Why prep athletes need a Hall of Fame - or don't

Officials behind a new High School Sports Hall of Fame and Museum say that being a great athlete - as in one who goes on to super stardom in the Olympics or pro ranks - isn't the only credential needed for induction. Apparently, it doesn't hurt either. Past inductees include NBA stars LeBron James and Dwight Howard, American League batting champ Joe Mauer, and Olympic gold medal swimmer Allyson Felix.

I wish I could be unreservedly enthusiastic about this idea. No doubt it will be a big draw for Easton, Pennsylvania, a good and under-rated place. The city already has the Crayola Factory (300,000 visitors last year). Imagine the influx of kids to tour a $20 million palace dedicated to kids like them who made it big playing sports?

On the other hand, it will be a $20 million palace. According to the AP, "The 20,000-square-foot complex is still being planned but will likely include exhibit space for memorabilia, a holographic theater, a testing and training center for current athletes, an education center for coaches seeking certification, and a "Hall of Achievement" featuring standout prep athletes who went on to attain career success." And a 350-space parking garage.

All celebrating high school athletes.

If you're less a grinch than me (a distinct possibility) and want to help make this happen, there's still time. A $150 donation buys a paving brick with your name on it.

Agassi, LeBron on what's wrong with youth sports

As noted here before, I'm compiling a list of pro athletes who speak out about adults messing up sports for kids. Today, two new, high-profile additions, LeBron James and Andre Agassi.

I just finished Shooting Stars, James's recent book chronicling his early basketball life, with an emphasis on bonds forged with his rec league and later high school teammates. Not your typical "How I Overcame Impossible Odds" story. A good read.

James makes the list for opposing the national schedules played by the top high school basketball teams, including his, St. Vincent's, in Akron, Ohio. The last half of the book is filled with stories about this small Catholic school sending its basketball team on the road for games at Pauley Pavilion (Los Angeles), the Palestra (Philadelphia), Trenton, NJ, on and on. (In LA, James writes, scalpers were getting $250 for a ticket - to a prep game). It's what you do if the goal is achieving USA Today's No. 1 high school ranking, as St. V's was.

LeBron writes: "Was it insane for a high school basketball team to jet around the country? At the time, I thought it was exciting, going places I never ever thought I would get to see in my life when I was a scared, lonely young boy. Now I believe it was excessive. I believe it was too much, for us and every other high school around the country that followed a schedule similar to ours....I can virtually guarantee that when we traveled, there were plenty of promoters who enjoyed a nice payday on us as high school kids, knowing that our presence would fill arenas."

Agassi's new book, Open, is getting attention for admissions about his drug use. Descriptions of what his dad did to raise a tennis champ were as disturbing to me. Actually, more.

This is an excerpt printed in Sports Illustrated:

"I'm seven years old, talking to myself, because I'm scared, and because I'm the only person who listens to me. Under my breath I whisper: Just quit, Andre, just give up. Put down your racket and walk off this court, right now. Wouldn't that feel like heaven, Andre? To just quit? To never play tennis again?

"But I can't. Not only would my father, Mike, chase me around the house with my racket, but something in my gut, some deep unseen muscle, won't let me. I hate tennis, hate it with all my heart, and still I keep playing, keep hitting all morning, and all afternoon, because I have no choice. No matter how much I want to stop, I don't. I keep begging myself to stop, and still I keep playing, and this gap, this contradiction between what I want to do and what I actually do, feels like the core of my life."

Other than shame, what does a parent feel reading that?

On my reading list, LeBron's "Shooting Stars"

It's a stretch to recommend a book that you haven't read, but what the heck. I'm giving a nod to Shooting Stars, the new LeBron James memoir. I like that the book's focus is James's formative years in Akron, Ohio, and bonds forged with teammates on and off the court. That interests me a lot more than the more predictable superstar pap about life in the fishbowl of the NBA.

Full disclosure: James' co-author Buzz Bissinger, was a college classmate and a fellow editor of mine at the Daily Pennsylvanian back in, uh, well, during the Pleistocene Period. Buzz, author of the classic Friday Night Lights, also generously blurbed my book. He may be two feet shorter than James but this is a rare case in which the athlete and his collaborator are of equal stature.

For educational inspiration, LeBron or Shaq?

No disrespect intended, but it seems odd to choose LeBron James as co-host of a TV special celebrating the importance in kids' lives of education. James is fabulously rich and maybe the best basketball player of all-time. He also skipped college. Perhaps a sports icon with Intro to Econ under his belt might carry the message with more authority.

The show itself - "Get Schooled" -sounds like a terrific idea. James and singer Kelly Clarkson will be the hosts. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is an underwriter. During the 30-minute show, the stars will speak about the role education has played in their lives.

James says: "I know first hand how important it is for young people to have role models who can inspire them about the importance of education and help them make good choices that will provide them with the tools to succeed."

No doubt, James has tremendous cred with kids. And for many of those watching, a high school degree is an accomplishment to take great pride in. (Just half the U.S. population has graduated from high school).

But for educational inspiration, I choose Shaquille O'Neal. Shaq left Louisiana State after his junior year to play in the NBA. He vowed to come back to school and complete his degree. Eight years after starting at LSU, he did.

The LeBron and Kelly show airs September 8 simultaneously on MTV, Nickelodeon, BET and 18 other youth-oriented channels.

Bryce Harper and other can't-miss teen athletes

Raise your hand if you'd heard of Bryce Harper three weeks ago. I hadn't. Then came the Sports Illustrated cover. Then, Sunday, Harper's dad held a news conference to announce that his son, a high school baseball prodigy, maybe THE prodigy of the past 30 years, had opted to drop out of school after his sophomore year (at 16), take the GED, enroll at a community college - all part of an accelerated plan to qualify by 2010 for the Major League Baseball amateur draft.

Ron Harper must have been feeling a bit embattled because he was quoted saying this: "People question your parenting and what you're doing. Honestly, we don't think it's that big a deal. He's not leaving school to go work in a fast food restaurant. Bryce is a good kid. He's smart and he's going to get his education."

Who can say whether this will work out for Bryce. There are LeBrons and Tigers out there who make a strong case that some kids are going to be superstars sooner or later, so why not sooner? Yet when I hear about can't-miss teens, I can't help thinking about the ones who do miss. There are a lot more of those than there are LeBrons and Tigers.

Eight years ago, I wrote an article for BusinessWeek about a golfing phenom, Ty Tryon. Tryon was 17 when he dropped out of high school, signed rich sponsorship deals with Callaway Golf and Target, and headed off for the PGA Tour. It wouldn't have been fair for Ty's parents to hold back their gifted son. He had that much talent. His prospects were so bright. Or so the story went.

Ty is still trying to qualify for the PGA Tour.