Class Has Been Dismissed

By Bill Plaschke

Jan. 5, 2003 12 AM PT

Before 16 of their children stalked and swaggered across John Wooden’s floor Saturday night, officials at St. Vincent-St. Mary high school of Akron, Ohio, handed out its mission statement.

“In the spirit of the Gospel, we are committed to educate ... “ it began.

The declaration continued for eight lines, filled with words like “enlightening” and “developing” and “inspiring.”

On a strange, ominous night in Southern California basketball, however, the statement was incomplete.

It was also St. Vincent-St. Mary’s mission to take $15,000 and demand first-class airfare and accept limousine service to play a basketball game here.

It was their mission to ride the untucked, flopping shirttails of phenom LeBron James into a Hollywood night against Santa Ana’s Mater Dei High, complete with $25 tickets and $10 programs and expectation that filled Pauley Pavilion to its rafters.

It was mission incomprehensible.

This was not a high school basketball game, it was a squeaking, seamy version of American Idol.

The attraction was James, the 6-foot-8 forward who may be the best young basketball player since Michael Jordan, and will certainly be the No. 1 pick in this year’s NBA draft.

The rest of the kids were props.

So, too, was the ideals of extracurricular activities in education.

“This is not a high school basketball game as I understand high school basketball games,” said Tim Ochsenshirt, the father of St. Vincent-St. Mary freshman forward Matt Ochsenshirt.

It was all about James, who was all about himself, throwing up mad jumpers and silly bombs and glaring at the officials and walking alone to his bench.

It was all about watching only James, with fans cheering or booing his every move, mostly booing as he showed only brief flashes of brilliance in his team’s 64-58 victory. He threw an amazing between-the-legs pass on a layup, but did little else that would separate him from any other high school kid.

“They come to see a show,” said James afterward, shrugging off an eight-for-24 performance with nine misses in nine three-point attempts. “I did enough.”

Like he said, not a game, but a show.

This was a high school game where the cheerleaders were buried deep behind the baskets, and stayed there, because otherwise they might block the cameras of ESPN2.

This was a high school game with no pep bands, because every ticket was sold, so where would they sit?

This was a high school game where the most controversial postgame question involved schoolwork.

I asked James the same thing I had earlier asked his coach, Dru Joyce.

It was a question based on the fact that St. Vincent-St. Mary has scheduled games this season everywhere from here to Pittsburgh to Philadelphia to North Carolina to New Jersey.

It was a question that involved his school’s willingness to play these games on national cable television and even pay-per-view, heightening a hype that even its own parents admit can be a distraction.

I asked James, was all of this affecting his schoolwork?

“What?” he said.

I asked it again, at which point Joyce began muttering that he had already answered the question.

“It doesn’t affect my schoolwork, I haven’t missed a class,” James said.

Now Joyce was really angry, announcing, “I already answered his question, and for him to come in here and ask it again.... “

Admittedly, with NBA millions awaiting, James is probably the last person I should have asked about schoolwork.

So I also asked Chris Marks, mother of Tim Marks, an injured player and honors student who nonetheless travels with the team.

“It’s hard,” she said. “When he’s up studying at 1:30 in the morning, you can see it’s difficult. This has been a wonderful time, but we’re almost kind of ready to go back to normal life.”

Contrary to most of the hand-wringing being done about perhaps the most hyped young sports star ever, it is not James who is being exploited here.

It is everyone, and everything, else.

James has a security director and 10-person entourage.

His teammates, left unprotected by a school unafraid to stick its hand out, have no protection from a skewered view of reality that will come to a crashing end in a couple months.

“I think this gives the kids a big-time false sense of the world,” said Mike Rangel, the event’s promoter. “But I’m just giving the public what they want.”

James is different from tennis, gymnastic and swimming prodigies in that, this is not a personal endeavor such as those we see every few years at the Olympics.

He is part of a team. This team is part of a school. That school is part of a community.

So when James takes more shots than any three of his teammates combined, as he did Saturday, it means something.

And when he defies school rules against earrings by wearing two studs to the postgame news conference, it matters.

“Of course we worry about this, but we think we’ve done everything we can,” said Patty Burdon, the school’s public relations director. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime thing. It could only happen in America.”

At least St. Vincent-St. Mary appeared at that postgame news conference.

Mater Dei, doing something UCLA has never done on this floor even during the worst of times, embarrassingly didn’t show up.

On this night, it figured. Gary McKnight’s kids could have learned a bit about accountability and even public speaking, but even that small chance at education was blown.

“This is old, real old,” said James of the attention. “I’ve been doing this since fifth grade.”

Old, indeed. And getting older.

Shortly before the game, word filtered down that there was a kid at Gate 2. He wanted a free ticket. He’s 12 years old.

Officials hustled over to give him that ticket.

“The next LeBron James,” said Rangel.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at [email protected]