Is There Such a Thing as a Perfect 10?

Justin Jenifer, one of the country's most-talented 10-year-old basketball players, has become hotly pursued by aggressive AAU teams, high school coaches and shoe companies. (Preston Keres - The Washington Post)

Two seconds before his deadline, Justin leapt off the last step, sweat rolling down his forehead. Already, these twice-weekly workouts had chiseled his physique. His shoulders and biceps bulged out of a white tank top. Only Justin's round face betrayed hints of baby fat as he dropped his hands to his knees and leaned back up against a fence.

"Don't lean up against that," Howard said. "That's a sign of weakness. Get off the fence."

Before they returned home for dinner, Howard told Justin to do 25 pushups . . . after jumping rope 100 times in a minute . . . after making 14 consecutive free throws . . . after shooting 300 jumpers . . . after running up and down 720 more rows of stairs in the bleachers.

Howard's unwavering commitment to his son's development often left him exhausted; he has gained weight and lost sleep. He walked slowly and moved sluggishly. Breaks came rarely, if at all, because Howard had vowed to not let his son repeat his father's mistakes.

Howard was once a youth basketball phenom in Baltimore. He developed a consistent jump shot on a 16-by-20-foot court his father built in the back yard and dominated high-level youth leagues in middle school. But lack of height and defensive laziness derailed Howard at Cardinal Gibbons School. "I didn't work hard enough," Howard said. "You don't make that mistake twice."

Howard works for Aramark, a food management company, as a chef's assistant from 7 a.m. until 2:30 p.m., and then operates a cleaning business late at night. He spends the rest of the time coaching Justin, his only child. "Sometimes we relax," Kisha said, "and watch basketball DVDs on the couch."

Each time an opposing coach found a weakness in Justin's game, Howard eradicated it. Justin took lessons with local coaches who specialized in shooting, dribbling and defense. The shooting coach, Kevin Bullock, confessed he might not have much to offer after he watched Justin, at 8, make 43 of 50 three-point tries.

While helping coach Justin's team at an AAU tournament game last month, Howard sat on the bench with his right hand covering his eyes. Playing against mostly seventh-graders, Justin -- for once -- looked his age. He had a baby tooth knocked out in a third-quarter collision with a boy twice his size, and Howard wondered later if that had left his son shaken. Justin returned to the game and threw away passes, air-balled a three-pointer and missed an open layup.

When the game ended, Justin gathered his teammates and showed off the bloody gap vacated by his upper left tooth. Then he ran to his Adidas bag and pulled out his uniform for his next game, to be played on a different court in 10 minutes. Justin had just slipped a pair of shorts over his SpongeBob SquarePants boxers when Howard wrapped his arm around his son's shoulder.

"You looked like a little kid out there," Howard said. "Get it together. You have to perform. You can be a little kid at home. But here, you're an impact player."

'It's About Brand Loyalty'

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Adidas pays Scottie Bowden to find impact players and get them into Adidas gear. That usually means 15- or 16-year-olds, but the company has no age minimums; it wants to procure the best players, said Darren Kalish, Adidas's director of grass-roots basketball programs.

Bowden courted Justin just after he turned 9.