So, your 10 year old can hoop big time...

Washington's other newspaper offers more evidence of the destruction of American sports and the stupidity of adults. I am going to pray Justin grows up to be a marine biologist.

Is There Such a Thing as a Perfect 10?
Basketball Prospect Courted While Still In Elementary School

Four coaches clapped and snapped fingers in front of Justin Jenifer's face to demand his focus, but Justin's attention drifted. He felt hungry, particularly for Skittles. He turned from the coaches and tossed through the contents of his Adidas gym bag. Nothing. Justin stuck out his lower lip and looked longingly across the gym at the concession stand.

Justin is 10.

The adults who huddled around Justin spoke in hushed tones. The 10-and-under Bentalou Bombers basketball team trailed by six points. About four minutes remained in the first-round game of the Maryland State Tournament. A loss could devastate the Bombers' season.

Justin is 10.

As usual, coaches had called a timeout and turned expectantly to Justin, a 4-foot-6 point guard. One problem: Justin, 10, refused to look back at them. He rolled his eyes, bounced in his chair and playfully shoved teammate Cory Watson. "If we win," Justin whispered to Watson, "I'm going to get money from my dad and go straight for the food."

Justin is 10.

During the last two seasons, youth basketball coaches had anointed Justin as one of the most talented 10-and-under players in the country -- a distinction that would have won him nothing but cheap trophies a decade ago. But now, Justin had become the sought-after prize, pursued by Amateur Athletic Union summer league teams that troll nationally for players, high school coaches who recruit aggressively and shoe companies whose scramble for potential future endorsers continues for a second decade.

Justin is 10.

The burden of so many pressures rarely registered for Justin, even now in the waning minutes of an important game. But they weighed heavily on a handful of men who watched inside the Chesapeake High School gym in Baltimore. They had invested considerably in Justin's development, and they expected a payoff.

Justin is 10.

Howard Jenifer, Justin's father, paced behind the Bentalou bench. During the last year, he had fielded requests from at least seven AAU coaches who wanted Justin on their travel-intensive teams, including one in Atlanta who offered to fly Justin in for weekend tournaments. Howard had kept Justin with Bentalou, a team run out of an inner-city recreation center in Baltimore, so his son would remain comfortable and carefree. Could Justin stay that way under pressure?

Justin is 10.

Don Aaron sat in a section of bleachers by himself because he wanted to watch without distraction. A friend of Howard's and a private basketball instructor, Aaron had outfitted Justin with a weighted vest during workouts to build upper-body strength. He had suggested Justin cut juice out of his diet and regularly run up and down bleachers to build endurance. Would fortified legs carry Justin late in the game?

JUSTIN IS A TEN YEAR OLD BOY, YOU MORONS!

Across the gym, Scottie Bowden pulled down a flat-brimmed Washington Nationals hat until it almost shielded his eyes. A representative of Adidas, Bowden had invested many weekends and about $20,000 of company money in Justin and his teams. Bowden had provided the boy and his teammates with sneakers and travel money to tournaments in an effort to build brand loyalty in a 10-year-old with distant NBA prospects. In Justin, had Bowden accurately identified a star?

Over the next four minutes, Justin reassured his admirers. As the smallest kid on the court, he looked outmuscled and immature, with shorts that fell almost to his socks and a jersey so big the straps slid off his shoulders. But Justin spun and dribbled the ball as if it were a yo-yo. Then he dropped back on defense and shadowed his opponent, his legs shuffling furiously in perfect form. Justin scored 10 of his team's final 12 points and stole the ball twice, propelling Bentalou to a four-point win.

After postgame handshakes, Howard called to update his fiancee and Justin's mother, Kisha Hull, with the game result. She responded, like always, with tempered enthusiasm. Kisha had often told Howard she felt simultaneously thrilled by Justin's success and dubious as to where it would lead him.

Howard hung up the phone, pulled Justin aside and congratulated him. The father and son would travel to three more games on this Saturday in April, but Howard wanted to dissect Justin's performance. "You took over," Howard told him. "You played big-time out there, broke them down a little bit. What do you think?"

"It was cool," Justin said. Then he shrugged, took $2 from Howard's pocket and rushed to the concession stand.



Justin never so much as hit the rim in the first five basketball games of his life, as a 6-year-old. Timid and undersized, Justin tended to run away from the ball, not toward it. "He was scared," said Hull, 31. "He hated it."

For inspiration, Howard bought Justin a basketball DVD featuring flashy players, and the father quickly realized that his son learned visually. Justin mimicked the players by dribbling through his legs in the living room of their two-story Baltimore house, and Howard rushed out to buy more DVDs.

The DVD collection swelled -- Howard quickly amassed more than 70 -- and Justin's skill set expanded with it. By 7, Justin scored most of his team's points. By 8, he scored most of the points in leagues designated for 9- and 10-year-olds. Opposing coaches and parents buzzed about the diminutive point guard. More adults came to Justin's games to see for themselves.

Justin's confidence skyrocketed. He appeared briefly last year in a commercial with NBA all-star and Baltimore native Carmelo Anthony, and that three-second spot made him a celebrity at Arlington Baptist School in Baltimore, where he just finished fourth grade. Once reserved, Justin belted out songs from "Beauty and the Beast" in the classroom. He boasted to friends that he would play in the National Basketball Association -- or, if that fell through, at least become an NBA coach. "I don't care how hard it is," Justin said. "I know I will do it."

Howard, 32, calls his son a "young" 10-year-old, and family friends sometimes mistake Justin for 7 or 8. His silliness is revealed through big, curious eyes and a smile so big his cheeks inflate like a balloon. Justin once invited his entire team over for a sleepover and suggested that all eight boys sleep on one single bed -- even though Justin's room has two.
Justin decorated the walls of his room with posters of a half-dozen NBA players, and he decorates his body like they do. Only the tattoos of goblins and monsters that he places on his arms wash off a day or two later.

"Basketball kind of brought him out of his shell and made him silly, which is great," said Ken Gibson, who coaches Justin on an 11-year-old team.
"But it's also a little scary, cause if his basketball slips, it's like, 'Well, does everything else slip, too?' "

Howard and Kisha often remind themselves that phenomenal talent, at 10, remains tenuous and fleeting. The uncontrollable terrifies them. Justin must grow taller than his 5-foot-10 father, Howard said, and the family's genes hold little promise. Recently, Kisha told Howard she is 5-2.

"Oh no. No. Don't tell me that," Howard said. "You've got to be at least 5-2 and a half, right?

"I always tell Justin: 'Get to 6-2 and we're good. We're good,' " Howard said. "But if he stops growing way early and everybody else keeps shooting up? Then that's it, man. That's a wrap. We might as well go try badminton or something."

This nonsense goes on for a coupleof more pages, but you get the idea.