Corbin Miller's father thought it was a joke at first. Bret thought there was no way a college program would be showing interest in his son at this point. At least, not yet. Miller was still in elementary school.
But it was true. After Miller -- who is now a Brighton sophomore -- went to play in an AAU tournament in Houston with his big brother's seventh-grade team, an assistant coach with the University of Arizona reached out to the family.
The coach wanted to make sure that the Wildcats were the first school to get on Miller's radar. He was 10 years old.
"I asked the coach, 'Do you guys do this often?' and he said when there's a nugget, they'll try to dig it up," Bret said. "They did it with Mike Bibby, and they wanted to make sure Corbin knew that University of Arizona was the first to call him."
In the sixth grade, Miller got his first scholarship offer from the University of Utah, and things really got out of hand in the eighth grade, when he played for an elite Adidas-sponsored basketball team. The exposure brought on the attention of major college coaches. As soon as he became a ninth-grader, though, all the letters and phone calls had to stop. By then, Miller was considered a prospect and couldn't be contacted by colleges.
As a father, Brett has been through the ups and downs of the recruiting process, but things will be different for his younger sons Brandon and Brock, who are in the eighth and sixth grade, respectively, right now. That's because earlier this month, the NCAA declared seventh-graders are now college basketball prospects.
It sounds outrageous -- middle-schoolers being looked at as prospective college athletes. The ramifications of telling an athlete that young that he is college basketball material is obvious.
"It can cause an inflated ego. At that point, they haven't gone through puberty and their brain takes a longer time to adjust to what it can handle," said Keith Henschen, a sports psychology professor at the University of Utah. "They're not socially or mentally mature."
Henschen also touches on the fact that these young teen athletes are given false promises and a false sense of confidence.
"[Colleges are] promising the moon, but there's a whole realm of issues," Henschen said. "How about the coach leaving in a couple years? What happens to the kid? And it could be really bad for the kids that are not going to be what they're [supposed] to be. Maybe they have grown early. What a can of worms, and for what? For our entertainment."
While all that is true, don't blame the NCAA. It is just trying to keep up with the changing trends of recruiting. The reason for the new ruling was to keep college coaches from getting an edge by working in private, elite camps or clinics for seventh- and eighth-graders. Putting middle-schoolers under the umbrella of the NCAA will prohibit coaches from contacting them, putting the kids beyond the reach of the ruthless game that is college basketball recruiting.
In some ways, the ruling doesn't much matter. College basketball recruiting is a business and coaches are always going to find a way to make their programs successful -- even if it means contacting a fourth-grader and telling him you're interested.
This year, seventh-graders are prospects. In the future, it could very well go down to sixth- or fifth-graders.
But for those who have an actual chance at playing basketball at the collegiate level, it shouldn't matter. What matters is developing through middle and high school and getting that same attention as a junior in high school.
That's what Miller has focused on. And now a sophomore at Brighton, he doesn't think too much of all that recruiting hoopla that went on around him when he was younger.
"I thought it was cool and I enjoyed it. But I didn't think too much of it at the time," Miller said. "I tried to keep it in perspective because [at the time] I still had six more years to go. It boosted my confidence and it made me want to work harder."
Although younger brothers Brandon and Brock will probably go through a much less hectic experience throughout middle school than Miller did, the brothers -- especially Brandon -- have the same goals.
"Both of them have their sights on college basketball," Bret said. "Brandon may be as competitive as anybody I've ever seen. His goal in life is to make everyone forget about Corbin."
