We’ve seen it time and time again. A young athletic phenom is on the scene, and before long is well-known and maybe even on the cover of a major magazine. It’s the kind of attention that we used to think of happening to adult professionals. And in the end, it’s something that probably isn’t for the better.
Why does the media build up kids as the next big thing when they’re so far from being a finished product? And if that same kid doesn’t live up to that billing, why is it that the player is a bust? Why can’t it be that the media got one wrong?
I couldn’t help but think of this as I read an excellent story by my friend Jeff Goodman on Emoni Bates, the young talent who, since his freshman year of high school, has been built up to be the next big thing in basketball – the next LeBron, the next KD, the next… someone. Early on, Jeff gets right to something I think we have all noticed but often memory-hole (and I am as guilty as anyone on this):
“The lavish attention wasn’t fair, but the reality is that it’s what we often do in the media. We see a player’s eye-popping talent, coupled with their spectacular promise and unlimited potential, and we pump them up, whether it’s to sell magazines or amass clicks.
And then, we usually rip them apart and tear them down when they fail to live up to the hype.”
As I read it, I was nodding in so much agreement – and then I read about the effects on the young man. The last sentence in the story, reminding us that he is just 17 years old, should be kept in mind throughout this. When we’re busy tearing a guy down as a “bust” or for not living up to too-lofty hype we give him, we don’t think about things like this.
Yes, I was in the media for almost two decades, and part of my job was to evaluate young talent. That didn’t mean it was to hype them up in the way Bates has been, however. In fact, I felt it was my job to evaluate someone with a big-time rep the same way as an unknown, and I was never easy on the kids. I felt if they were going to be built up so much, they had to earn it, keeping in mind that these kids would never be finished products at that age.
For that matter, when it came to features, I always enjoyed doing stories that didn’t get into that, but rather, ones that had a good lesson for others. A prime example, ironically, was that of Joe Sharkey, who at one time was built up to be one of the next big stars (though to nowhere near the extent of Bates) when he was in junior high. He went to an Ivy League school and made the most of it, though he had some adversity there. Far from being a bust, he used basketball to get an elite education to set himself up for life, and he seemed to enjoy his time growing up as he was a student leader on his prep school campus.
Jeff didn’t mention him among the kids who got attention lavished on them at a young age, but I thought of Demetrius Walker as he went through the list. In the sixth grade, Sports Illustrated dubbed him the “next LeBron,” and as he got to high school, he didn’t seem to enjoy the game. I evaluated him at a major event, and he looked like a nice prospect, but hardly a can’t-miss kid. Ultimately, he was basically a bit player at Arizona State as a freshman, transferred to New Mexico and was better but only started five games in two years, then went to Grand Canyon and was dismissed from the program early on. He was also featured prominently in George Dohrmann’s book Play Their Hearts Out, a book well worth reading if you like the sport.
I never saw Bates play as a high schooler, although I’ve seen a few clips. I don’t put much into the clips because they tell so little of the story. However, I have seen kids get so hyped to the point that they don’t seem to enjoy the game anymore. In some cases, there is much pressure on the kid from every angle – a big-time reputation, a poor family living in a bad neighborhood, people who cling in hope of benefiting financially from knowing the kid and clinging to him. I can imagine this being what the young man has to deal with.
It is decidedly a first world problem, but that doesn’t make it any less of a problem. No kid that age deserves to deal with what Bates has, like being jeered if he doesn’t make every shot or for some to hope at every turn that he turns into a flop – he didn’t do anything to anyone. It would be another story if he was constantly in trouble with the law – not exactly a sympathetic figure in that scenario.
Maybe it’s time to look at this a little differently. Let’s say Bates turns into a marginal pro at best. Maybe it’s not that he is a bust – maybe, just maybe, the story is that the prognosticators who built him up so much got one wrong. Very wrong. And maybe the next time there’s a 14-year-old who appears to have a world of potential, we’ll be a little more measured in how we view and treat the kid.
We can only hope, even if that means hoping upon hope.