Eighth-grader is taking on a lot of pressure

Having witnessed the immense pressure put on and attention paid to Taylor King after he committed to UCLA before the start of his freshman basketball season at Santa Ana Mater Dei, I have come to the conclusion that parents need to step in and just say, "No" when college coaches seek such early commitments.

Those commitments only raise expectations to an unrealistic level and aren't healthy or beneficial for the athlete, who is immediately and constantly subjected to media and fan scrutiny, denying him the opportunity to mature in a calm, controlled manner.

Now 15-year-old Michael Avery, a 6-foot-4 eighth-grader from Thousand Oaks, has put himself squarely in the cross-hairs of amateur talent evaluators by announcing earlier this month that he has committed to play basketball at Kentucky.

He made his college choice before choosing which high school to attend.

If he hadn't realized how his life would change after his choice became public, he was given a wake-up call when his phone began to ring off the hook.

"I'm getting a lot of phone calls I'm not used to," he said a couple days after his commitment.

The area code of many of those callers: 859, which happens to be Lexington, Ky.

Welcome to your brave new world, Mr. Avery.

"I know they really like basketball now," he said.

Why Kentucky Coach Billy Gillispie would offer a scholarship to an eighth-grader from the Conejo Valley based on his performance in one tournament last month in Ohio is a mystery that won't be solved until November 2011, which is when Avery can sign a letter of intent with the Wildcats. Only then will Gillispie be allowed to comment under NCAA rules.

Avery played for Belmont Shore in a travel tournament two weekends ago at USC's Galen Center, and he looked overmatched in his brief appearances playing against high school juniors and seniors. Anyone could have picked him out as the eighth-grader.

The problem is he'll never be compared with his fellow classmates. The moment he steps onto a court, people will envision him wearing a Kentucky uniform. It's a vision that doesn't fit right now, but that's the fallout of such an early commitment.

"This is the kind of fuel that just ignites people who see faults in college basketball," said Jim Haney, executive director of the National Assn. of Basketball Coaches.

Haney said his organization "needs to take some leadership and figure out what should be done to protect the game and the whole recruiting process" as increasing numbers of prospects make commitments years before they arrive on a college campus.

Avery's father, Howard, said he had advised his son to be patient.

But Avery said, "I really like Kentucky basketball. That's why I committed. I've been following their program for a long time."

King seemed equally convinced of his future at UCLA in the fall of 2003, but he ended up signing with Duke three years later and last month, after only one season, decided to transfer to Villanova.

Avery repeated the seventh grade, making him older than most eighth-graders. Hopefully, he'll have the fortitude and maturity to deal with the expectations.

Last week, he finalized his high school choice, deciding to attend Encino Crespi, which means Coach Russell White will be responsible for guiding him for possibly the next four years.

"The sooner the 'Kentucky-bound' disappears as an adjective from his name, the faster we can move forward," White said.