IT doesn't happen very often, but it is happening right now. High school recruiting
goes on here, tooA high school athletic program is being aggressively investigated for recruiting.
A state basketball championship and a total of 84 victories in that sport, soccer and baseball could be forfeited.
Yes, folks, there is a state athletic association with enough guts and energy to go after such a program.
An association willing to face down violators engaged in that most elusive practice of student-athlete manipulation -- recruiting.
But relax, local coaches and athletic directors. This investigation isn't taking place in Hawaii.
(Collective sigh of relief.)
Though it could be.
Remember Miami Senior High School, the nationally ranked basketball powerhouse whose participation in the 1997 Iolani Classic was marred by an ugly brawl with Kamehameha after a game?
The Florida High School Activities Association has Miami Senior on the ropes after a probe in May that uncovered all kinds of chicanery.
Miami Senior finished second in the National Prep Poll and fourth in USA Today.
THE probe was prompted by a series of articles by an enterprising reporter named Robert Andrew Powell, who works for the New Times of Miami.
The probe found that five Miami basketball players accepted housing from a booster, a coach or a school official, in violation of FHSAA recruiting policy.
A baseball coach enrolled two players from Mexico, and an over-age player was used in soccer.
I have looked through Powell's stories and some of the FHSAA reports, and I can tell you one thing for sure. What Miami Senior did isn't much different from what I've seen done here for years.
Can you think of a booster or a coach or a school official in Hawaii who has taken in a standout athlete to help a school program?
Can you think of anyone -- I mean anyone -- associated with a traditionally strong athletic program who has exerted influence to bring a talented youngster into his program?
You bet you can.
It happens in public and private schools in Hawaii.
Of course, no one goes to jail for prep recruiting. No one lives his or her life in shame if exposed for it.
And no one in Hawaii ever gets caught for it. There's an unmistakable arrogance about the way it's done here.
There's no one with the audacity of FHSAA commissioner Ron Davis, who is spending his summer months trying to ride down the Miami Senior bronco.
WHEN it comes to private schools, the arrogance in recruiting seems beyond reproach.
How many times have I heard that an impoverished young athlete's life was immeasurably enriched after given the chance to attend a certain parochial secondary institution?
Hard to argue with that, isn't it?
The kids are not the perpetrators here. They are the fortunate victims.
What really stinks is the way they are hunted down like prey by "friends" of a powerful program and enticed to leave their neighborhoods to satisfy the greed of an alumni association.
Sadly, there are adults behind prep powerhouses here, in Miami and in many other parts of the country who are trying to turn educational programs into franchises.
Pat Bigold has covered sports for daily newspapers
in Hawaii and Massachusetts since 1978.