Date: Fri 03-Jan-1997

Publication: Bee

Author: KIMH

Quick Words:

Scout-Kim-Column

Full Text:

What It's Like To Feel Like A Scout - Column/Kim Harmon

I'm not exactly sure when the transformation happened, but there was a point

somewhere over the course of the last few years when I started doing something

other than taking photos and taking notes whenever I went to a youth

basketball, youth soccer, Little League or middle school basketball game.

I started watching.

I started seeing.

I started . . . anticipating.

A lot of times, as I watch through the lens of my camera or as I write into my

notepad, I have found myself analyzing these events less as they immediately

relate to a story and more as they might relate to a future that I could only

guess at.

. . . hmmmm, this kid has a good swing. Strong arm. Pretty good range out

there at shortstop. What is he - 12? Two more years. Just two more years.

Newtown High could use him . . .

. . . boy, look at the way she posts up. And that move to the basket! Man, she

has got the size and the strength and the touch to be big time. Next year -

yeah, next year she is going to be the next high school star . . .

. . . good moves, good feet - God, look at the way he blows by those other

kids. The speed! Strong foot, too, can go left or right. Another Johnny Ball?

Maybe not - but who knows? . . .

My job is to report the action, to boil it all down into a story that relates

whatever drama there was to the people who either weren't there or wish to

relish it all over again, but after years of covering the high school teams

and becoming so intermingled with the programs, more and more I find myself

becoming an ersatz scout, studying the younger athletes and evaluating them

and somehow trying to predict what their high school careers might have in

store for them.

It seems like I am always on the lookout for a potential star, someone I can

look forward to. Is there another future 1,000-point scorer on the girls'

basketball team at Newtown Middle School? Is there another future dynamite

pitcher on the 12-year-old Little League All-Star team? Can that soccer player

on the U-whatever team be the next Johnny Ball or Melanie Huss?

There is not one youth basketball, middle school basketball, youth soccer,

youth softball, or Little League game I have been to where I haven't

evaluated, at least in my own way, some kid who looked like he or she might

just be something in high school.

It makes all this more fun that it was to start with.

When I see the Newtown Middle School girls' basketball team take the floor all

I see are five girls who, in three years, could be the starting five for a

very, very strong high school team. Sure, I don't know how to evaluate

basketball talent better than, say, Gregg Simon, the coach of the Newtown High

School girls' basketball team (not even close), but when I see some of the

players and their moves and abilities it's awfully hard to not see the

obvious.

There are parents and there are fans who do the same, I think, judging from

the discussions I have from time to time with different people. I once talked

to a person - not the parent - who said this one particular soccer player was

going to be a high school phenom and, well, that never happened.

See, while all of this lends a little more excitement to things, there is also

the danger that some players might get saddled with unreasonably high

expectations and if we believe that kids don't know what everyone is saying

about them, then we are fooling ourselves.

They know.

And sometimes those expectations hurt them later on.

It's fun, but whatever I might think about some young player, I will generally

keep it to myself. I'm usually careful. I can't predict the future . . . no

one can - except maybe those psychics on the 1-900 lines. I have been right a

couple times and wrong a couple times.

Hey, no scout gets it right all the time.

But rest assured I will be out there looking and studying and evaluating -

looking for the next Steve Kordish or Randy Gunther, the next Lynn Lattanzio

or Kasey Keating.

The next . . . whomever.