The American Dream: AAU programs offer bright futures, or big letdowns

Jul 03, 2010

By: Oakland Press Sports

By KEITH DUNLAP
Of The Oakland Press
They generate controversy and affirmation, frustration and jubilation.
They affect and involve lots of people, whether it is college coaches, high school coaches, parents, teachers, administrators, personal trainers or sponsoring corporations.
Whether the feelings are good or bad, they also without question produce passionate responses on a variety of issues from those who are directly involved.

What produces all of the above is non-high school sporting leagues or organizations that involve high school athletes.

A group of high school students, and recently completed high school students, do a thirty-second drill of stepping Tuesday at Wisner Stadium in Pontiac. (The Oakland Press/Jose Juarez)

For sports such as basketball and volleyball, it’s best known as AAU ball. For baseball and softball, it’s summer ball, while it’s travel hockey, club swimming and so forth.
No matter what side of the fence people stand on these offseason sports, several things are clear:

— AAU and travel sports have become big business. There’s a healthy amount of money needed to not only play for a team, but travel to tournaments or meets throughout the season.
Dave Smith, a coach for the AAU girls and boys basketball program “Team Basketball” that has kids ranging from sixth through 12 grade, said the average cost for a player to play in his program is anywhere from $400 to $800 a year, depending on how many months that player decides to play.
Those costs include a uniform and tournaments, but doesn’t include travel costs for families who go to out-of-state tournaments.
Smith and his staff are volunteer coaches and don’t coach for profit.
Other organizations that play in more tournaments than Team Basketball does charge more, as Smith said it costs anywhere from $200 to $600 to enter a tournament.
“These kids are being looked at and recruited earlier and earlier,” Smith said. “You have a lot of influence from parents and coaches. There are a lot of outside forces trying to push these kids to another level. “
John Pochas is the father of Birmingham Groves baseball player Chris Pochas, who will be a senior next school year for the Falcons and plays summer ball for the Michigan Red Sox.
John Pochas said it costs from $750 to $1,000 a summer to play for the Red Sox. Travel costs to tournaments are not included.
“It gets a little more excessive as (the kids) get older,” Pochas said.
Corporations who sponsor tournaments also contribute mightily to the business aspect of AAU or travel ball, hoping their sponsorship will lead to future clientele if those players one day reach the pros.

— College coaches seem to be more interested in scouting tournaments instead of high school games to find elite recruits. It’s simple math for college coaches in terms of going to an AAU/travel event as opposed to a high school one.
When a college coach goes to a high school game, it’s normally to see one player, maybe two. When attending an AAU/travel event, a coach is able to see many more prospects than that.
Oakland Community College girls basketball coach Marv Allen said he can see anywhere from 50 to 60 prospects at an AAU tournament, which also breaks the players down by age.
“When you look at a high school team, most of the players are there just for the athletic experience and are part of the team,” Allen said. “They are mostly part of the sport atmosphere. AAU is a competitive situation, so you’re getting the best of various teams participating together. As a college coach, I can go to one venue and I see more than likely the best of the best.”

Pinklon Thomas III (standing in center) has a group of high school students, and recently completed high school students, do a thirty-second drill of abdominal crunches Tuesday at Wisner Stadium in Pontiac. (The Oakland Press/Jose Juarez)

Football might not have an AAU or offseason league that consists of games, but it’s the same concept for college football coaches.
Most scholarship offers are handed out at camps held at the college during the spring or summer. Sometimes all it takes is to see a kid run an excellent 40-yard dash time or show an impressive vertical jump and a scholarship is handed out.

— More and more, parents are realizing excelling in AAU/travel sports is the best way for their kids to get exposure in hopes of landing a college scholarship.
John Pochas said this is an important summer for his son. The offseason before a senior year is generally the time when high school athletes in any sport are offered scholarships the most, and this summer John Pochas said they will be traveling to as many tournaments as possible in hopes of catching the eye of scouts.
“This is kind of the critical year because he just finished his junior year,” John Pochas said. “That’s a big strategy. If you want to make the investment, you want to make it a tournament that has some scouts there.”
Because of that, the mindset of attending travel tournaments has completely changed as his son has gotten older, according to Pochas.
“The kids liked it (earlier in life) because it was always like going on vacation,” Pochas said. “It’s a little more serious now.”
While recognizing the avenue his AAU program can provide to earning a college scholarship, Smith said ultimately his program tries to serve as an educational tool, not only for skill development in basketball, but to provide life lessons.
The odds of a typical kid earning a college scholarship still are remote, so Smith wants to make sure parents are realistic and realize their investment in AAU sports at the very least is providing an education for their kid.
“I think parents that go into the program with the expectation of a college scholarship could be disappointed if a player gets injured or burnt out,” Smith said. “I think if everyone goes in it with realistic expectations, the player will be successful (in life) whether or not they play in college.”

— Concerns exist that AAU/travel sports have eroded high school sports, and will further do so.
There are ways people believe high school sports have suffered because of AAU/travel sports. One, with the amount of games being played and travel being done in AAU/travel sports, it’s hampered practice time and the chance to further develop skills. That in turn has weakened fundamentals during high school seasons.
Another detriment of AAU/travel sports that proponents of high school sports cite is that team play has suffered, because AAU/travel has a tendency to be more about impressing and showing off individual skills.
As a result, team-first play has been somewhat hindered for high school athletics.
AAU/travel sports has also increased specialization among high school athletics, where athletes confine themselves to one sport all for the sake of earning a scholarship in that sport. That thinking has upset coaches who favor two or three-sport athletes to help an individual enhance competitiveness and develop other motor skills.
In addition, and this could really start to become an issue of the near future, AAU/travel sports could erode participation in high school sports, although that’s more the fault of school districts.
Because of skyrocketing pay-to-play costs for high school athletics, parents may find AAU/travel sports an option that isn’t much more expensive and a better investment given the college exposure they can create.
“That’s going to be huge this year,” Allen said regarding the effect pay-to-play fees could have on high school athletes.

— People such as personal trainers and marketing/recruiting agencies are becoming more prevalent than ever. For parents and athletes, it’s a matter of getting an edge beyond that of playing AAU/travel sports.
More and more kids are involved in sports-performance companies such as PlaymakersU, a Pontiac-based company that provides personal training, academic tutoring and character building.
“You’ve got to get that extra edge,” said Derek Denham, public relations coordinator/recruiting expert for PlaymakersU. “Because if you’re not doing it, someone else is.”
Denham said the organization trains more than 300 athletes in a variety of sports, ranging from age 6 to college. Those involved with the organization get physical dimensions measured, timed in the 40-yard dash, tutored academically to help raise ACT scores for college coaches, and are given character workshops.
“In today’s recruiting world, you have to have the whole package because (college) coaches’ jobs are on the line,” Denham said.
The organization meets at Wisner Stadium in Pontiac, but has tentative plans to move into the Howard Dell Community Center.
“The recruiting process has changed over the years,” Denham said. “With the advent of the Internet, people are not just recruiting from the state or nationally, but worldwide now. For us, when we talk to the parents (we tell them) that you need to go out and get enough competition and exposure as you can get. There’s never enough.”
Dan Renel, who is the father of Josh Renel, a former Rochester Adams football standout who will be a junior on Wayne State’s football team this upcoming season, said he hired a personal trainer for Josh before his junior year, and it helped greatly.
Dan Renel was complimentary of the training sessions conducted at the high school, but said there’s only so much a high school program can do.
“When these kids go to the school to work out, it’s not like they’re getting individual training,” Renel said. “You would have a coach there to supervise everybody, but he’s not pushing individual kids. Most of the high school programs aren’t that way where they have a trainer working with them individually.”
In addition to hiring personal trainers, Renel pointed out another growing fad for high school athletes: The highlight tape.
With YouTube and other video websites becoming more and more popular and athletes looking for ways to promote themselves to college coaches who might not otherwise see them in action, producing highlight tapes is becoming as a regular a routine as practice itself.
“It becomes an exercise in marketing,” said Renel, adding his son had a highlight tape produced for him. “The better market or your market your product, in this case an athlete, the more that athlete is going to get looked.”

All of the above aren’t necessarily newfound issues involving AAU/travel sports, but they seem to be shed in more light with their growth and the amount of people that are impacted each year.
Because of that, expect not only AAU/travel sports themselves to intensify for years to come, but the continued arguments as to their pluses and minuses.

E-mail Keith Dunlap at keith.dunlap@oakpress.com.

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