Columnist Ron Kantowski: It’s still gotta be the shoes

Thursday, July 26, 2001 | 10:13 a.m.

Ron Kantowski's column appears Thursday. Reach him at ron@lasvegassun.com or 259-4088.

The last time I made it out to the annual Festival of Jump Shots -- a k a the adidas Big Time Tournament for high school players -- the team brackets were limited to a gross, give or take a few. For those who have never bought bottle rockets in mass quantities, that's 144.

Back then, the guys in shorts diagramming plays during timeouts were still known as coaches, not "street agents" or even worse (I think), "pimps." But it was apparent the tawdry elements of summer league basketball had begun to simmer.

As one colleague puts it, many of these summer programs have gotten so slimy that every time he leaves the gym he feels the need to take a shower.

One of the best players in this year's Big Time, 6-foot-8 Amare Stoudemire of Cypress Creek, Fla., (at least as of this writing) already has attended seven high schools -- and neither of his parents are in the service. Stoudemire, who was a no-show Wednesday, was made out to be the victim of overzealous recruiters in a segment that aired on HBO's "Real Sports" this month.

Yet, if you believe the rhetoric espoused by the shoe companies who put up large sums of money to sponsor them, these summer tournaments and camps serve a purpose. Skeptics say it's only to guarantee that the next Kobe Bryant will remain loyal to sneakers with three stripes or a swoosh stitched to the side. But the guys who wear three stripes or a swoosh on their breast pocket counter by saying the real beauty of these summer hoopfests is that they expose some 3,500 players -- many whom would never be scouted -- to a captive battalion of college colleges.

If Roy Williams or Rick Pitino can't find their way to Battle Ground, Wash., then, by golly, the shoe companies will bring the best players from Battle Ground, Wash., to them in Las Vegas. What better place to bring a group of teenage boys with raging hormones and little adult supervision?

Well, I watched Battle Ground, Wash., play at Silverado High on Wednesday morning. I didn't spot Roy Williams or Rick Pitino. There was a guy jumping up and down in the bleachers who looked a lot like Wyoming's Steve McClain, but he turned out to be a summer school teacher, trying to get his class' attention.

Here are the only logos I saw on polo shirts during my two-hour stint at Silverado: Mount St. Mary's, Arkansas Little Rock, North Carolina A&T and North Carolina-Wilmington. A guy wearing a Nebraska T-shirt left at halftime, perhaps to scout a touch football game.

Take away the 6-foot-7 kids in baggy shorts, and there were no more than a couple of dozen spectators in the main gym. In the auxiliary gym, where games also were being played around the clock to accommodate a field that has swelled to 344 teams, there were only two rows of bleachers. Which was one too many.

I watched four games, and the kids in three of them would have been better off spending their summer playing American Legion baseball. I kinda felt like Charlie Brown in his Christmas special. I showed up hoping to find the true meaning of summer basketball, but left smelling only of fresh varnish, which had been poured onto the hardwood the night before.

I only wish I had worn an orange sweater with black zig-zags over my khakis. Maybe then everybody would have stopped calling me "coach."