If The Shoe Fits, There’s Big Money Shoe Companies Expand Their Domain To Include Prep Stars

Welcome to the late 1990s, where college entrance exams don’t matter as much as the shoes a high school basketball star wears.

At last month’s Las Vegas Holiday Prep Classic, sporting goods companies were the first to arrive. Sales reps, decked in shiny warm-up suits and the latest styles of athletic footwear, shaking hands and smiling, staked out corners of the gymnasium in search of the next teen phenom.

The salesmen weren’t supposed to speak to the youthful players, but they found ways. They bumped into high school stars in parking lots and hotel lobbies, armed with merchandise that wound up going home with the kids.

This is where the NBA dream comes to life - the shoe reps serving as three-dimensional proof that anything is possible for a tall high-schooler who can jump high and run fast.

“It’s alarming to me how these shoe companies have taken over,” said Bob Gibbons, who for 22 years has compiled newsletters on high school prospects for colleges. “They’ve made this a semipro event. Shoe companies pick and choose and they encourage kids to transfer to schools so they can sponsor an all-star team.”

The companies are clever. They outfit a team, dressing players with their brand. The hope is that if an athlete is talented enough to get drafted by the NBA, he’ll sign with the shoe company that has been so nice to him.

The list of preps who went pro and signed endorsement deals weeks after their senior prom includes Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett, Jermaine O’Neal and Tracy McGrady, who signed a $12 million deal with Reebok before he joined the Toronto Raptors.

McGrady gets paid twice as much for carrying the Reebok design as he does for defending Michael Jordan. If not for the Reebok deal, McGrady said he might have considered college.

Not long ago, the shoe industry limited its involvement to underwriting summer camps. Now, some athletic apparel companies encourage athletes to attend certain high schools, places where everyone from administrators to the coaching staff is pitching the same product. The companies help pay for travel, room and board.

“I used to work with Nike to put together summer camps, when this was a lot more pure,” Gibbons said. “When shoe companies started moving kids from state to state to sponsor, when values started to get lost, that’s when I got out. It hasn’t slowed down. Look at them here. They’re predators.”

Last weekend, they had their eyes on Corey Hightower. The shooting guard from Mt. Zion Christian Academy of Durham, N.C., is the latest prep phenom who, through summer and in-season tournaments sponsored by shoe companies, has been discovered, polished and maybe even corrupted by the star system.

He’s 6-foot-6 with poise beyond his years. He can shoot jumpers and play above the rim better than just about any schoolboy in the country. Thanks to those gifts, Hightower has plenty of options.

Excel now, in front of the college recruiters at the 52-team Las Vegas event, and he can win a scholarship at the school of his choice. Really blow the doors off the competition and he could be financially rewarded beyond his wildest hoop dreams - TV commercials, shoe deals, the NBA.

The blueprint is McGrady, Hightower’s teammate at Mt. Zion last season.

“This is the biggest week of my life,” Hightower said after hitting four 3-pointers, abusing defenders with crossover dribbles, throwing down dunks and blocking three shots in a romp.

“I need to make an impression here because this weekend is the beginning of the rest of my life. I could be a college guy with no money or an NBA guy with all kinds of money, all depending on how I do.”

A year ago, Hightower was a basketball nobody. A wrist injury relegated him to the bench. But his potential earned numerous invitations to national summer camps, where even more college and NBA scouts convene.

And as was the case with McGrady, these showcase events helped Hightower burst onto the national scene. Basketball magazine editors put Hightower on their cover. TV programs, including “Good Morning America,” have had Hightower and his team visit.

Hightower says he can handle the pressure cooker because his buddy McGrady survived it. Moreover, Hightower attends a school that gears its athletes toward the fast lane.

Referred to players as a “Christian boot camp,” Mt. Zion athletes rise at 4:30 a.m. to exercise and to attend Bible study. None of the students is allowed to wear earrings, have girlfriends or visit the mall. They live in the same house and play all of their games on the road with a $100,000 travel budget. What the budget doesn’t cover, Reebok does.

And Mt. Zion is Reebok head to toe. Players wear the type of warm-up suits NBA players do. None of the 12 players on the roster started their careers at Mt. Zion. They come from all over, some for a second chance, others to get their academic life in order. Just about all came to Mt. Zion after summer contacts with Reebok.

“If it wasn’t for Mt. Zion and the school’s connections, I’d be runnin’ the streets in Michigan, like I used to,” Hightower said. “This has given me a chance to have a future.”

Mixed in with the 60 or so college recruiters in Las Vegas were representatives from all the major shoe companies. The Nike guy was in one corner of the Durango High gym. The Adidas guy was leaning against the south wall, schmoozing with college recruiters who wore Adidas clothes. The Converse guy was in the north corner, observing teenage jump-shooters and rebounders.

And the Reebok man was jotting down notes on prospective clients.

Much like the college recruiters, the sporting goods reps are pinning their faith on youngsters, hoping they mature, hoping they can handle the celebrity.

“You don’t want to sign the next Latrell Sprewell,” said one shoe representative. “That’s a bad tag to have, so you come here to check character as much as potential.”

“We all admit that a lot of this is getting out of hand,” said Stu Heathcote, a Reebok representative on site to pursue more teams. “The NCAA may make moves on trying to slow some of this down, especially in the summer, where the real corruption takes place. It used to be where you watched teams walk into the gym and you look at their school colors. Now you look to see who they’re sponsored by.”

Hightower receives up to 30 pieces of mail every week from colleges. They all offer the company line of the merits of a good education and the joy of playing on national television and performing in sold-out arenas in the ACC.

Problem is, Hightower hasn’t really thought much about college. He admits his vision is blurred by the dollar signs that loom, and the phone calls he receives from his buddy McGrady, who tells him, “‘Look, if I can do it, you can do it.”’

“Yeah, I do think about the NBA,” Hightower said. “I think about how I used to hold my own against McGrady last year in practice and I see him scoring 17 points in an NBA game and I think, ‘I can do that.”’