Basketball academy isn't what's best for prodigies

In the wake of reports that high school basketball prospects are padding their grades at diploma mills to earn college scholarships, NBA Commissioner David Stern, to his credit, is addressing this problem. One idea that has found traction is to establish a national basketball academy. The school would train future pros and Olympians in academics as well as the fundamentals of the game.

It is commonly believed that a lack of fundamentals was responsible for the disappointing performance of USA Basketball, the national team, at last year's world championships in Japan. The team, with such NBA stars as LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony and Dwyane Wade, was beaten by Greece in the semifinals and finished third. The assumption is that the struggles at the top levels of the sport can be traced to a lack of organization at the lower levels, where elite high school-age players are exploited by business interests.

In the main proposal under consideration, the basketball academy would be modeled along the lines of the Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Florida, which produced Andre Agassi, Anna Kournikova and Venus and Serena Williams. A selection committee would invite several dozen underclassmen, who would sleep, eat and train at a dedicated basketball facility.

Every morning, they would be bused to a local high school to complete their course work. Every afternoon, they would return to the academy to complete their court work. The academy would field two teams and each would play a national schedule during the traditional hoops season. Tuition and player expenses would be funded by individuals and corporate sponsors.

Well, as grand an idea as a basketball academy sounds, to my mind, it's as ill-conceived as it is ill-advised.

The creation of such a high school for jocks is opposed by no less an authority than Myles Brand, president of the NCAA. Brand says the idea "focuses too narrowly on the elite players and doesn't address the needs of hundreds of others who fill our rosters in Division I and Division II."

I agree. The emphasis of this sort of program should not be on winning a gold medal with 20 or 30 kids, but on getting a first-class education for thousands. The objective should not only be to groom them to be better NBA players, but to prepare them to be better citizens if, like nearly every teen phenom before them, they don't end up playing pro ball.