Why wait?
In search of 'can't miss' talent, colleges target commitments from recruits as young as 14 years old
By John Clayton
Posted: 10/28/07, 11:18 PM EST Section: Sports
Phil Martelli had heard of Dion Waiters. It just never occurred to Martelli to recruit him.
As far as Martelli, the head men's basketball coach at Saint Joseph's in Philadelphia, was concerned, Waiters was a "great, great young player" in the city.
Emphasis on "young." Waiters was just 14 years old and in the eighth grade when Martelli learned of him. Martelli earned his reputation on the playgrounds and in AAU summer leagues rather than high school gymnasiums.
Waiters' youth, combined with Martelli's strategy of zeroing in on high school juniors in recruiting, prevented the St. Joe's coach from actively pursuing Waiters so early.
Syracuse men's basketball head coach Jim Boeheim didn't have the same reservations. Boeheim and the SU coaching staff offered Waiters a scholarship this July after the 6-foot-2, 200-pound guard attended a Syracuse elite camp for the second year in a row.
At age 15, Waiters, who said he knew he wanted to wear Orange after attending the same camp a year before, verbally committed to Syracuse.
"I was very excited; I knew I wanted to play there," Waiters said. "Just getting (the recruiting process) out of the way."
All this before he even played a high school game. Waiters was kicked out of one Philadelphia-area school last year, and he didn't play basketball while finishing his freshman year at another high school in the city. Yet if all goes according to plan, he will take the court for Syracuse in 2010.
Waiter's verbal promise is hardly the first - or most extreme - example of what is a growing trend in the ultra-competitive basketball recruiting landscape. Following what Martelli termed the "herding mentality" of college basketball, more coaches are offering scholarships to kids, some 15 years old or younger, in the hopes the player will develop into a blue-chip recruit.
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