Prep sports: Age 19

By Ed Piper

As the high school sports fall season moves into its ninth week (at least in football), and we begin to look ahead to what the winter season holds, it is worthwhile to note the CIF eligibility rules.

As I am beginning to make contact with more coaches of teams who will face La Jolla's boys basketball team beginning in November--as part of my continuing coverage of the sport I know best and have a particular interest in--I came across the following information on Otay Ranch High School's website:

Eligibility requires:

• "Not be over 19 years of age on September 1st of the present school year.
• "Have attended high school not more than eight semesters after completing eighth grade."

These stipulations are accompanied by requirements for minimum report card grades.

Also:

• "Not compete on any outside team/club in the same sport during the school season of the sport."

Most of my readers would be aware of these CIF requirements.

I find the first one most interesting. I turned 17 in April of my senior year of high school. Yet players almost two and a half years older than that can play high school sports. Wow. Think of the development a young person experiences both physically and mentally, as well as emotionally, in that span of time.

You might grow to be a completely different person, and complete different player, over that time period.

I'm thinking of Onyeka Okongwu, a 6'10" freshman basketball player who just entered USC. I saw him play as a prep last year in the Carlsbad Classic Showcase. He was awesome. Big, burly, quick, and a high jumper, he didn't make a shot farther than five feet from the basket (other than free throws). But his timing around the rim was uncanny.

Okongwu, who starred in one of USC's practice games over the past weekend, had several tip slam dunks, numerous blocks, and many short bank shots that asserted his dominance in that high school game 11 months ago.

He was truly a man among boys.

I don't know Okongwu to be a holdback--a student athlete older than the average grade of his classmates--but he comes to mind as an illustration of the enormous advantage an older player could have over younger players in interscholastic sports.

The young man's physical development was far beyond that of most of the other high school players on the court.

One positive of non-school sports is the fact many of them are classified into age groups: under 14, under 16, under 18, and the like.

This eliminates the unfair age advantage. However, in high school sports, there is no such stipulation. For example, Cathedral Catholic, one of La Jolla's brethren in the Western League in basketball, sported two freshmen that were a year or two older than their class two years ago. It was said that one was home-schooled for a year, then with a transfer ended up even older.

I just don't see this in accord with the intent of high school athletics. That's just my opinion. There are some parents, obviously, who disagree with that assessment.