High School Coaches Shoot Down the Summer Leagues

They used to say that practice made perfect, that basketball was a game of repetition.

Shoot free throws every day and you would become a better free-throw shooter. It was that simple, coaches said.

But could there be too much of a good thing? Too much practice? Some basketball coaches say there is. And that’s one of the reasons that spring leagues and summer all-star teams have become a controversial issue among high school coaches.

Summer basketball attracts the best high school players from this area to camps as far away as Princeton, N.J. Some all-star games take them to other countries. Even average players are playing in more than twice the number of games in the spring and summer than in the regular season.

And why? To keep up with the rest of the basketball Joneses, of course.

But some coaches fear burnout, for the players and themselves.

“It’s my general feeling that there are too many leagues and all-star teams,” said Bob Braswell, Cleveland High coach. “Kids will play on as many teams as possible just because they love to play. That can be just too much basketball. There is such a thing, you know.”

The players are lured by the large number of recruiters who come out to scout talent. Since 1983, when the NCAA established an early signing period for athletes in November, recruiters have come in droves to summer games and camps. As a result, players are now sometimes judged more by how they perform after and before their school season.

All of which puts a lot of pressure on a 16- or 17-year-old athlete when it comes to a choice between an all-star team and his high school school team.

Trevor Wilson, who will begin his freshman year at UCLA this fall, played in three spring-summer leagues and attended a summer basketball camp at Princeton in the “off season” between the end of his junior season and the start of his senior season at Cleveland.

His penchant for the game got him kicked off the Cleveland team for more than a month in spring, 1985.

Wilson was dismissed from the squad after he walked out of a team meeting following one of Cleveland’s Vocabulary League games.

Wilson, who was upset after a close loss, said he didn’t have time to stay for a word test given after each of the spring league games. He had a Slam ‘N Jam league game to go to. Braswell, who was then an assistant coach, told him to stay--or leave the team. Wilson left, and didn’t show up for the team’s next game.

Greg Herrick, then coach at Cleveland and now an assistant at College of the Canyons, said Wilson is an example of a player who got caught in the middle of the struggle between high school coaches and their summer league counterparts.

“In looking back, the whole situation probably wasn’t really his fault,” Herrick said in an interview in March of this year. “Outside influences changed him. All of a sudden, the high school team was no longer the focus. These outside leagues give players shoes, free meals and take them across the country to play in all-star games. It’s easy for a kid to be torn between priorities.”

Wilson was reinstated to the team in June and went on to average 25.7 points and 15 rebounds a game during the regular season, then lead the Cavaliers to the City championship game.

Braswell said Cleveland players are allowed to play in outside leagues and on all-star teams, but there is one restriction.

“My one rule has always been that if there’s an all-star game and a Cleveland game at the same time, the Cleveland game comes first,” Braswell said.

And even then, there are exceptions.

Damon Greer, the Cavaliers’ starting point guard as a sophomore last season, played on an all-star team that traveled to Canada this summer. Cleveland played without him last month in the L.A. Summer Games and advanced to the semifinals before losing to Fairfax.

“He asked permission to go way back in the spring,” Braswell said. “It was a great cultural experience for him. He was playing on a team representing Los Angeles at the Expo up there. It would have been pretty unreasonable for me to say no to that.”

David Beneza of Crossroads is in the unusual position of being all-star coach and high school coach. He said he doesn’t care if he sees a Crossroads player all summer.

“We only play about 10 games together anyway, but if he’s playing all-stars, I know he’s playing against better competition than he’s going to find anywhere else,” said Beneza, who also coaches the Rockfish all-stars. “I don’t need to coach my players 12 months out of the year. I think it benefits the coaches and players to get away from each other for a while.”

Beneza said the players benefit from the competition and style of play in all-star leagues and camps.

“There is a big disparity between the competition in high school basketball and that of all-star basketball,” he said. “The games are more wide-open, more college style. There’s much more physical contact and the kids have to learn how to handle themselves. They’re also forced to play man-to-man defense. They can’t hide any deficiencies in a zone.

“In a normal high school game, a team might have one or two guys they have to stop to win the game. That isn’t the case in all-star leagues. Even if defense isn’t stressed, there is still the challenge of driving the lane against a 6-10 kid every game. All the teams have the big guys in the middle.”

Braswell agreed that off-season camps and leagues provide extra exposure. “College recruiters might be able to see a lot of kids they wouldn’t normally be able to see during the school year,” he said. “But that’s about the only advantage I can really see out of it.

“Kids hear different things from different things from different coaches. They might hear five different ways to play man-to-man defense. Bad habits are picked up. In some of these leagues, defense is not stressed at all. Everyone’s out there trying to show their offensive moves.”

Said Bob Hawking, Simi Valley coach: “The major issue with a lot of high school coaches is the feeling that the kids just show up for those leagues and play. It’s kind of a situation where from a positive point of view, the players can try things on the court that they normally wouldn’t be allowed to do. The negative side is that those things that they are trying aren’t going to help them in a more structured situation.”

Braswell said he’s in favor of a plan that would limit players to one school team and one outside team.

“That way they’re not playing basketball all summer,” Braswell said. “There comes a time when enough is enough.”

Dean Crowley, Southern Section administrator for basketball, said he doubts any restriction will be placed on off-season games.

“It is the philosophy of the CIF that, due to the fact there is no school in the summertime and schools make up the CIF, there are no rules in the summertime governing the kids,” Crowley said. “What kids do in the summertime should be the choice of the kids. The sad thing is, you and I both know there’s pressure being put on them to perform for this team and that team.

“But there’s nothing we can do about it.”