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Local prep school under scrutiny

Westwind Prep Academy has been decent in basketball over the years but they are making drastic changes to their basketball program, changes that have local High School basketball coaches up at arms.

Arizona Wildcats

Westwind is creating a “national” team that will play Junior Colleges and other Prep academies.

Taking queue from Nevada’s Findlay Prep Academy, the Westwind national team can recruit and play for a national championship, but not an Arizona State Championship.

Westwind plans on creating this team by poaching athletes from other schools. However, that is where they differ from Findlay Prep. Findlay does not recruit ANY players from the state of Nevada. As Findlay coach Michael Peck says, “We don’t want to create enemies in our own back yard.”

Unfortunately, Westwind does not share the same philosophy. They have already had several players from the state of Arizona, and specifically from those in the Greater Phoenix Area, leave their schools and coaches high and dry to play at Westwind. Two players from Desert Vista, John Marshall and Connor MacDougall, as well as Tate and Kye De Laveaga, who left Phoenix Horizon to go play for their father Jeff who is the coach at Westwind.

The controversy doesn’t stop here, though.

Westwind will still have a varsity team that can and will compete for AIA Arizona State titles. Westwind states that its national and varsity teams will be completely separate, but there is no doubt that the varsity team will serve as a feeder club to the national team.

Kids will start transferring from other local schools to the Westwind varsity team in hopes to get promoted to the national team. So with this going on how CAN”T the national team be used as a recruiting device for the school’s own varsity team?

Right now the AIA can do nothing in the way of compliance or regulation. That is until the Westwind varsity team benefits from the national team, which shouldn’t take long at all.

It is yet another black eye on youth and amateur sports, except now the black eye is closer to home for those residing in the state of Arizona.

    • This is a huge story, Canyon. Nice work. The fallout from this could be crazy. As you opined, the fact that Westwind is "recruiting" the Phoenix area schools is utterly ridiculous. Hey, I'm all for giving athletes the opportunity to gain national exposure and attend an excellent institution, but not at the expense of the high schools throughout the Greater Phoenix Area.

      Sadly, when I grew up playing basketball in Los Angeles, there was a bona fide rivalry (on and off the court) between the private schools and the city schools. The occasional games between private and city schools were epic. My high school played Artesia with the O'Bannon brothers in a playoff game and they were turning fans away at the door. However, the private schools have won the war and now every stud city high school player is ending up at a private school by their junior or senior season. Everyone knows of Mater Dei and it's ability to recruit nationally (Michael Cage's son will be attending MD this year and Mike Brown the Lakers coach enrolled his son at MD when Brown became head coach for L.A.). The big move last year in Los Angeles was the Hamilton Brothers (Isaac and Daniel) leaving Crenshaw HS (city) for St. John Bosco (private), turning St. John Bosco into an immediate CIF state title candidate this season.

      Westwind Prep has an opportunity to officially put the sword in an already mediocre Phoenix HS basketball scene...ouch.

      This post was edited by Gary Randazzo on 7/9/2012 at 8:47 PM

      Gary Randazzo

    • A national trend, Gary, and sad to see. It's like sending your son to a mini-NBA training facility before he goes to one year of college- so he gets to the pros faster.....gag

      RBob1

    • The only positive as it relates to college basketball is schools are getting athletes better acclimated to demanding travel schedules. However, for every gem that "gets it" you get a Josiah Turner type that didn't grow up after a year at Prep School. To be fair to JT, though, he was only at the prep school for about 6 months while someone like Nick Johnson (who carries himself very professionally) was at Findlay Prep, playing for an excellent coach, for multiple seasons.

      Gary Randazzo

    • Have you guys ever heard of Amphi Football or Salpointe Basketball. They raped just about every Tucson high school for talent every year back when I was in school.

      In the fall of 1982, Sabino upset #1 Amphi 6-0, one of the best FB games I have ever seen. We had an all state linebacker who had transferred to Amphi his senior year and our guys keyed on his number all week in practice.

      wineknow

    • I run a week long basketball camp and Sean Miller runs a week long camp the same time. Who do you think parents are going to want to send their kids to? Probably the camp they believe will have the best chance of improving their child's skills and chances of achieving future success right? Why would we expect any different of a parent in regards to their school choice?

      dbertw

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