Young basketball stars compete for exposure

The stands at Imhotep Charter are packed for the sixth annual Junior All-City Classic, and if you ask Trisca Bethea, the middle school players on the bench are lucky. Bethea doesn't often sit still during games.

"I usually go over and cuss 'em out," she said with a smile, "but there's too many people in the way."

The recent middle school basketball all-star event at Imhotep in Philadelphia was just one stop on the circuit for Bethea and her son, Jaheim, along with many of the area's other top basketball prospects. Just in the last few weeks, Jaheim has played at camps in Neptune, N.J., Virginia and even Disney World. "We're always on the road," Trisca Bethea said.

Often, the stops are just like — "Take that!" Bethea interjected. "You got him, Ja! You got him, Ja!"

It is not rare for chatter to fly across the Imhotep gym during one of these exposure events. But this is the only night of three this week that the chatter will be directed at 14-year-olds.

If all goes well for these youngest of basketball stars, many more significant nights will come for them in the next four years. In a high-pressure sports culture, in which the spotlight shines on youngsters increasingly early, this is a big night for teenagers such as Bethea. It is also a big night for coaches such as Overbrook's Keenan Rand, who goes to recruit players for his next varsity squad. And it is a big night for Charles Monroe, one of the most prominent hoops figures who organizes this week with games for middle school boys, high school boys and high school girls.

All three events, Monroe said, are about exposure. So he packs Imhotep's gym, all five rows of bleachers on both sides, plus the baselines, with 300 parents, fans, coaches and scouts. Already, recruiting services have sent people to observe the games and rate the young players on websites.

"I think, to me personally, a lot of times Philly don't get the respect we deserve because guys come out there and don't compete," Monroe says. "When you got big-time scouting services just sitting right there, you've got to go out there and compete."

Such is the pressure — and opportunity — for young players today. In just five years, the Junior All-City Classic has already produced big-name recruits such as Quade Green, Daron Russell and Trevon Duval. Green starred at Neuman-Goretti and has signed with Kentucky. Russell played at Imhotep and will move onto Rhode Island. Duval started at St. Benedict's Prep, transferred to IMG Academy and will attend Duke this fall.

Monroe began in the 1990s with the high school All-City Classic, which has drawn the likes of Kobe Bryant, Richard Hamilton, Kyle Lowry and virtually every NBA player from Philadelphia in the last two decades.

Khalif Wyatt, who played in the game twice and then went onto Temple, spoke to the value, even eight years ago, of the opportunity to compete against top talent.

"It just makes you feel like you're one of the top guys in the area," he said. "It's a privilege to play in this game."

Almost a decade later, Wyatt still comes back to reconnect with friends, recall old opponents and watch a younger generation of talent come through. It is hard to scan through the building and find two people who aren't connected.

"In a basketball community," Overbrook's Rand said, "everybody pretty much knows each other."

On one baseline, filming the game, stands a teenager who knows Jaheim Bethea. On the other baseline stands Marvin Stinson, who lives with his son, Jaylen, in the same neighborhood as Bethea in North Philadelphia.

In the eyes of the scouts seated at midcourt, Stinson, a rising freshman at Haverford School, is perhaps the most promising player in this game. At 15, he already shows the smooth ability to shoot, run the floor and drive the lane.

Stinson is a couple of years from landing in recruiting rankings, but he's already earning real attention. This spring, Stinson traveled to the three-day John Lucas Invitational at Houston's MI3 Center, where he began to see the publicity that could follow him.

"Ever since he got back, I've seen his confidence go up," Marvin Stinson said. "It's a pleasure because he starts believing in himself more instead of me just believing in him."

Jaylen Stinson returned home to the flimsy rims and dim lights of Imhotep, showing off for scouts in the hope that it might lead him to a bigger gym one day, and then a bigger one. He has already told his father he likes the idea of playing at Duke.

A stellar performance on this night earned Stinson the MVP trophy, playing with teammates he does not know well for a coach he met just the day of the game. He's conducting a postgame interview when a family friend interrupts and greets Stinson with vigor. "Excuse me one second, sir," the friend says. "JAYLEN STINSON!"

Jaylen is friends with Bethea, the son of the most expressive fan in a gym filled with many of them. Trisca Bethea likes to fire up the teenagers with cries of "They're playing like cupcakes!" and "Yo, what are y'all doing?"

No one can question her dedication. She and other parents sell dinners and elicit donations to send their children across the country. She has done extensive research on a prep school for Jaheim, who after much thought will likely end up at St. Thomas Prep in Delaware, his mother happy to follow his career.

"I'm going to be at every game," Trisca said. "I don't care how long the ride is. Transportation, going to see him, that ain't going to be no problem."

For this family of basketball followers, it never has been.

"We're always on the road," Trisca Bethea says softly. "Always on the road."