Taking What's In Front of Him
While a travel coach grapples with virus-related purpose, preparation and decisiveness is winning formula for one Chicagoland basketball recruit
This article is the latest in an ongoing series from The Kerr Report on how the sports industry is working through the coronavirus pandemic. Today, in the second of two articles, TRK examines travel basketball.
Fan capacity at the Athletic and Convocation Center at Robert Morris University in Arlington Heights is shy of 1,000 spectators.
On March 11, the gymnasium hosted a Class 4A boys basketball sectional semifinal game between Evanston and Glenbrook South. The match up between Central Suburban League South rivals had the gymnasium buzzing. A standing room only crowed shot capacity to over 1,000 fans.
In the stands that night was Mike Weinstein, founder and head coach of Fundamental U, a prominent Chicagoland AAU program. Sitting next to him was Lehigh University head coach Brett Reed, there to get another look at Evanston junior shooting guard Blake Peters, a Fundamental U player whom Lehigh, a Division 1 school located in Bethlehem, PA, had targeted in the 2021 class.
Evanston went on to win the game with Peters scoring 16 points. After the game, in a private conversation outside the locker room, Reed offered Peters a scholarship.
“Blake was becoming a proven commodity. He was in a great situation,” Weinstein said.
Three days later, the state series was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic. Peters would not play in the sectional final or in the state tournament if the Wildkits had advanced that far.
Easing the sting of a cancelled high school season—the travel season came next. Peters soon received several All-State awards, his reputation as a sharp-shooting, athletic two-guard more solidified. He had the spring and summer to showcase his rapidly flourishing skills and potentially compile more interest and offers from Division 1 programs.
But the spring season never started. Everything shut down. There would be no practices, no games, no competition. As the calendar turned over in the spring, with no certainties when basketball would resume, Peters was faced with a dilemma.
Does he wait or take what’s in front of him?
“From the very start I said I’d commit when I was comfortable,” Peters said. “The original plan was to commit in the fall.”
But those plans changed.
On a daily basis, Weinstein tussles with a dichotomous tug of war all business owners share since the coronavirus pandemic struck in mid-March.
Survival vs. Safety.
“Crazy ups and downs and moral dilemmas,” he said. “Do you do things or not do things. What is the right thing to do? It’s been very tiresome.”
For almost 30 years, Weinstein has owned and operated a Chicagoland travel basketball program. In 2019, Fundamental U’s top team, 17U Rise, finished the summer nationally ranked. A surge in interest followed and as the 2020 travel season drew near, Weinstein ramped up infrastructure.
“We all these kids trying out with no advertising, bursting at the seams,” he said. “We had hired all this staff, bought all this gear, which we never buy that quickly.”
When the shut down happened, he had inventory with no customers. Gym space reserved but with no basketball players to use it. Refunds were given to families. All of the upfront expenses Weinstein now had to absorb.
Weinstein drew up plan after plan on how things would be if his teams could get back on the court. Scrimmages? Skill work? Could he film the workouts and send to college coaches? Global pandemic or not, a significant aspect of his job is to provide exposure to college-aspirant athletes.
In late June, Illinois hit Phase Four. Gyms could re-open, plans given permission to be executed.
(Photo Credit: JWC Daily)
Fundamental U started with a training camp for its members, to be held at Athletico in Northbrook. Once the rust was off after such a long layoff, they would eventually play intra-squad games and in outside tournaments.
“The last two sessions would be ‘game nights’ where we’d film and put on for college coaches,” Weinstein said.
On the last scheduled game night, the virus struck again.
A spike in cases in Northern Cook County forced Weinstein to close operations. They shut everything down for 14 days.
Thought out all of this, Weinstein’s 81-year old father, Allan, moved in with him.
“That was nerve-racking,” Weinstein said.
In spite of the anxiety, there was no talk of shuttling operations for the summer.
Knocked to his knees, Weinstein would get back up again.
After a two-week break, Fundamental U again started operations. Practices during the week led to Sunday ‘game nights.’ They drove to Milwaukee for a tournament and to Waukegan, one of the few in Illinois.
With his elderly father at home, Weinstein kept his distance. The dual loyalties—to blood family and basketball family—did nothing to quell his uneasiness with the entire situation.
“I was staying away from people. I ran things but didn’t coach,” Weinstein said. “That’s how crazy it was.”
But at least his players got to play.
In the summer of 2019, Peters, accompanied by his father, Ashley, flew to the east coast.
The purpose of the trip was to visit Princeton University, located in Princeton, New Jersey, about 50 miles southwest of New York City.
They flew into New York and spent a night in the city. But most of the trip was spent collecting information on the Ivy League school.
“I got there early and went to a camp and took a lot of pictures,” Peters said. “They did a tour of the school but I got a chance to walk around on my own. I got to see it twice.”
While absorbing all of sights and sounds of the campus, in the back of his mind Peters knew he didn’t need to rush. He was just less than two years from graduating high school and had plenty of time to decide on a college.
“A lot of the memories from that trip was me thinking I’d be able to visit New York or Philadelphia while I was there,” Peters said. “My plan was to take an official visit at some point.”
Other than Princeton, Peters planned to take multiple official visits. After a terrific junior high school season in 2019-20, high major schools such as Stanford had shown interest.
One reason Peters chose Fundamental U as his AAU team was for its rigorous spring and summer schedule. Peters’ 17U squad would play a national schedule, culminating in a Las Vegas tournament in late July. All would happen during the ‘live’ recruiting window with recognizable college coaches courtside to get a bird’s eye view of the action.
While happy with his offers, the plan was to accumulate more, to see what his basketball ceiling could be.
“There were a few other schools talking to me hard,” Peters said. “With a couple of spring live periods, I think I would have gotten a few more scholarship offers.”
After the high school state tournament got preemptively cancelled, so did the travel season. There would be no spring ‘live’ competition. Suddenly home bound, Peters did what he could to stay active. He updated his Hudl highlight tape. He worked out at home and on any private court he could find. He stayed in touch with coaches.
Peters hopped on Zoom calls with Princeton coach Mitch Henderson and Tigers players. His initial gut instinct about the school morphed into informed enthusiasm.
“Coach Henderson, he spoke my language. He wants his players to grow and is very focused on the details,” Peters said. “From the virtual environment, it reminded me of Evanston where there was a real camaraderie and family feel.”
On June 13, Peters accepted a scholarship offer from Princeton.
He could have waited until the fall as previously planned. Instead, Peters took what he could see right in front of him.
“I didn’t want to be insecure about my future and not know where I’m going. I’m sure there are a lot of people that are worried and I didn’t want to be one of those people,” Peters said.
Scott Burgess is the editor of a recruiting website. The content hole is relentless, always needing to be filled.
So when actual basketball tournaments were held in Iowa, Minnesota, Indiana and Wisconsin this summer, he covered them.
“All of them were CO-VID friendly and distancing between the parents and the players. They were allowed to watch the game, then leave,” Burgess said, senior scouting director at Preps Hoops Illinois. “In Wisconsin, they had different entrances and exits for everyone so no one interacted. Everybody had to wear masks.”
When the summer events wind down, college coaches head back to campus and prepare for official visit season.
Late August through mid-October is when senior prospects visit campuses. Intellectual capital is accumulated and decisions made by the November early signing window.
“That’s kind of when all the recruiting gets done,” Burgess said.
But in 2020, the rules have changed. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the NCAA has instituted a ‘dead’ period through the month of September. That means no official visits of any kind.
When Burgess looks at his board of top recruits, he sometimes has to do a double take.
“Out of our top 10 players, eight are committed,” Burgess said. “I’ve been doing this for 10 years now and I’ve never seen it where so many kids committed (early). To have that many kids off the board this early is abnormal.”
Several of those committed players are on the Illinois Wolves AAU team—Max Christie of Rolling Meadows (Michigan State), Louis Lesmond of Notre Dame (Harvard) and Scottie Ebube of Mundelein (Southern Illinois). Of the few that are not, such as Lake Forest senior Walt Mattingly, Burgess relies on virtual scouting to make evaluations.
Mike Mullins, the Wolves head coach, conducts weekend scrimmages between his age group teams. He tapes the scrimmages and sends them along to scouts like Burgess, who does a write up and pushes it out through social media channels.
“Usually coaches are allowed out to the high schools after Labor Day and can come out to visits and open gyms but that is not going to happen,” Mullins said. “We are doing our best to get the word out and get visual evidence, tangible evidence of the improvement our players made.
“Every one of our practices we throw 10 Division One players on the floor.”
Whether the intra-squad scrimmages will result in Mattingly or Notre Dame senior Anthony Sayles, another 17U Wolves player, receiving mid-major Division 1 offers remains to be seen. There is no question a full summer of tournament play would have been optimal.
“So many of the young men we work with would have benefitted by finishing high school and having a travel season,” Mullins said. “I know if I send out (video) people will watch it, it will get looked at.”
The fall is one of the more active times of the year for insiders like Burgess, the demand for information ceaseless. Questions most frequently asked are ones like what prospects took what visits? What school is a recruit leaning towards? Does he have a top 5 list?
But this year, the guessing game will be condensed to only a few uncommitted recruits.
“A lot of experienced AAU and high school coaches told their players, ‘hey look, you are not going to be able to take an official visit. Colleges are not going to be able to host players,’” Burgess said. “If you are not going to take any visits and you have these offers, an offer is only good until a school doesn’t need you anymore.”
In a nutshell, before a college coach changes his mind, take the offer. It may not be there tomorrow.
As Labor Day approaches, the coronavirus pandemic remains the dominate issue weighing on the minds of business owners such as Weinstein.
He is in a state of irresolution about the fall and whether to conduct a league.
“I’m personally scared they are not going to have a high school season. As I talk to you, every hour I’m debating ‘do I do this or not do this?’” Weinstein said. “So I have this battle that I want to help the kids but is it the safe or the right thing to do?”
Maybe Weinstein should call one of his players, Blake Peters. In an age of uncertainty and the stockpiling of metaphorical rainy days, here’s one piece of gospel—accept what one knows to be true. Make plans, but understand nimbleness is a virtue in 2020.
“What my parents have told me and what I’ve told people is to keep a positive mindset and learn to accept reality. At the end of the day, if you can’t accept reality, you are probably not going to be successful,” Peters said. “If you stay optimistic and positive, it’s not a guarantee good things will happen but if bad things do, you are more prepared.”