Toronto's Globe and Mail had an interesting article last Friday about the increasing number of Canadian high school kids who venture south to enroll in US high school programs in order to play basketball.
According to the article:
It's estimated that as many as 100 Canadian teenagers - primarily boys from the Toronto area, though there are girls and boys from every region in the country - are chasing their hoop dreams in the United States, often as early as the ninth grade.
"It's growing, it's not going to stop if we don't do something," says Guy Pariseau, technical director for Basketball Quebec, who says nearly all of the province's 10 best players have left for the U.S. "Everyone is shopping."
At the top of the list is a lucrative scholarship to a top Division I school and dreams of a professional career.
Like many such ventures, however, there are experiences good and bad:
... says Mike George, founder of CIA Bounce, another top Toronto-area club that has had several kids head south for high school. "For some parents, they see it like sending their kids to boarding school, it gives them a sense of security. I've had kids get full scholarships to [elite East Coast private schools] Proctor or Brewster. That's worth $45,000 a year. For them it's a no-brainer."
Not all kids are so fortunate. It's estimated about 80 per cent of them have to pay some or all of their tuition, with only the elite getting scholarships to prep schools.
Then there are rumours of kids sleeping three or more to a room, 10 to a house, with minimal adult supervision, essentially fending for themselves at schools with dubious academic standing and scant record of developing elite basketball players.
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