LeBron James made news on Thursday by telling reporters that he wished colleges would stop recruiting his 10-year-old son. According to James, his son, LeBron James Jr., has already received questionnaires and offers from certain college basketball programs.
While James brings up a valid concern regarding his wishes for his son to “be a kid” as long as possible, it is an unfortunate reality that not only do college coaches recruit players that young, but they must do so.
Money from television deals, shoe company contracts and unprecedented fan interest have created a world where college basketball isn’t just fun and games. Rather, this is big money business and while the players have their own obligations to fulfill for scholarship purposes, head coaches have multi-million-dollar contracts to live up to.
Most coaches will tell you that recruiting is the life-blood of their program. That means for schools like Duke, Kentucky, UCLA, Ohio State and more, competitive recruiting battles and the outcomes of those battles could very well decide whether or not a coach gets one more year or not.
I understand LeBron wanting to shield his son from the world’s ills. It would be fair to say that many of us do.
At the same time, tweeting out your son’s highlight tape from an event–yes, mixtape companies are at those events too–to your 19.2 million followers on Twitter probably isn’t doing much protecting of any childhood.
College recruiting, at this point, is what it is and has likely gone too far to change. Too much is on the line. Too many coaches absolutely need to be in on LeBron Jr. first so that they can not only win games with his talent, but generate a buzz around their program due to the kid’s public profile.
Few people understand this more than LeBron, making his comments completely asinine.
