Deion Sanders fired ... by the charter school he founded & named after himself

[Steak Snabler]

Apparently, it's the second time it's happened in less than two months. He was also fired --- and quickly re-hired --- in October after being accused of assault.

http://www.thepostgame.com/blog/dish/201312/deion-sanders-fired-his-own-school-again

The school, Prime Prep in Dallas, is also under fire from the state due to shady accounting and charges of academic fraud.

Personally, I'm glad to see these sham schools go down. The AAU-ization of high school sports has become a tawdry business.

What's amazing to me --- or maybe it's not --- is that none of this seems to bleed over into his NFL Network persona. Watch him on TV, and he's still cast as good old Christian, principled Deion, mentor to wayward young men everywhere.

 

[Starman]

Almost every single ******* charter school that participates in high school sports in our area is in some kind of legal/administrative trouble.

Transfer and eligibility screwups, continual 'confusion' over recruiting rules, financial fiascos, coaches mysteriously disappearing in the middle of seasons (and new ones appearing just as suddenly), schools changing names several times over the course of 3-4 years, etc etc.

And no administrative or coaching personnel EVER answer their phones. Never, ever, ever, ever. Not for us, not for newsside. Mail addresses always a P. O. box.

AT BEST they return a phone message within the same calendar day. Far more frequently, it's several days -- or never.

Newsside has sent reporters over in the daytime to knock on the school doors and try to catch a real human being inside. A voice on the intercom says they have to make appointments at least 2 days in advance to speak to specific personnel.

 

[Boom_70]

http://troll.me/images/facepalm-picard/not-this-****-again.jpg

 

[HanSenSE]

I keep picturing Tim McCarver in wait outside the school grounds, water bucket in hand.

 

[Starman]

For what it's worth, the newsside people report that parents wishing to contact the charter schools to discuss academic matters run into pretty much the same runaround (usually a 2-3 day process to get an answer to a single email).

Fairly often, if you send an email with more than one question, they answer (usually very briefly) the first question and act like they didn't see the others.

 

[Inky_Wretch]

Personally, I'm glad to see these sham schools go down. The AAU-ization of high school sports has become a tawdry business.

Isn't there some basketball team in high in the national rankings that doesn't actually have a high school at all? I think it's a collection of home-schooled kids who all just happen to be major Division-I prospects.

 

[Starman]

Personally, I'm glad to see these sham schools go down. The AAU-ization of high school sports has become a tawdry business.

Isn't there some basketball team in high in the national rankings that doesn't actually have a high school at all? I think it's a collection of home-schooled kids who all just happen to be major Division-I prospects.

"Findlay Prep."

Instead of "building a school the basketball team can be proud of," they just said, "**** the school, we're going on ESPN!!"

 

[SFIND]

Personally, I'm glad to see these sham schools go down. The AAU-ization of high school sports has become a tawdry business.

Isn't there some basketball team in high in the national rankings that doesn't actually have a high school at all? I think it's a collection of home-schooled kids who all just happen to be major Division-I prospects.

That would be Findlay Prep, who I've covered in a local tournament before. The players live together and go to some other school.

 

[Starman]

From what I read in a couple articles last week, they live together in a palatial group home like UK's "Wildcat Lodge."

Whatever arrangements they make for "school," I am sure, are up to their "tutors." Har de har har.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

At least these schools don't have to worry about lazy teachers mailing it in. The schools are doing it for them.

 

[YankeeFan]

That would be Findlay Prep, who I've covered in a local tournament before. The players live together and go to some other school.

Poor kids. Sounds like some kind of orphanage.

 

[Stoney]

That would be Findlay Prep, who I've covered in a local tournament before. The players live together and go to some other school.

Poor kids. Sounds like some kind of orphanage.

Hardly. The team is sponsored by some obscenely rich dude out in Vegas who makes sure they live quite well, and has hot prospects all over the country begging for a spot.

Findlay Prep is technically a "school", but without an actual building, a total enrollment of only about 12, each one of whom is a highly ranked basketball prospect, that spends the year flying around the country to basketball events, with the "students" somehow getting their academic requirements taken care of along the way.

 

[outofplace]

That would be Findlay Prep, who I've covered in a local tournament before. The players live together and go to some other school.

Poor kids. Sounds like some kind of orphanage.

Hardly. The team is sponsored by some obscenely rich dude out in Vegas who makes sure they live quite well, and has hot prospects all over the country begging for a spot.

Findlay Prep is technically a "school", but without an actual building, a total enrollment of only about 12, each one of whom is a highly ranked basketball prospect, that spends the year flying around the country to basketball events, with the "students" somehow getting their academic requirements taken care of along the way.

Stoney, he was making a reference to the education reform thread.

 

[Starman]

I can't believe that any legitimate high school team (which actually makes an attempt, however cursory it may be, to have the students enrolled in and attending class on a regular basis), would ever agree or submit to playing Findlay Prep (or any of the couple dozen or so organizations like it).

It is pretty much the same thing as an Ivy League NCAA team challenging the Miami Heat.

Legitmate high schools, particularly public schools, still attempting to play something like traditional high school basketball, need to take the bull by the balls and start enforcing an ironclad embargo of programs like Findlay. Don't play 'em.

For the moment we won't mention Findlay's habit of running up 60, 70, 80-point plus victory margins, other than to say that anyone who plays them should know ******* well what they're getting into, and thus has no ***** coming when it happens -- but it certainly makes them no less moronic for signing up for it.

You're perfectly free to run your program however you want, but find your punching bags somewhere else.

 

[Stoney]

I can't believe that any legitimate high school team (which actually makes an attempt, however cursory it may be, to have the students enrolled in and attending class on a regular basis), would ever agree or submit to playing Findlay Prep (or any of the couple dozen or so organizations like it).

It is pretty much the same thing as an Ivy League NCAA team challenging the Miami Heat.

Legitmate high schools, particularly public schools, still attempting to play something like traditional high school basketball, need to take the bull by the balls and start enforcing an ironclad embargo of programs like Findlay. Don't play 'em.

For the moment we won't mention Findlay's habit of running up 60, 70, 80-point plus victory margins, other than to say that anyone who plays them should know ******* well what they're getting into, and thus has no ***** coming when it happens -- but it certainly makes them no less moronic for signing up for it.

You're perfectly free to run your program however you want, but find your punching bags somewhere else.

I don't know if that's much of an issue, because the teams that agree to play Findlay tend to be cut from similar cloth.

Findlay isn't part of the Nevada high school system, so rarely do they ever see traditional public school opponents. Instead, virtually their entire schedule are these special tournaments and out of state games around the country where they generally play other private basketball factory schools.

 

[Starman]

Yeah, I've seen their schedule, and it does look like they do play some of the Las Vegas-area public schools, although most of their 37 (!!) games are against similar basketball factories.

I just can't figure out why any public school would ever play 'em. Or even a private school, if it's making even a remote attempt to still play as a 'high school' team.

In terms of the RUTS issue, as always, I argue it's not the good team's problem to figure out how it won't kick the bad team's ass so bad as to be embarassing, but unlike situations where sometimes great teams and horrible teams have to play each other because of league scheduling or state tournaments, with these independent basketball factories, nobody has to play anybody, so if you schedule a game with Findlay Prep and they beat you by 50 or 80 or 100 or 150 points -- hey, you signed up for it.

 

[Riptide]

Newsweek (!) has Findlay Prep covered:

What is Findlay Prep, actually? It’s Real World: Las Vegas meets the most daunting AAU basketball team you ever saw. It is, fittingly in this desert oasis to end all desert oases, a mirage.

“I call it a ‘destination school,’ ” says ESPN college basketball analyst Seth Greenberg, a former college coach. “They’re taking kids from all over the country, all over the world, and providing them with outstanding and specialized instruction, while also preparing them academically for college. But should they be ranked as a regular high school? No.”

Findlay Prep is the progeny of its namesake, Cliff Findlay, a physically and figuratively larger-than-life character in Sin City. At six-foot-eight, Findlay stands out in a crowd, and even if he did not, billboards and signs around Las Vegas promoting one of his myriad car dealerships (Findlay Chevrolet, Findlay Honda, Findlay Kia, etc.) would guarantee that the 64-year-old’s name rings a bell. A former UNLV basketball player whose father flew 63 missions in P-38s in World War II (hence, Pilots), Findlay appears to have a genuine desire to finance his own basketball Brigadoon minus all the bother and blather of high school athletic federations or the NCAA.

Hence, Findlay Prep’s students, unlike foreign students who transfer in to traditional high schools, do not have to sit out one year before playing. Conversely (even though Findlay Prep is sponsored by Nike), Findlay Prep is ineligible to compete within the Nevada state high school system or to play for a state championship. Instead, this season the Pilots will fly missions to Los Angeles, where they will play in the Staples Center; Vancouver, British Columbia; Honolulu; Memphis, Tenn.; Dayton, Ohio; Springfield, Mass.; Lubbock, Texas; and Toronto.

http://www.newsweek.com/say-good-bye-hickory-high-207442

 

[heyabbott]

NBA players Anthony Bennett, Avery Bradley, Tristan Thompson, DeAndre Liggins and Cory Joesph played for Findlay Prep. How many other 'High Schools' have 5 alumni in the NBA?

Last year's team sent players to Indiana, UNLV, UCLA, Washington, Auburn and Mississippi St.

BTW, if its such a fraud how come Duke recruits from there?

 

[dreunc1542]

NBA players Anthony Bennett, Avery Bradley, Tristan Thompson, DeAndre Liggins and Cory Joesph played for Findlay Prep. How many other 'High Schools' have 5 alumni in the NBA?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oak_Hill_Academy_(Mouth_of_Wilson,_Virginia)#NBA_players

 

[heyabbott]

NBA players Anthony Bennett, Avery Bradley, Tristan Thompson, DeAndre Liggins and Cory Joesph played for Findlay Prep. How many other 'High Schools' have 5 alumni in the NBA?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oak_Hill_Academy_(Mouth_of_Wilson,_Virginia)#NBA_players

10% of Oak Hill's enrollment is on the varsity basketball team. Assuming a 50/50 male/female spilt, 20% of the males who attend Oak Hill are on the varsity basketball team.