Within the past week Kentucky basketball coach Billy Gillispie got a commitment from Rose Hill sophomore-to-be Dakotah Euton, and Southern Cal coach Tim Floyd got a verbal from Ryan Boatright, a 14-year-old kid from Aurora, Ill., who just finished his eighth-grade year. Boatright hasn’t even decided where he’s going to high school yet, but he’s made his college choice!
The basketball world has tipped off its axis. Absurdity has routed common sense in the recruiting game.
If this is the direction college hoops is going, Billy G needs to go full throttle and make early offers to three other young prospects: Richie Farmer’s sons Trey (10 years old), Thomas (8) and Tate (5). Richie’s boys already have an aptitude for basketball. Asked if Trey and his brothers can shoot the trey, Richie dead-panned: “They know where it goes.”
So why hasn’t anybody offered the Farmer kids scholarships yet? Why are college coaches dragging their wing-tips?
Richie, a state icon in his high school days at Clay County and as part of the Unforgettables at UK, hopes to help his sons develop the right perspective on sports. “I’m trying to support them, expose them to the game, teach it to them and let them go at their own pace,” he said.
But he also knows the day will come when fans start whispering, “That’s Richie Farmer’s boy,” and great expectations will follow.
So what’s Richie’s take on this new trend that has big-time college coaches offering scholarships to kids barely out of junior high? “If UK had offered me a scholarship in the sixth grade, I’d have commited,” he said with a laugh. “But the game has changed so much today, with all the coaching changes, the attitude of the kids, the way AAU has such an impact on the game. Kids have people telling them they’re great at an early age. That can’t be good.”
Richie and his wife Becky have their kids playing youth-league basketball and baseball in Frankfort, where he serves as Kentucky’s agriculture commissioner. Richie said his boys are aware that their dad is a celebrity — “They have some idea because everywhere we go people want to take pictures and get autographs.” — but they don’t know the scope of their dad’s accomplishments, especially his glory days at Clay County, which included a state title.
He hasn’t even shown his sons highlights of him pouring in 51 points against Ballard and Allan Houston in the 1988 championship. “With my job and our schedule, trying to run after the three of them, we don’t have much time to sit around and watch videos,” he said.
But the way things are going, college coaches are probably already watching videos of the Farmer boys playing in their church league games
