Columnist Adam Candee: Here are leftovers from the Christmas prep stocking

Adam Candee

Friday, Jan. 3, 2003 | 8:47 a.m.

Adam Candee covers high school sports for the Sun. Reach him at (702) 259-4085 or by e-mail at candee@lasvegassun.com.

Looking deep into the recesses of our Christmas prep sports stocking (don't we all have one of those?), it appears that a few leftovers are still hiding down at the bottom ...

Probably not, but it will be interesting to see how Foothill swing guard Harvey Perry Jr. bounces back from the broken wrist he suffered last weekend in a tournament in San Diego.

We all know that 16 and 17-year-old kids possess an amazing ability to recuperate well in short periods of time, but it is the nature and location of Perry's injury that is concerning. For obvious reasons, the wrist is one of those tricky injuries in basketball where one never really knows just how long it will take for the athlete to really recover both physically and mentally.

Every sport seems to have one of 'those' injuries, and in basketball, it is the shooting wrist. Think of the high ankle sprain in football or the strained hamstring in baseball -- these are the nagging breed of injuries where we can certainly see players back in action within the diagnosed time period, but they may not be quite the same performer for some time until they have some time to adjust themselves and settle back in.

It is not quite as serious as a knee reconstruction or elbow ligament replacement, but at the same time, you are talking about a player needing to rediscover one of the joints most important to his function on the court.

The six-to-eight week recovery period for Perry sets him up for a return just prior to the Sunrise Region tournament. Here's hoping the kid is ready to rock for a Foothill team that just seemed to be finding its rhythm when its top player went down.

Every season, we hear plenty about which schools, players, AAU coaches, second cousins, mailmen (get the point?) are recruiting which athletes to come and save their team in the coming basketball season. It is a song with a too familiar melody.

There is outcry and outrage over who is school hopping for hooping purposes, but it does not happen the same way in football or other major sports. This season, it is Cheyenne and its new players that are drawing attention, but Bishop Gorman and Durango have seen the same harsh light focused upon their schools in other recent years.

One theory: Overall, basketball is the major sport that is the most individually focused and the least dependent upon other players to make one individual better. A standout running back in football will go nowhere with the school glee club blocking for him, but a big-time shooting guard can create a Spalding-sucking black hole on the basketball court no matter what school he attends.

Just a little coffee talk to go with your holiday leftovers ... discuss amongst yourselves.

Making the annual bowl game is really a special honor for Johnson, or for any Nevada athlete for that matter. Scanning the 24-man offensive roster for the West team, Johnson is one of just seven players not to hail from the hallowed football breeding grounds of either Texas or California.

The Sun Offensive Player of the Year will choose among scholarship offers from UCLA, Oklahoma, and Miami within the next month. Even after the coaching change at UCLA, word around town placed the Bruins as the front-runner for the 6-foot-1, 200-pound tailback.

St. Vincent-St. Mary (Ohio), James' team, will be in California -- you know, your average high school road trip -- to take on perennial power Mater Dei (Calif.) in a matchup of team ranked in the national top 10. Mater Dei features D.J. Strawberry, son of troubled former baseball star Darryl Strawberry.

The game tips off at 6:30 p.m.