The game is on - Prep athletes use summer to prepare

It may be summer -- but not necessarily summer vacation for high school athletes.

Two-time all-state basketball player Dominitrix Johnson of Bell City travels nationwide to play about 60 games in preparation for his senior season.

Notre Dame junior-to-be Bryce Willen has added a local accelerated conditioning program to basketball camps and a summer-league schedule.

Meadow Heights senior-to-be Brad Adams traveled 900 miles round trip with a coach and teammates to compete at a camp in Kentucky -- and that's on top of a summer league and AAU games.

The summer workload is the same in other sports, from volleyball to soccer to football.

"I see it as a season," Willen said. "You're working just as hard."

They're spurred on by wisdom imparted by their coaches.

"The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender," Jackson football coach Carl Gross said.

"Great teams are made during the season. Great players are made during the offseason," Central basketball coach Derek McCord said.

Yes, these are the dog days of summer, but they're also the dog days of winning.

Coaches don't make it mandatory, but athletes are attending camps, playing games, conditioning and hitting open gyms spurred on by the hopes of more grand moments in the upcoming school year.

Just keeping up

Once America's national pastime, baseball was the dream that filled the heads of American youth during the summer and beyond. While the game still has a following, the preparation for the school year is evidence of the erosion of the pastime among high school athletes.

Sophomore Kyle Pridemore played baseball at Jackson High School in the spring, but he strives to be a varsity point guard for the basketball team.

"I like baseball too, but I put my time in on basketball this year so I can make the varsity next year," Pridemore said. "You have to put a lot of time in, because if everyone else is putting in time and you don't, then you don't have a chance."

To that end, Pridemore is playing in a Tuesday night JV league at the Osage Community Centre, lifts weights, goes to open gym nearly every morning at Jackson High School and attends basketball camps.

Pridemore is more typical of the athletes' and programs' drive for success.

"I think it's competition that drives the kids to show up and do those things," Notre Dame boys basketball coach Darrin Scott said. "It's not mandatory, but when you look around and all the other schools are doing it, it becomes necessary for you to do it just to compete at that level."

Notre Dame players are competing in a Monday night summer varsity league, attended camps and events at St. Louis University, Southeast and Three Rivers Community College, and will attend open gyms two evenings a week. There's weight lifting and morning shoot-arounds Monday through Thursday.

Scott said Willen, who played a varsity bench role as a sophomore, is a good example of a player's commitment and the progress that can occur over the summer.

"He's really pushing himself to improve," Scott said. "People kind of knew he had the potential to be good, but I think he will surprise some people with how much he's improved."

Meadow Heights coach Tom Brown has his teams playing in summer leagues, has open gym one night a week, took six athletes to a Blue Chip Camp 450 miles away and took his players to the Show-Me Games in Columbia, Mo.

"I think you have to do these things to compete and keep your kids at the level to compete with teams in the area," Brown said.

Adams, who won a free-throw competition at the Blue Chip Camp by hitting 41 straight free throws, doesn't play baseball. He works on his grandmother's farm, catering his hours to his basketball schedule. The point guard is hoping to improve on a junior season in which he averaged over 16 points a game.

"I just do it to get better for high school," he said.

A change in the rules

High school summers haven't always been this way.

Gross' players have supervised weight-room workouts in the morning. Forty to 50 come in at 6 a.m. before going to their summer jobs. The Indians have 7-on-7 passing competitions two nights a week since school let out, and they have a two-week camp that starts on Monday.

Chase Walker prepares for his senior season at Jackson by getting up at 5:30 a.m. three days a week to lift weights before going to work as a groundskeeper at Kimbeland Country Club. He also attends 7-on-7 in the evenings.

"After this, high school is over and it's probably the last time I'll play football," Walker said. "I'll do anything. To play in front of our crowds Friday night, most of us will do anything."

He's no stranger to early-morning dates with weights. He's been following that schedule since middle school.

"I've been getting up and lifting with the big dogs," he said. "You just kind of get used to it. It's kind of a routine. It's fun, so I really don't think of it as hard work or anything."

When Gross played high school sports in the early 1970s at Central, offseason programs weren't available.

"A lot of us played three sports -- I played football, then went right into basketball, then into high school baseball, then American Legion baseball in the summer and then football started again," Gross said. "Competition was our training. We didn't have the weight room until I went to college. But nobody did."

While the change has been somewhat gradual, coaches say the changes began in earnest about six years ago. Since then the Missouri State High School Activities Association has lifted some restrictions on high school coaches during the summer.

The change came about in part because MSHSAA was having trouble policing summer activities. Smaller schools reportedly were violating the summer guidelines, and the rule change was to put all schools and sports on equal footing.

MSHSAA now allows high school coaches to coach their players in actual summer leagues.

"Nearly every school is taking advantage of the change," McCord said. "The ones that are not, it will probably show during the season."

Prior to the change, a coach was in violation if he had more than four players from his team on the floor at one time. AAU teams were a popular way for players to hone their skills in the summer in an organized setting.

The rule change has allowed coaches to spend time with their teams in the summer. The teams, however, are not affiliated with the school. There are no school uniforms, and players must provide their own transportation and pay registration fees.

"It's a good step," Bell City basketball coach David Heeb said. "I think the AAU has taken over as far as summer basketball. There are a lot of good AAU programs, but you hear a lot of horror stories. There's no restrictions on who can coach that stuff.

"Here we are, we're high school coaches and we go to school and we're certified and we're trained to do this for a living. And then we can't do things with our kids half the year and these other people can come in and have unrestricted access to them."

One area boys summer varsity basketball league consists of Central, Perryville, Notre Dame, Jackson, Sikeston, Kelly, Scott City and Bell City.

Other sports heat up

Scott City volleyball coach Laura Ort, who will enter her second year at the school, coaches her team in the high school summer league at the Osage Community Centre that has 15 varsity teams and 16 JV teams.

"Last year it was good for me to see what I had to work with," Ort said. "I guess it's the same this year since we lost so many kids. It gives a good indication what we need to work on individually and as a team. It also lets you see other schools and what they've got."

Ort held two three-day camps in June, took her team to a two-day camp at Southeast and holds open gym on Tuesdays.

"For us to have success in the fall, we definitely have to work out in the summer," Ort said. "You just can't pick up a ball and expect to be competitive."

The summer league has two pools in both the varsity and junior-varsity divisions.

Girls basketball lacks the summer leagues of boys basketball and volleyball, but the coaches may take their teams to a shootout and make the gym accessible.

"If you're going to be able go anywhere, you have to be in the gym in the summer," said Delta girls coach Randy White, who led his team to the Class 1 final four last season. "It's that simple. The good teams are going to be in the gym playing a lot of basketball."

Other out-of-season sports are not as organized but are still available for athletes.

The Notre Dame boys soccer team, which won the Class 1 state championship last fall, holds a couple of open scrimmage sessions each week. Central and Notre Dame soccer do not hold team camps, but Notre Dame did attend a camp held by Jackson last week.

Notre Dame coach Brad Wittenborn doesn't envision the formation of a summer league that's similar to boys basketball and volleyball.

"It's getting pretty tough for kids to schedule between baseball and summer basketball," he said. "I think it'd be tough to schedule another league."

Paying the price

Basketball camps, which provide a team with games against other high school teams, vary in price. Southeast's three-day camp costs $100 per player, SLU was $110 to $120 including food and accommodations, while Three Rivers was $25 per person.

Central football coach Lawrence Brookins took 31 of his players to a three-day Central Missouri State University camp. It cost his players $185 apiece. Brookins said it was worth every penny.

But he concedes, "Coaches have created this monster. I feel sorry for some parents that have to foot the bill for some of this stuff."

He'll charge just $10 for his two Central camps -- the first held in June and the latter in late July, with the cost basically covering insurance and T-shirts.

Adams' AAU team qualified for the nationals in Wichita, Kan., but said costs of a "little over $1,000" likely would keep his team from going.

But for some there can be a payoff for the investment. Attending a camp hosted by a college can catch the attention of a coach.

"A lot of kids see light at the end of the tunnel and they see the potential to earn a scholarship," McCord said. "It's always gratifying when you see kids utilize their sports to pay for their education."

The price of coaching

While high school coaches may make money for hosting a camp or for coaching their team at a camp, their summer efforts -- for the most part -- go uncompensated.

"The turnover rate for coaches is unbelievable, and I think for job security coaches are putting in that extra time to try to keep their job," Brown said. "The bottom line is -- and it shouldn't be that way -- if you don't win, usually you get replaced. That's the way I perceive it."

"I think it's too much for kids, to be honest with you. I like the way it used to be. You were allowed two weeks and that was it. To compete and get your kids where they can get scholarships, they have to play. I think they overplay."

There may be varying extremes of involvement, but one thing is clear.

"The teams that aren't doing anything in the summer," McCord said, "are the ones getting behind."

jbreer@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 124