10-year-old basketball star

Hahaha I was about to post him on here. My excuse is that I'm an Indiana girl (well sorta), not old though.

 

Can't forget Felipe...

 

This has been going on for a while, surprised there aren't stories on the
next great 6-year-old.

http://www.depaulbluedemons.com/player.asp?CatID=2&ID=295

 

i too refuse to read the story, on general principle, though it very well could be terrific. but i detest the subject matter -- glorifying a 10-year-old for his hoop prowess.

 

yup, parents like this really bother me. i am all for promoting your child and pushing them to be the best they can..but damn, don't slut the kid out at 10. at least it seems like the kid could care less about it all, and just likes playing (or so it seemed from the first part, I didn't read the rest). this dad needs to calm down. and on the height thing, did he not say if the kid doesn't grow over 6 feet, then forget it and he'll find some other way to make money off his son and live vicariously (sp?) through him?

 

I don't think that's the point of the story at all.

 

You know, I'd be willing to bet that there's some 10-year-old out there somewhere who hasn't even touched a basketball yet who will end up being a much better player than this kid.

 

A pretty safe bet.

 

First of all, I don't know why so many people seem to think the kid has to hit six feet or he'll never play pro basketball. What's Nate Robinson, five-eight? Spud Webb is five-six. Both are NBA slam-dunk champions. Matter of fact, Robinson used Spud for a prop when he won the contest this year. And let's not forget little Muggsy Bogues, who's five-three.

When I saw the thread title the first thing I thought of was another little phenom who also got his first major press at age 10. The year was 1971, the paper was the now-defunct Toronto Telegram and the athlete's name was Wayne Gretzky.

http://www.canoe.ca/Gretzky/gretzfirst.html

To his credit, though, this kid's dad wasn't counting on his kid to wind up paying for his retirement:

"To be very honest, I don't like to see him out on the ice all the time," said Wayne's father Walter, who is coach of the Niagara District League Junior B entry.
"I'll leave the coaching up to Bob Hockin. Wayne has always been a good skater, although he's never had the size. As long as he likes the sport, I won't complain."

The article closes with a most prescient ending, even if the writer himself never followed up on the brainstorm:

As the players congratulated each other before heading for the dressing room, Darren Thompson, an eight-year-old spectator, asked if your correspondent was a newspaper reporter.
"Yes," came the reply.
"Oh, are you going to write a book on Wayne Gretzky, he's good you know." No Darren, not yet, but maybe someday, soon.


John Iaboni never did write a book about Gretzky but needless to say a lot of other people did. As for the Toronto Telegram, it folded two days after this article was printed -- perhaps the last big feature it ever produced.

 

Damn, that's pretty cool.

 

he doesn't have to hit 6-feet to play pro b-ball, but the number of sub-6-feet players is well substantiated. and they are novelty items, pretty much. not superstars, by any stretch. and i thought the point  of the piece was ballyhooing this 10-year-old as the next big thing, no pun intended. all i'm saying is that this kid, at 10, is a novelty item. by the time he's 18, if he's not 6-feet or more, he'll be just another college player no one has pegged as the new lebron.

again, as the father of three boys, the whole story/video creeps me out.

 

I know this story is very old but it is so disturbing, I just think it needed to be bumped up. It reminds me of the way LeBron James was celebrated and courted.