He’s 100% Cotton : Incoming Freshman Draws Rave Reviews, but He Just Wants to Be Himself

The spotlight is shining on Schea Cotton.

Only an incoming freshman at St. John Bosco High in Bellflower, the San Pedro native is playing basketball for the South Bay All-Stars in the Slam-N-Jam National Invitational tournament this week at Cal State Long Beach. Cotton is the youngest player on the court in a game against a North Dallas team, yet all eyes are focused on him.

The 6-foot-5 off-guard picks up his dribble on a fast break, pops into the air and launches a perfect left-handed jump shot from 17 feet for two points. Seated at the baseline, Arizona Coach Lute Olson shakes his head and scratches a note on his clipboard.

Two series later, Cotton slices toward the basket and launches himself for a monster one-handed dunk. USC Coach George Raveling grins and whispers something to an assistant, his gaze fixed on the boy’s chiseled 190-pound frame.

The show continues like this for the duration of the game. Cotton scores on an off-balance shot, or blocks a layup from behind, clapping and shouting throughout the game. A legion of college coaches and scouts gawk in admiration.

It will be three years before college coaches will even be allowed to talk about the 15-year-old phenom, much less to him. But already, his name is on the lips of Division I coaches across the country.

“Schea is a playground legend,” said Cotton’s longtime coach, Pat Barrett of the Performance Training Institute of Anaheim. “I talk to all the college coaches around the country. Everyone’s talking about how good Schea is. A lot of them have never even seen him play, but they’ve heard stories. (Syracuse Coach Jim) Boeheim, Rick Pitino at Kentucky, John Thompson at Georgetown. All of them have heard what a player he is.”

Cotton comes by his reputation honestly. Over the last three years, he has led Barrett’s PTI team to an astounding 220-3 record, a run that includes two Amateur Athletic Union national youth titles. As a 6-foot sixth-grader in 1990, he scored 38 points and had 23 rebounds in the championship game to earn

the first of two tournament most valuable player awards.

And now, before he has played a minute at the high school level, Cotton, who repeated sixth grade when his family moved to San Pedro from Lakewood, is already being touted by some scouts as one of the top 15 prep players in Southern California.

“(Cotton’s) amazing,” said Joel Francisco, who runs the Long Beach-based scouting service So Cal’s Finest. “For a freshman, he’s outstanding, as far as physical talent and explosiveness and tenacity on the court. A lot of freshmen are timid on the court, but Schea’s like a veteran as far as aggressiveness and getting after it.”

Francisco already ranks Cotton above his brother James, a 6-foot-5 small forward who will attend Cal State Long Beach in the fall.

“(Schea is) better off the dribble than James,” Francisco said. “I think that James is going to be an excellent player at Long Beach, but Schea’s one of the most advanced freshmen I’ve ever seen.”

But Cotton shakes off any suggestion that he is already a better player than his brother.

“Oh, no. He’s up here, and I’m way down here,” Cotton said, holding his right hand two feet above his left. “That’s what I have to look forward to. I want to be like James.”

Most agree, however, that if Cotton hasn’t already surpassed his brother, he will. Barrett, who has spent the last 17 years coaching youth all-stars in the area, calls Cotton “the best youth player ever to go through Southern California, bar none.”

“Right now, he’s scary,” Barrett said. “If he keeps developing, which I think he will, I personally think that Schea will be the best player ever to come out of L.A. That’s quite a statement, but if you saw this kid’s work ethic and how badly he wants to achieve, the sky’s the limit for Schea.

“He wants to be the best player, and he works to be the best player. I have a saying that everybody wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die. But Schea puts his time in.”

Until now, Cotton has been a man among boys. But the days when he could dominate play on size and strength are a thing of the past. A 5-foot-9 center at the time of PTI’s first AAU championship, Schea’s game has moved away from the basket as the competition has grown bigger and better.

Already, though, Cotton is proving his mettle against high school players. In summer league games with St. John Bosco and in all-star tournaments such as the Slam-N-Jam, Cotton has been averaging 20 points a game. He also tied for the slam dunk title at Slam-N-Jam. With four years to grow before he moves to the college level, the calendar is Cotton’s best friend.

With so much talent and potential, expectations for the Dana Junior High graduate have a tendency to get out of hand. After all, the threat of an unforeseen injury or drop-off in his passion for the game is ever present. And at 15, Cotton is still, as his mother Gaynell puts it, “a child in a man’s body.”

“Sometimes we forget that he’s just a boy,” said Brian Breslin, who will coach Cotton at St. John Bosco. “I mean, you look at him, and he’s 6-foot-5, 190 pounds, and he looks like he’s been in the weight room for 10 years, and you just forget that he’s a 15-year-old boy.”

Expectations are soaring at St. John Bosco, where Cotton will play alongside senior point guard Jelani Gardner.

“They’ll be better than last year,” said James Cotton, referring to the 25-3 Braves squad that advanced to the Southern Section Division 2-A semifinals. “They’ll be in good hands. Jelani will lead the team and my brother will just have to work hard, do the little things that make the team better. . . . They’ll win it all.”

Schea can’t wait for the season to begin.

“I’ve been waiting for this for a very long time,” he said. “Jelani’s a great player. He’s very unselfish. I’m looking forward to it. I think we have a chance at the state (title). Don’t ever count us out, whatever you do.”

At this stage, few would count out Cotton, least of all Barrett.

“Schea’s a once-in-a-lifetime player,” Barrett said. “You don’t see a kid like Schea Cotton come along very often.

“He’s like a Michael Jordan. I’m not saying Schea is Michael Jordan. There’s only one Michael Jordan, and there’s only one Magic Johnson and only one Larry Bird. But then again, there may only be one Schea Cotton.”

Back at the gym, Cotton takes a bounce pass on a breakaway. The game’s outcome has long since been decided, and he springs up for a reverse two-handed dunk, a la the Miami Heat’s Harold Miner.

Clank. The ball slams off the back iron and soars out of bounds. Seated in the gallery of coaches, Paul Westhead of George Mason laughs.

“He needs to work on his back-dunk,” Westhead says with a smile.

Schea Cotton is no Michael Jordan. He’s not even Harold Miner. But at 15, Schea Cotton’s got plenty of time to become Schea Cotton.