by Lexi Matthews ‘18

With their season opener quickly approaching, both familiar faces and rising stars of boys’ basketball have spent the past month doing what they’ve always done before game day: running drills and practicing hard. However, a noticeable absence could be felt on the court in the midst of all the familiarity; former star guard/forward Kamari Williams started his junior year at St. Andrews in Potomac this fall.

Williams, who declined to be interviewed, serves as an example of a growing trend among talented, often disgruntled players. Due to lack of wins, funding, or competitiveness in their public schools, waves of stars find themselves transferring to private schools each year in search of something better. The numbers show that their searches usually aren’t in vain; Of the 25 high school seniors on ESPN’s 2017 Basketball Recruiting Database, 17 attend a private school. More prospectively, 13 of the 2016 NBA All-Stars had their starts in charters or academies, and all but three of the NCAA-champion Villanova Wildcats spent their high school days in schools with ‘Saint’ or ‘Prep’ in their titles. “The NCAA doesn’t track the school classification of incoming athletes, but anecdotal evidence suggests the growing influence of private education on superior athletes,” said an NCAA spokesman in an interview with ESPN.

Coach Tim Gilchrist refuses to let these trends bring the team’s spirit down. “We have a real solid core of returning players and are poised to make a deep run in the playoffs. This year’s team has been together for 4 years and has grown into a great unit that will stifle opposing offenses and move the ball with ease. The sky is the limit this year,” said Gilchrist.

Nevertheless, the influence of a private school on a player’s ability to score big both on and off the court is hard to miss. Private institutions can receive donations from any contributor and put any portion of it towards any program they want. Private schools also tend to have many more wealthy, philanthropic alumni than their public counterparts. Public schools, which often lack the interest and flexibility in funding, thus fall short of these academies, as they are unable to afford the cutting-edge equipment and training that private institutions can offer. More than that, public school players tend to worry about their own visibility while on their respected teams; a private school game is three times more likely to attract college scouts than a public school one.

Although both local and national sports publications have voiced their disapproval in the lack of fairness of this monetarily-slanted trend, little has been done to prevent it. While transfers among MCPS schools require a Change of School Assignment form to be approved as well as a year long athletic suspension, private schools almost always have much more flexible recruiting rules, or even none at all.

Despite these downfalls, Sherwood still has high hopes for its upcoming season. “[Losing Kamari] hurts, but we’re gonna keep moving forward,” said junior shooting guard Davis Long.