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In recent years, college sports teams bent on producing winning teams have scouted younger and younger athletes for would-be prospects they can sign. Yet whereas the practice has already been adapted by many in the United States, it is taking serious criticism after ethical complaints have been made that young players should not be pursued before high school.

A recent example of the phenomenon includes Aaron and Andrew Harrison, twins who play for the Houston Defenders, an American Athletic Union select basketball team. Both were pursued even before they stepped onto a high school campus by college basketball coaches. Their father, Defenders coach Aaron Harrison Sr., estimates that the two have had roughly 20 scholarship offers.

“Their seventh-grade year was when they first started getting a lot of attention,” Harrison said, who has coached the boys since they were 8.

Perhaps foreseeing complicated ethical questions, the NCAA recently proposed legislation that would stop the practice of pursuing middle-school athletes discovered in AAU programs. Division I of the NCAA’s Recruiting and Athletics Personnel Issues Cabinet has endorsed the proposal to ban verbal scholarship offers before July of their would-be senior year in high school.

If passed, the proposal would apply to all sports and could be adopted as early as January or April. Still, some believe it would be impossible to realize.

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Posted By: Justin Black, bettor.com

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