Two things, one is OT

[Mark Padgett]

Well, I worked the two games and it was quite an experience. This was something called the "All-American Evaluation Camp" sponsored by Adidas. Adidas also hosted the Northwest Summer Shootout this past week at the same venue (The Hoop in Beaverton) and about 60 girls, all going to be HS seniors next season, stayed for the three day camp. It culminated with games today. They got split into eight teams and the camp directors tried to balance the teams as much as possible. Each team had 7 or 8 girls and they substituted every 4 minutes. All the girls got about equal playing time. Games were 20 minute running halves with no timeouts and no free throws. If a girl got fouled while shooting, she got the points automatically if the shot missed and if she made the shot, she got the points "and one". There were four games going all at the same time (the facility has six game floors) so it was pretty noisy.

Most of the girls were from the West Coast and a lot of them were from SoCal. One girl from SoCal was about 6'2" and had the skills of a really good point guard. I'm sure a lot of colleges will go after her. There were about 20 college coaches watching from the upper level taking notes. Some of them were using video cams.

We had about 90 minutes between games and they brought in lunch for all of us from KFC. I got to speak with some of the parents, which was really interesting. In fact, two of the coaches approached me and asked if I worked college games. I said no. At first, I thought it was a compliment, but then I figured their reaction was probably to say to themselves, "Thank goodness".

The best part wasn't seeing all that talent or even the free lunch. The best part was that we got paid in cash on the spot. Oh yeah, we got to wear shorts.

The funniest thing was that one of the parents told me a highlight of their trip here was driving by the Nike World Campus (Nike headquarters) which is only a few miles from this gym. I thought that was funny considering the camp is sponsored by Adidas.