Sporting News
7/4
Anything but ordinary
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td class="text"> Posted: July 4, 2006
Sometime during the next few days -- the start of the NCAA's summer evaluation period for basketball recruits -- O.J. Mayo is expected to sit down with reporters and recruiting analysts and announce his college selection from a list that has been whittled more or less to Kansas State and Southern California.
There's a slight chance he might even eventually wear the uniform of the school he chooses.
Nothing about Mayo's young basketball career has been routine, and he might pull out some moves no one has ever seen.
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</td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table>Perhaps the most famous eighth-grade player ever, featured in national magazines and newspapers before he could drive a car, Mayo has spent the years since justifying the early attention. A 6-5 point guard, he has won two state basketball championships at Cincinnati's North College Hill High School. He is a wondrous talent -- agile, dynamic, preternaturally skilled, surprisingly unselfish. Had the NBA not instituted an age minimum that requires all players to be one year removed from high school graduation before entering its draft, Mayo certainly would have been sending a declaration letter to commissioner David Stern next spring.
The initial group of players affected by that age restriction, including Ohio State's Greg Oden and Texas' Kevin Durant, did what Stern had hoped. They chose college so they could be better trained and more widely known when they arrived in the league. Mayo might do the same.
But it's at least as likely he will spend 2007-08 earning endorsement money and performing on a professional barnstorming tour designed specifically to showcase and enhance his celebrity -- and that of the players who go along. It would be similar in form to the AND 1 Mix Tape Tour, and among the players who could be Mayo's bandmates are power forward Michael Beasley, a K-State recruit, and wing Bill Walker, Mayo's longtime friend who also plays at North College Hill.
Mayo has been quiet about his circumstances since a couple of school disciplinary incidents that occurred in the spring. His old cell phone number now carries a "not in service" message.
Sneaker company executives acknowledge Mayo likely would become a more valuable endorser if he played at a Division I college and enjoys extraordinary success as a freshman, a la Carmelo Anthony at Syracuse. However, they suggest even without such accomplishments, Mayo is likely to sign an apparel endorsement deal more lucrative than Anthony's initial Nike deal -- reportedly more than $20 million over six years. Why? Think back to last winter, when a game between North College Hill and Virginia's Oak Hill Academy sold out Cincinnati's US Bank Arena, with tickets priced between $15 and $40. The only teen who sells like Mayo is Harry Potter.
Mayo's appeal begins with his talent. He is big for a point guard. He is a capable passer who eagerly shares the ball. His accuracy from long distance ranks somewhere between Steve Kerr's and AT&T's. Mayo has the body control that separates elite athletes. Like LeBron James before, Mayo has seen his legend grow in large part because nothing ever seems too great for him. He exceeds whatever expectations are put in front of him.
A native of Huntington, W.Va., Mayo moved across the border to Kentucky as a seventh-grader because that state has no age restrictions for varsity players. He was all-state a year later. Mayo thus will enter his sixth year of high school ball this winter.
One college coach familiar with Mayo's recruiting is certain he will play Division I basketball as a freshman. That would be the simplest path to follow, probably the most lucrative and almost certainly the best for his development as a player. His next step, committing to a college just as he commences another July of dominating camps and tournaments, will appear conventional. To this point, however, Mayo has constructed a career like no one before. That seems unlikely to change now.
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