When it comes to basketball, the Illini recruiting fan base has the attention span of a nervous 11-year-old who forgot to take his Ritalin. With as many high-profile recruits as there are on the Illini radar, it’s tough to obsess over one. Five-star kids with new names pop up every week. It seems that any kid who mentions Illinois in a recent interview becomes the subject of dissection for everyone who dons orange and blue.

The latest addition to the wish list and quickest under the microscope is Alex Legion, a 6-foot-5 shooting guard from Michigan. Legion recently re-opened his recruitment after committing to the University of Michigan. Combine that decision with a decision to transfer to the infamous Oak Hill (basketball) Academy and a outspoken quote criticizing his high school coach, and let the controversial topics fly.

Interestingly enough, the kid is ranked as the 15th-best recruit in the country. This has certainly sparked arguments over whether Weber and Co. should want Legion in Orange and Blue. Considering Bruce just received a contract extension and a raise, I would imagine he has to want Legion to take his talents to Champaign. I have never talked to the kid, I have never seen him play and I won’t be the judge and jury on a 17-year-old who may cause more trouble than he is worth.

Legion has earned his ranking for a reason, and the Illini coaches seem to agree if they are spending time on him. It’s not his skill on the basketball court that some people are questioning, it’s his character. With all the publicity Terrell Owens and Barry Bonds receive, people are extra careful not to sign a locker room cancer. But this kid isn’t a veteran who has shown his true colors, this is a kid who is quickly learning how fast-paced life is viewed under the microscope.

My question is this: How can you write off a 17-year-old kid? Don’t point a finger at Marcus Williams and forget that there were some suspect characters in that program, too. Don’t read an article about a junior in high school and proclaim him the next Maurice Clarrett. If all the dumb things the average person has done or said was put into the headlines, we wouldn’t have a solid recruit amongst us. With hard work from our program, community “rough players” are turned into great men and success stories worth A&E; Biographies.

Basketball recruiting begins so early in a potential athlete’s life that outsiders start to feel as if they personally know the recruit. Like any storybook, if you read enough volumes, you start to sympathize with the characters. But Alex Legion isn’t Harry Potter. This is real life and the decisions that face him and other Illini targets are on a grand scale. You can’t blame a recruit for turning down your school in favor of others – think about how many fantastic universities knock on their door everyday. Who knows what a 17-year-old is really thinking, what they are looking for? Dee Brown once said there wasn’t that much difference between any major schools, you go for the head coach. So think about how many people a recruit will meet. What are the odds he likes your staff best?

Illinois has two handfuls of top-50 prospects for the class of 2007, and each kid has been psychoanalyzed and rated on skill, mostly by the most unqualified. With two more spots open the race for talent is getting tighter. Do we need two guards? A certain small forward? With whatever crop the Illini harvest, believe that besides for talent, these kids will carry little baggage. Young kids make mistakes, but it’s watching the maturation process, it’s reading the story of a person’s life that is worth more than any 30-point game. It’s why four years down the road you can wear an orange headband with the numbers 11 and 40 printed on the side.

Ian Gold is a senior in Communications. He can be reached at [email protected].