New NCAA rule finally gives advantage to athletes

Ahh, the dreams born on the cracked concrete basketball courts of America's inner cities. For kids in Seattle, no dream consumes more lazy days in local community centers than that.

This is a football town where most kids play basketball, as strange as that seems. Now the quiet northwest corner of the lower 48 states has joined the debate surrounding just how dangerous these hoop dreams are.

Rainier Beach High School star Jamal Crawford's startling letter to the NBA, for which the NCAA eventually suspended him, put it on the tip of our tongue, and now a Garfield High School senior has left Seattle tongue-tied.

"All I really wanted to do was to go the NBA camps, see the competition and see the best players," Crawford said. "The NCAA banned me. We appealed and they wound up suspending me."

Brandon Roy, a Washington signee for next fall, is looking for the same opportunity, and he is better than the average sports guru knows.

Sure, he dominated Kingco 4A with two straight MVP titles and a 22.9 points-per-game (ppg) average this past winter, but high school basketball isn't just a topic of discussion at Central District barber shops anymore.

The game is year-round, the Amateur Athletics Union (AAU) tournaments can be found anywhere Cingular Wireless has cellular service and they draw crowds. A 13-year-old with a crossover and 30-inch vertical leap now travels more in a summer than some people do their whole lives, including to such places as Houston, Vegas, L.A. and Teaneck, N.J.

The reason is as simple as supply and demand. Coaches and scouts are at these tournaments, so the players abandon their summer-job possibilities and try to be seen.

Roy was seen. Folklore traveled all the way from Las Vegas near the end of the summer before Roy's senior year about just how many eyes popped out of their sockets after what "B-Roy" did at the Adidas Big-Time Tournament.

Playing for Seattle-based AAU program Team Yes, Roy soared over a moderately sized guard, dunking the ball, clearing him like Gail Devers does a hurdle.

Then, hustling back on defense, he pinned a lay-up against the glass with his fingertips well above the painted square on the backboard.

This is how it works. Word spreads, reputations are built, coaches make notes on legal pads and start buttering the AAU coach like a warm biscuit.

Roy's decision to declare for the NBA draft is smart.

He averaged 29.4 ppg in the Bob Gibbons Tournament last summer, which is played in Chapel Hill, N.C. ,at the Dean Dome. If he can get his name on an invitation to the pre-draft camp, a hot hand could move him up the draft board and secure his future, all by the age of 19.

What's wrong with that? It's his dream and he's doggedly chasing it. No one fusses when a kid skips college for a computer-programming position or to join an orchestra.

"People say, 'What's the rush?' but when the opportunity is there, you take advantage of it," Crawford said in a Seattle Post-Intelligencer article. "We aren't the only ones who have the opportunity. There are tennis players. Just look at the Williams sisters. It's a fine line making the decision, but if it's there, take advantage."

Fortunately for Roy, though, his dreams have a safety net, and that's why his decision is intelligent.

The NCAA has added a rule allowing high school seniors to declare for the NBA draft and still retain their full eligibility as long as they don't sign with an agent. A player can even be drafted by a team and return to college if he doesn't sign with the team, at which point the team retains the rights to the player for five years.

The rule is unique in that it gives power to the athletes rather than the school, or the NCAA, allowing them to dream but not punishing them for their overzealous decisions.

"I liken it to if I was in high school and Julius Erving walked in," Husky men's basketball coach Lorenzo Romar said in the same article. "I would wonder, 'Could I stop him; how do I measure up?' If he scores on me, it's OK; I'm in high school. If I score on him, I hit the jackpot."

But money isn't everything, some say. What about college? Parties in the U-District, sunshine on Red Square and an education are all reasons to go. What about the transition period between adult and dependent kid with a high school diploma?

"College is an education in itself," Romar added. "There are deadlines, budgets and requirements, meeting people of different cultures. It's just as much of an education as a degree. I don't want to get to the point where all of a sudden a college degree becomes a letdown."

College is far from a letdown. It's just the long, winding road to Roy's dreams when the interstate is right near by.