Feeling on post-high-school academies?

[Lehigh Football Nation]

More and more I am seeing players from post-graduate institutions on FCS and FBS rosters. Currently in football institutions like Fork Union, Hargreave Military, and Valley Forge Academies are more "under the radar", while recently in basketball they have come under much more scrutiny (for example, the New York Times had a piece on a Philadelphia school which is a basketball powerhouse but is suspected to be a diploma mill).

I have a lot of questions. First of all, your feelings: do you feel they serve a good purpose, are they merely acceptable, or are they bad for everybody? Second, have there been any pieces in your local press about any of these football academies?

[appfan2008]

I dont have much of a problem with them...

[andy7171]

Maryland wanted me to go to Fork Union to get my grades up and to play against bigger competition. I didn't want anything to do with another year of HS or a boarding school.

I think its a good place for players who don't have acceptable grades to get into college. I'm not sure how it effects elligiblity in college. I don't really ahve problem with them. I do consider them athletic scholarship factories though.

[Slammer50111]

I don't have a problem with them if the student needs to get their grades up for college. But I do believe that it should be treated like a red shirt year for college. Are they that much different the Juco's.

[Lehigh Football Nation]

The knock on the equivalent type of schools in the basketball world is that it took kids that were failing out of school and then miraculously they had good enough grades to get into college. The NY Times broke this story (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/30/sports/ncaabasketball/30georgetown.html?_r=1&oref=slogin) about former Georgetown (and current Delaware) player Marc Egerston who went to Luthern Christian academy. The Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/11/AR2006021101733.html) also did an article about them as well:


The school does not have its own building or formal classrooms, and it operates out of a community center in a ragged North Philadelphia neighborhood. It has just one full-time employee: the basketball coach, a former sanitation worker who founded the school. One former student, who attended the school for three months, said it did not use traditional textbooks and that the coach, Darryl Schofield, was the only teacher.

Yet Lutheran Christian graduates remain a hot commodity for college recruiters.

"Prep schools are the biggest problem in our sport today, and Lutheran Christian Academy is one of the worst," said one college head coach, who has visited the school. Said an assistant coach, who recruits from schools in the Philadelphia area: "We don't recruit players from Lutheran. Lutheran's players aren't prepared academically to attend college, and we don't need those headaches."

I'm not saying the academies I mentioned are necessarily like Lutheran Christian in basketball. But certainly articles like this raise the question as well about football academies.

[DTSpider]

Another point of view. They also have a good number of kids from really small towns who couldn't get exposure to colleges. The kids go to a prep school where the college recruiters will be able to see them. This seems like a pretty darn good reason to me.

Bottom line, if the kid has to go to a prep school for academics the colleges should just apply their own self-restraint if necessary. Every school has it's own acadmic requirements. If a kid needs an extra year, but meets your requirements why should that be punished?

[Go...gate]

This discussion could use a little clarification, as some kids take a "Post-Graduate" year at a prep school, which involves a rigorous academic curriculum. For Example, the Mid-Atlantic Prep League (Peddie School, Lawrenceville School, Hun School, Mercersburg School, Hill School and Blair Academy) allow, by conference rule, a maximum of three such Post-Grads (spread across all their athletic team rosters) in a single school year. A lot of these kids really profit from this year to attain admission at a high-level school. Joachim Noah (Florida's great BB player) was a post-grad at Lawrenceville. Myron Rolle (Sophmore DB and pre-med student at Florida State) did a post-grad year at Hun and Noah Savage of Hun has been a fine BB player at Princeton.

[Seawolf97]

I know Stonybrook has 1 freshman now who went to the Bridgeton Academy last year. He is a quarteback from Michigan, also had 2 basketball players this past season both from the HUN Academy.
I agree that some good players may not get in the spotlight if they come from a small high school with poor media coverage. Stonybrook is tough on grades to get in and stay in -so if they come from a diploma mill they will wash out.

[AmsterBison]

Wait until BCS schools start their own academies or prep schools, then I"ll have a problem with it.

[dbackjon]

Don't have a problem with legit prep schools. The shell schools, that basicly are sports schools, I have a problem with.

[DFW HOYA]

The service academies have long maintained relationships with prep schools to prepare recruits for the competitive nature of college athletics.

When Roger Staubach was a QB in Cincinnati, Navy sent him to New Mexico Military Institute before going to Annapolis, so prep schools are not always a home for the underachiever. And since the diploma mills in basketball generally don't play football, it's unlikely that this kind of abuse would surface.

Of greater concern to the NCAA should be home schooling of at-risk prospects, thus taking them out of the school supervision game entirely.

[ngineer]

I believe they do serve a purpose where you have a 'young' high school senior. Some of these kids are only 17 and the extra year to mature, both physically and emotionally can be good. At the same time, consideration for the year as a redshirt is worth looking at.

[LeopardFan04]

This discussion could use a little clarification, as some kids take a "Post-Graduate" year at a prep school, which involves a rigorous academic curriculum. For Example, the Mid-Atlantic Prep League (Peddie School, Lawrenceville School, Hun School, Mercersburg School, Hill School and Blair Academy) allow, by conference rule, a maximum of three such Post-Grads (spread across all their athletic team rosters) in a single school year. A lot of these kids really profit from this year to attain admission at a high-level school. Joachim Noah (Florida's great BB player) was a post-grad at Lawrenceville. Myron Rolle (Sophmore DB and pre-med student at Florida State) did a post-grad year at Hun and Noah Savage of Hun has been a fine BB player at Princeton.


Good point. I went to Hill and we had post-grads (some were there for academics, most for sports). Wasn't aware of the limit of 3...all I know is we didn't have any Rolles or Noahs...xbawlingx

[LeopardFan04]

I would vote "It depends" as there are certainly legit schools that aren't "diploma mills" but some of these places you hear about are ridiculous...

[Ivytalk]

Close 'em down.

[Fresno St. Alum]

I would rather not have them, but they're here.

[Husky Alum]

I'm from Milford, CT - former home of Milford Academy.

In the 50s, 60s, and early 70s, Milford was a pretty good prep school - that played sports against schools like Cheshire, Hopkins, Taft, Kent (snooty CT finishing schools). My dad was actually the SID at Milford for a while when it was "legit".

When the boomers matriculated and the students didn't flow into the Academy as they used to, the school changed its focus to be more of a finishing school for football players.

The school ultimately fell to the depthy of something that probably wasn't even a diploma factory. The academics at the school were miserable, and the students didn't even play a full year. They'd go to school in the fall, play a full schedule against Patriot and Ivy League Freshmen/JV teams, the Military Preps, and even (back when they had them) Penn State's JV team and Maryland's JV team.

The kids would take their SAT's in the fall and once they qualified, they'd never show up at Milford again.

Milford even had PG programs for hoops (former NBA player Yinka Dare played there), baseball, and hockey.

Long and the short of it - places like Milford wouldn't even qualify as a diploma mill, and I don't really see a need for them.

[colgate13]

Great insight into Milford. Those places are dispicable. The PGs at Lawrenceville, Andover, etc - a different story. They're rented athletes for sure, but they are getting a good jump on college in terms of academic prep. Andover is no diploma mill!

[appfan2008]

I wish it didnt happen... either accept the kids or dont... IMO

[Go...gate]

Good point. I went to Hill and we had post-grads (some were there for academics, most for sports). Wasn't aware of the limit of 3...all I know is we didn't have any Rolles or Noahs...xbawlingx

The Mid-Atlantic Prep Conference had no limit on PG's until about 2004, which created some wide disparity at times - Peddie, for example, might have 10-15 PG athletes and Blair also had quite a few, though, by conference edict, they were legitimate students. Hun, which has had the PG program since early in the last century, usually had about 3 -6 athletes per year, and another 10 - 15 or so who were gifted in music, arts, sciences, etc. The cut-down in athletes has generally been applauded by the MAPL schools.

[GannonFan]

If the school is legit (kids go to classes, take their own tests, etc) then I have no problem with it. Some kids are ready for college right out of high school, some, for whatever reasons (family, environment, poor schools, etc) just aren't ready at that point. If a year at a legit prep school gets them ready to be successful in college then of course I don't have a problem with it. As long as they are legit, we should be looking for ways to save kids and lift them up from whatever it is that is keeping them back - to not do so would be elitist at a minimum.

[Mr. C]

Some of these places like Fork Union and Hargrave (note the correct spelling, unless you are talking about another school other than the one in Virginia) are legitimate prep schools, who provide a solid educational experience, along with athletics. I have worked with some of these people in the past and they provide a great service for certain kids. Now in the realm of basketball, in particular, there have been some fly-by-night schools that have popped up where there is little or NO education going on at all. The NCAA has finally started scrutinzing these people a lot more closely in an attempt to root out the abuse. The NCAA is requiring documentation of certain things to prove that these type of schools are legitimate.

Another type of school is Oak Hill Academy, the basketball powerhouse that is located about 45 minutes from Boone, just across the border in Virginia. This is a private four-year school (no fifth-year kids here). I have been on this campus and have talked to their people about the educational services they provide. I also know how many young men and women they have helped move on to better things in life. The folks at this school and many other four-year prep schools I have dealt with over the years are indeed first-class.

[appfan2008]

If it is done right as these guys have said it can be very useful and very helpful in a young mans life