Private School Basketball

By: David Maldonado, Central Texas Recruiting
centexrecruits@yahoo.com

For the past few years I've had the pleasure of getting out and watching many different basketball programs in the Central Texas Area.  One set of schools that seems to fly below the radar when to comes to talent and level of play has always been the private schools.  In Austin schools like St. Michael's Academy, St. Stevens Episcopal School, Regents and St. Andrews all programs that have been developing a level of athlete able to play against any public school program in the area.

Not only are these schools competing and beating some of the local public schools but they are now developing young talent good enough to receive scholarships from Division one and two level programs. Last year alone St. Michael's Academy had three graduates preform well enough to receive basketball scholarships and are now playing at different universities across the country.

In San Antonio you have similar programs Central Catholic High School, Antonian College Prep, two programs that have also developed athletes that have done well enough to receive scholarships to play their individual sports at the college level.

For years these programs have been thought of as the "everyone gets to play" league. Schools where athletics was always put second to academics.  While that may still be the premise to these schools, they have now found a way to make athletics an important part of developing young men and woman into successful adults.  They have changed so much that schools are hiring coaches like Ty Detmar retired NFL quarterback now coaching football at St. Andrew's High School, and Calvin Schiraldi retired MLB pitcher coaching baseball at St. Michael's Academy.

I think its time to start recognizing these programs for what they are, a force to be recon with on and off the playing field.