How young is too young in athletic recruiting?

One of the more interesting stories to recently come out in the last few weeks is that of Michael Avery. This talented basketball player stands 6-foot-4 and hails from Lake Sherwood, California. He has been staying busy on the AAU circuit and that has allowed him to play in front of some big time coaches.

One coach who recently watched him was Billy Gillispie of Kentucky. After watching Avery play, Gillispie felt that he was extremely talented and offered him a scholarship. The scholarship was enough for Avery to quickly commit to the Wildcats. The reason why I am talking about this story is that Avery is currently in eighth grade.

So how young is too young during the recruiting process? Right now, Coach Gillispie and Kentucky has at least one commitment from players in the Class of 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012. Many feel that while Avery committed early, he will not end up in Lexington because you just never know what will happen in those four or five years.

The same kind of thing happened last summer, although the kid was at least a few months older. A soon to be freshman appeared at the USC basketball camp and ended up with a scholarship from head coach Tim Floyd and the Trojans. He quickly took them up on the offer and is still expected to be a part of the USC 2011 recruiting class.

The previous fall, Iowa State took a commitment from an in-state player. This athlete had not played a minute of varsity basketball and was still just a few months into his first year of high school. The Cyclones extended the offer extremely early and he accepted it. And despite having received letters from North Carolina and other big schools at the time, he was set on his decision.

One main worry about offering an athlete a scholarship that early in the recruiting process is that they still have four full years of high school. Things can quickly change. They may be the type of player who stands out because they are more athletically gifted than others in their age group. Just because they stand out early doesn’t mean things couldn’t change rapidly.

With the age barrier being pushed back further and further, how young is too young? Will someone step up and offer the next O.J. Mayo a full scholarship at the end of his seventh grade year? With the way things are looking, I can honestly say that I am not surprised by these early commitments. College coaches want to land the top players in the country, and if they have to do so by offering early on, then so be it.

The good thing about football is that I don’t think too many junior high football players will be getting scholarships. Because of the physical nature of football, it takes a player longer to develop and that means they are harder to evaluate early on. Some may get early scholarships but I wouldn’t expect them to come while they are in junior high.

The football example also shows why there are no football players leaving high school for the pros. The physical nature of the sport and maturity that your body goes through is something that takes time. And hopefully if there is some jacked 7th grader, he doesn’t get an offer from the football powerhouse in his state.