracuse coach came to Indiana and offered the seventh grade Bailey a scholarship. Bailey, a seventh grader, already had an offer to play for a Big East power. Bailey chose to hold out for the home team.
In John Feinstein’s A Season on the Brink, Knight tells his team that this eighth-grader named Bailey was a better guard than any player on the Hoosiers’ team. For the record, the starting guard on that team was Steve Alford [current Iowa head coach].
Bailey had success at Indiana. He finished sixth on the school’s all-time scoring list. He won a few awards but never reached the level expected of him as a high school star. After finishing at Indiana, the crowd that watched his final high school game was still one of the largest crowds that ever saw him play. The 1990 IHSAA Championship Game drew 41,000 fans to the Hoosier Dome (now the RCA Dome).
Bailey was drafted 44th in the 1994 NBA Draft by the hometown team, the Pacers. His NBA career would never take off. The Pacers cut the often-injured Bailey after just one full season. Bailey toiled in the CBA trying to revive his pro career but could never make it back to the NBA. He is still remembered as one of the greatest players in Indiana history but did not reach the heights expected of him as a seventh grader.
Basketball is not alone in their love for younger players. There is no better example than Amobi Okoye. Okoye was born in Nigeria then moved to Huntsville when he was 12. Okoye tested to a ninth grade level when he arrived in Huntsville. He enrolled in Lee High School and eventually played football for the Generals. Okoye quickly became a very good defensive lineman. When he graduated, Louisville was the school he chose and he made news by doing it. He was only 15 years of age. The Cardinals took a risk placing a player in the locker room that was at least three years younger than the rest of his team. The gamble worked for Louisville and Okoye. In the 2007 NFL draft, The Houston Texans used the tenth overall pick to take Okoye. At the age of 19, he was the youngest player ever to be taken in the first round of the NFL draft.
So, how young is too young? It is a question the NCAA has yet to answer. Recruiting starts at earlier ages now than ever before. It is hard to believe that someone can make a life-altering decision, such as where to attend college, at the age of 14. From personal experience, I was nowhere close to making that type of decision at that point in my life.
An early commitment does not always lead to a troubled road. Damon Bailey would not likely have made the NBA from any college program. Amobi Okoye did make the NFL from the program he chose. The road ahead for Michael Avery and Vinny Zollo will hopefully lead to that type of success. One thing is certain; it will be interesting to see how these two players deal with the pressure. We’ll find out…if we can wait until 2015.
