Prep Stars Caught Off Guard By New Academic Timeframe

By Eric Prisbell
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 12, 2007

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- Sitting in the Dean Smith Center, Terrance Joyner, a junior at Genesis One Christian School in Mendenhall, Miss., scrolled through his Sidekick 3 to find an e-mail from a college basketball coach. The e-mail explained a new NCAA rule that will prohibit players from attending prep schools for a year to improve academic deficiencies following four years of high school.

"I'm happy a lot of college coaches put me on to it," Joyner said after reading a portion of the note aloud. "A lot of people don't know about it."

In the month since the NCAA moved to address abuses in prep basketball, some prominent college coaches have called for the rule to be changed and several AAU coaches have looked for loopholes in it. But the rule is a mystery to many of those who could be most directly affected: high school players who need to improve their grades to become eligible to play in college.

"Nobody is talking about it," said Lance Stephenson, one of the nation's top sophomores from Lincoln High in Brooklyn and one of hundreds of players who competed in a high-profile AAU tournament in North Carolina last weekend.

The new NCAA rule states that upon entering ninth grade, athletes have four years to meet the eligibility standards in core academic courses to participate in college athletics; following those four years, they may take only one additional core course at any high school recognized by the NCAA. Beginning in 2008, recruits also will need to complete 16 core courses instead of 14, which will make it harder for players to become academically eligible after four years of high school.

The rule was introduced following reports in The Washington Post and the New York Times last year that highlighted the proliferation of so-called diploma mills, fraudulent schools operating with little or no oversight that players use to correct deficiencies in their academic transcripts compiled at traditional high schools.

The NCAA announced earlier this year that it would not accept transcripts from 15 nontraditional schools because of academic irregularities. Seven other schools, including Genesis One Christian, are still under review.

The problem, according to some involved in youth basketball, is that with so many high school players unaware of the change, many potential college recruits assume that they still have a fifth year to correct their academic problems when they now are limited to one course. This could have severe implications on their eligibility to play in college.

"They will understand in a year or two when one of their friends get messed over because the rule affected them," said Clark Francis, editor of Hoop Scoop, a basketball recruiting publication. "Suddenly people who aren't educated about it become educated real quick. We're going to throw away a class or two of players."

Gerald Stokes, the coach of the 16-Under Baltimore Stars, said he first learned about the rule in an e-mail sent by an AAU organization more than a month ago. Stokes said he and other Stars coaches have informed those on the team who could be affected.

When asked who -- players, parents or coaches -- is responsible for players not knowing about the rule, Stokes said: "All of the above. They are not being educated about it."

Kevin Lennon, the NCAA vice president for membership services, said informing high school players about the rule is a "shared responsibility," and that college coaches who are recruiting players often are in the best position to do so. "It does take time to get the word out," Lennon said, adding, "It would surprise me if kids being recruited were not aware of it."

As of Aug. 1, all student-athletes who need more than four years to fulfill their core-course requirements -- except for those currently attending prep schools -- must apply to the NCAA for a waiver to be eligible to play college athletics.

Lennon said that when determining whether to grant a waiver, the NCAA would consider whether the player was made aware of the rule and also whether he could have done anything differently had he been made aware of it.

"We would go ask the school, 'Did you make him aware of the rule?' " Lennon said. "You also have to ask the fundamental question: How would behavior have changed if they had known? How did the lack of information impact the young person's decisions?"

Standing near the court at the AAU tournament last week, sophomore Daquan Brown of Mount Zion in Durham, N.C., said he is in his third year of high school and will graduate in spring 2009. When a reporter told Brown about the rule, he said: "That's the first I heard about it. You can only take one class?"

Brown summoned his coach, Antonio Fozard, who said he plans to meet with Brown and other players individually to examine how they could use summer school to graduate after their eighth semester of high school.

"I would advise a young man like this to go ahead and take summer school, get some online courses that are credible," Fozard said. "That's the only thing you can do right now. Kids can graduate during the summer. We've done it at Mount Zion before. It's something he has to look into. He has to do summer school. I think he knows that."

When Fozard walked away, Brown groused that his scholarship does not cover summer school at Mount Zion and said he was not planning on attending summer school. Pointing to the games being played before him, he asked how players could be expected to complete courses in the summer when they attend high-profile AAU events that are showcases for their talent.

The rule also takes aim at what is known as reclassifying, the growing practice in which players repeat a high school grade to enhance their attractiveness to colleges by either retaking classes to improve their academic standing or by competing largely against players one year younger than they are.

Lennon said those who reclassified before the rule was in place and therefore are not in position to graduate after eight semesters of high school represent "classic" waiver cases. The NCAA also will consider whether reclassifying had the desired effect of improving the player's academic transcript, he said. He said the number of waivers granted is expected to be made public.

Dave Telep, a national recruiting analyst, said the rule will have a significant effect on youth basketball, but players won't be fully aware of it until the NCAA denies someone his college eligibility. To that end, Rummell King, a forward on the Baltimore Stars, listed his friends that he said are still planning to reclassify.

"No one has whispered anything about that in my ear," he said. "People continue to do it. If anyone heard about it, they wouldn't be doing it. But they are still talking about doing it."

Henry Sims, a Mount St. Joseph's junior who committed to Georgetown, said he was unaware of the rule until a teammate told him about it during the drive to the AAU tournament. "It hasn't been on TV," he said. "I haven't seen it on the Internet at all."

Zach Nelson, a senior small forward from Sacramento, said he was unaware of his academic shortcomings until a counselor told him two weeks ago that he was not on track to graduate and likely would need to take at least one course in prep school. Since then, Nelson has talked to an AAU teammate about the new rule but was unaware of the waiver process.

"I don't know all about it," Nelson said. "A lot of kids don't know about the rule."

Genesis One Christian forward Malcolm White, who committed to the University of Mississippi, said he was originally supposed to graduate in 2006 but now will graduate in 2008 after reclassifying to "bring my GPA up."

"There are not that many legit kids across the country who are their right age," said Joyner, White's teammate who has also reclassified. "Most of the kids are at least one year back, the top-rated kids across the country. They don't really talk about" the rule.

Two weeks ago, Stephenson's coach, Dwayne Morton, explained the prep school rule to him. Like Joyner, Stephenson said many players are still unaware of it.

"I think coaches should tell them because if they reclassify now they are doing it for nothing," Stephenson said. "They should know it if they want to play college basketball. It is their fault."