Same Players, Same Coach, Different Coasts
Sunday, March 12, 2006; Page E01
SIMI VALLEY, Calif. The letters on the front of the basketball uniforms are big and bold, spelled out in white to stand out against a deep purple fabric: STONERIDGE. The jerseys, like tens of thousands worn around the nation, are designed to reflect the traditional bond between high school athletes and the schools they represent.
But just six months ago, eight of the players at Stoneridge Preparatory School, about an hour's drive northwest of Los Angeles, made up the team at Florida Prep in Port Charlotte, Fla. And last season, an entirely different group of players represented Stoneridge before leaving together to play at a different California prep school.
  Players for Stoneridge, a Southern California prep school, sit in a bedroom of a house shared by the team and its three coaches. (By Ann Johansson For The Washington Post) About This Series
During the year, The Washington Post will examine youth basketball in the United States. The lure of multimillion dollar contracts and the growth of college basketball have raised the stakes for young players, their parents, coaches and backers. Along the way, the nature of the game has been altered for thousands of kids.
THE PLAYER CHASEDecember 31: After a six-month investigation, The Washington Post has found that it is now common for college programs to make tax-deductible donations, usually through a booster, to AAU programs in an effort to land recruits.
July 14: Kene Obi still waits for clearance to play his first high school basketball game.
 July 6: Renardo Sidney has developed into a blue-chip recruit despite never having played in a high school basketball game.
 July 4: Being one of the country's best 10-year-old basketball players used to be worth a shelf-full of plastic trophies. Not anymore. Just ask Justin Jenifer.
Photos: Banking on a Prodigy
Video: Justin's Got Game
March 26: Jericho Christian Academy seeks a higher profile by using the lure of basketball, but it is a path that often comes at a price.
March 12: Stoneridge Preparatory School demonstrates how entire prep basketball squads are increasingly transferring together.
 March 5: The NCAA Clearinghouse certifies player's transcripts and grades without doing background checks on the validity of those documents.
THE PLAYER CHASE: THE EUROPEAN MODEL
To better understand the demise of U.S. basketball, reporter Michael Lee went to three countries whose teams have beaten the Americans to examine their player development system.
Dec. 18: Youth players who compete for Serbian club teams face unique economic and social pressures.
 Dec. 17: The European system for developing world-class basketball players can be a model for the U.S.
Graphic: Three basketball powers.
LIVE ONLINEThe Post's Eli Saslow was online to discuss Nigerian basketball players. Read the transcript.
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For players at Stoneridge, the founding notion of high school sports -- that a team represents a school -- has been replaced by an altogether different reality. In elite prep basketball, entire squads sometimes change schools. So while much is made of the recent trend of individual players transferring schools, especially in the Washington area, Stoneridge represents a new dynamic: the transferring team.
The result is a school like Stoneridge, where none of the students has seen the team play a game and a private investor finances the team. Players attend class on their own schedules -- leaving school an hour before everyone else.
The same concerns about the academic integrity of basketball-oriented prep schools that surfaced in recent Washington Post reports apply to Stoneridge's players. They admit they rarely attended classes at Florida Prep, a school that is not accredited. Stoneridge's administrators said last season's players were absent from school for weeks at a time. Some players did not receive grades, as the school's principal, Maria Arnold, admits she lost control of the academic oversight of the team. Stoneridge, accredited by two private school organizations, said the current players are doing fine academically despite missing large amounts of class time because of their national basketball schedule.
As is the case with other prep schools with high-profile basketball teams, academic controversy at Stoneridge has not kept away recruiters. About 75 college coaches have visited practices this season, Stoneridge Coach Babacar Sy said. The team is filled with some of the most promising players in the country, including three from Senegal, three from France and five from the United States. All 11 players are considered Division I college prospects, and four are 6 feet 11 or taller.
Not a bad team for a 50-student school that sits in the foothills outside of Simi Valley, surrounded by livestock and strawberry farms. Arnold, 75, started the private school 40 years ago for students who wanted smaller class sizes than existed in public schools. Classes are held in two adobe buildings set back about 200 yards from the main road, obscured by a row of orange and grapefruit trees.
"We're a quiet academic school, and that's how we like it," Arnold said. "We have a fantastic basketball team, but that's a different world."
The school and the team don't mesh perfectly, not even on the purple Stoneridge jerseys: The school's official color is blue.
Florida: Troubled Arrangement
Sy had played basketball in France, where he grew up, and was an assistant coach at the College of Southern Idaho when he committed to coach at Florida Prep in March 2005. He interviewed with then-principal Steve Rodriguez at a Hooters restaurant, and both sides agree that only disaster followed. At first, the union made sense: Florida Prep was mired in bankruptcy and -- with a basketball coach for its principal and an Adidas representative on its three-person school board -- the small school decided a high-powered basketball team would bring in money.
An agreement forged, Sy went to Senegal in March to recruit players. He sent nine foreigners to Florida Prep. The school provided I-20 scholarship forms -- essentially a promise to the U.S. government that the school will enroll the students -- for all of them, promising them full scholarships to cover tuition, food and housing. Florida Prep quickly realized, though, that it had overstated its ability to feed, house and educate giant teenagers.
"Every day, another kid showed up at the airport needing to be picked up and cared for," said Joe Placher, the head administrator at Florida Prep and a member of the school board. "It was a huge responsibility. We tried to do everything we could."
