Set to open today, Basketball academy did not exsist and players are left to start over

from Yahoo! Sports:

A handful of foreign prospects and some from closer to home were served a sordid slice of American pie by a South Charleston, W.Va. academy which purported to be a landing pad of top basketball talent. Many officials are now claiming that the West Virginia Prep Academy, which was scheduled to open on today(Tuesday) after permits had been filed by former college basketball player Daniel Hicks, was nothing more than a fraudulent enterprise aimed at generating quick cash for Hicks himself…..

The kids/players were left to find food on their own and barely had a place to stay, before they realized that there was no West Virginia Prep……

CLICK HERE to read all from Yahoo! Sports, Rivals.com and the Prep Rally…..

5 thoughts on “Set to open today, Basketball academy did not exsist and players are left to start over

  1. You no it realy up sets me to see all of the so called Prep Academy type programs SHOWING up all over the place. I can understand parents wanting to see their kid compete against the best players and all but I’m beginning to wonder if it’s about the Kids anymore?? Are is it just the ego of the parents. We have some of the best HIGH SCHOOL Basketball/ Foot Ball/ Over all sports in the nation in North Carolina Bar-none in the High school ranks . But now you have kids jumping from their high school to some Prep Academy and then in some cases jumping back to their High School if they are a winning program . What is going on here ?? I can put blame on the Kids but I am not!! I’m putting it were it belongs ON THE PARENTS/PARENT . WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO WAKE UP AND SEE THAT IF YOUR CHILD IS AS GOOD AS YOU THINK THEY ARE, THEY CAN GET A SCHOLARSHIP PLAYING WITH IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM . Look at chris paul, michael jordan , Danny Manning and a long list of others who went on to great High School ,College and pro Careers . But yet we have Egotistical Parents that Live their Dream through their Child feeling that their child is the next prodigy or phenom ? Wake up your child will get the same SCHOLARSHIP from a PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM and in most cases Better Coaching, and you wont have to PAY ALL THE MONEY FOR IT. WAKE UP!!! DAVID W. MAURER WROTE IN THE BOOK (THE BIG CON) (1940), ( “There’s a mark born every minute, and one to trim ’em and one to knock ’em”. Here ‘trim’ means to rip off, and ‘knock’ means to persuade away from a scam!!! I’M YOUR kONOCK’EM DON’T BE A MARK !!!!!!

  2. I have not heard or seen anything on Oak Ridge. Last year they had 150 cadets with probably 100 being there to play basketball, football or baseball. How many students returned to Oak Ridge this year?

  3. This is an interesting story and I think it is pointing a bad finger at the whole “prep” school process. However, I do think the process has changed so much that many of these kids/parents feel as if they have no choose. When I was growing up I remember seeing Dean Smith and Coach K come out and recruit a friend of my during the same time that Curtis Hunter was being recruited. My friend did not go on to Duke or UNC however it was not uncommon to see coachs of that level come out to the local high school to see the talent for themselves. Today coaches such Coach Roy or K simply cannot come to these high schools because of the limits that the NCAA has put on coaches on a regular basis. So many of the “top” players have move to private school and “prep” academies that there is generally not enough talent in the gym on any given night to justify coaches on that level coming to see you. I remember recently seeing the Kentucky coach come see John Wall play against Dudley a couple of years. Word of God had 5 D1 players on the floor and Dudley had at least 4 D1 players on the floor. If Word of God was playing NW, Grimsley, NE, Western or whoever else, then that trip would have never had. The more kids that move into the private or prep school, then it will only cause more of the top players to leave. These private and prep schools can now play and compete in better and higher level tournaments which can help give them extra exposure outside of the AAU season. As a parent, I can see going the private school route when you are talking about schools like Charlotte Latin, Greensboro Day, Raleigh Ravencroft but I am not sold on the education side of schools like Quality Education or Brittian Academy (aka Thomasville Prep). It is great to be at a school that can enhance your opportunities to play at a specific level but you better make sure that you are prepared to actually do the college work when you get to the school or this all would have been for nothing.

  4. More options for kids the better. Most of these “Prep” schools are doing a great job with these kids. It’s funny how so many people have opinions about basketball and football topics. Parents and kids need more options than public schools. Parents need to do their research, but other than that more power to them. More scholarships are offered by college coaches observing kids during the summer than during the winter months (high school season). Get your kid on a travel team that will play in front of the coaches!

  5. I can see your point Big Shots and maybe and maybe not: and I do agree with most of it. But Research studies have shown that the must of the so call Prep/ Academy schools test scores are ABOUT THE SAME (Public Schools Vs. Private Schools: New Study Says There Is No Difference) See (http://education-portal.com/articles/Public_Schools_vs_Private_Schools_New_Study_Says_There_is_No_Difference.html). Achievement scores on reading, math, science and history were the same;
    Students were equally likely to attend college whether they had graduated from a public or private school;
    Young adults at age 26 were equally likely to report being satisfied with their jobs whether they had graduated from a public or private school;
    Young adults at age 26 were equally likely to engage in civic activity whether they had graduated from a public or private school.

    There was, however, one important area in which private school students did excel: SAT scores. Students in private schools performed consistently better on the test than public school students. The study’s authors point out that this doesn’t imply that private schools are any better at teaching subject matter. They offer two possible explanations for this finding:

    Private schools are better at teaching test preparation.
    The admissions process at private schools tends to select students with higher IQ scores, and aptitude tests like the SAT are a better measure of IQ than subject achievement tests.

    Regardless of the reason for the difference, the result is that graduates from private schools are somewhat more likely to get accepted into very elite colleges.

    The second exception that the study found was limited to a very specific type of private school. Catholic schools that are run by holy orders, such as the Jesuits, did show consistently positive academic effects. However, this is a relatively small percentage of parochial schools, since the majority of Catholic institutions are run by a local diocese rather than a holy order.
    We are not talking about Schools like Deer Field Academy are the Parochial and Jesuits Schools. There are excellent charter/ Prep /Academy schools, just as there are excellent public schools.
    What gets to me is the lack of involvement of some parents that feel that sending their child to a charter/ Prep /Academy school to play a sport so that some guy can get a nike contact and make $300,000–$400,000 a year to oversee small numbers of school students? That may are may not get a Scholarship offer in the End. Big Shots had it right ( Get your kid on a travel team that will play in front of the coaches! ) And yes the NCAA should allow the Coaches to come to games at the High Schools again it is good for High School sports in general . They can come to Foot Ball Games why not Basket Ball ! I will match any Public School in the Top 10 in Texas and North Carolina against any Private School in the Nation and I bet out of 20 games The Public School will win 18 of them and I didn’t have to spend a Dime .
    Also a good read ‘Waiting for Superman’: See http://www.cato.org/pubs/articles/coulson_comparing_public_private_market_schools_jsc.pdf!!

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