Coach Pelphrey has offered scholarships to a couple of local 9th graders; Westside's Hunter Mickelson and EPC's Ky Madden. Pulaski Academy 9th grader Aaron Ross was offered a few months back and committed. All three play AAU ball together.

Way to go Hunter is a great kid and will do well.. Way to go Warriors...

That's nothing short of awesome. Hopefully they all continue to play at a level high enough for these offers to stick.

I don't know anything about Ross, I obviously know more about Hunter than Ky, but both of those have serious talent just waiting to explode.

Congratulations to both of them and congratulations to Pel for getting in on these guys early.

Ky Madden talks recruiting:

http://arkansas.scout.com/2/755950.html

My hopes is that they both stay put. I know that when Ky's brother was in high school his father kept talking about moving him around a lot to a different school where he could get more looks. He is obviously going to get the looks, so there is no need to go try to play somewhere else.
And I haven't seen the Westside kid play yet, but have heard from Coach Pel that he has some amazing abilities on the court. I hope he stays at Westside, but he definitely doesn't sound like a Westside kid at all. I don't really know exactly how to explain that, but dominate basketball players is just not something that you have seen at Westside in over a few decades. I am making room on the calendar this year to get over to watch him play for sure though.
I figure the Ross kid will stay at PA since it is a private school and that is the best place to play hoops if you are wanting some inside connections. Just ask O.J. Mayo who transitioned from public to private in his late high school years and had some old high school friends kept their mouths closed his inside connections wouldn't have got him in trouble.

He's staying. No worries about that. Well, I guess I should say if you listen to anything he and his family has said, he's not. He likes it here and his family likes that they aren't trying to exploit his ability. I'm sure there was a better way to put that last sentence, but that's the best I could come up with at the time.

Meh... they like that the coaches and people at the school genuinely care about Hunter, not the incredibly gifted ball player.

I think they should both play at bigger schools, but these days, getting noticed happens during the summer at AAU tournaments.

that says a lot about Westside, McCarroll21. that's good to hear seeing how that the Madden kid is putting all his trust in a coach that was only at EPC for one guy and rode him to the U of A and then let him get crapped on by Coach Heath. On the article about him on Rivals he talks about Kiser and just how awesome of a person he is to help him out. Madden has the talent that he doesn't need to let some leach try and worm his way into his recruiting experience.
If Westside truly cares about that kid and not just because he is good at a sport then he doesn't even need to think about shopping around. I remember the days when Coaches used to go out of their way to get their players looked at by colleges and even drove them to try-outs at different places because they wanted to see the kid succeed and not just to get their own name out their for a college coaching job.

I would love to see the kid stick it out and stay at Westside and get them a State Championship if he can.

Monk was a football player, he had no business on an SEC basketball court, so I'm not sure how you think Heath crapped on him. Furthermore, how did Kiser let it happen?

did u not ever see Monk play basketball? he almost signed with Kansas to play for Roy! He chose AR cause he would get to play both sports. in his freshman year of hoops he was lied to by Heath about somethings including scholarship stuff. Kiser road Monk to a job on the Hill and saw the whole thing go down, but stood by and let it happen instead of confronting Heath about being a man of his word.

What job did Kiser land? Also, wasn't Monk injured (shoulder) his freshman year? You think that had something to do with his limited playing?

Also, Monk's 1st love is football. Someone (may have been him) said "How many 6'6" NBA basketball players do you see? How many 6'6" NFL wide rec's do you see?"

Just checked the Bears website...he's listed at 6'4".

Monk was a VERY good high school basketball player. His game didn't translate all that well to college though. And injuries his freshmen year had to play into it a little bit. Plus, he had a very good chance at going to the NFL. His chances at the NBA were somewhat less.

Kiser is still on the team staff there at U of A, has been since Monk was a freshman.
The lying wasn't about playing time. Yes, he was hurt and he was going to get through that and play because he loved the game, but after too many lies he just decided it wasn't worth it.
I know we all play sports with hopes and dreams of playing in the big times someday, but he didn't choose a sport based on which one he would become a millionaire with. He would have played them both all the way through if it was about the love of the game. He dropped hoops because of Heath, and was blessed enough to become great at wide receiver. He got injured there too, but didn't quit.

Team staff? What does that mean? Does he clean the locker room or something?

Monk was not SEC caliber on the court. Period. You can't make me believe that the prospects of making millions in the NFL didn't play into his decision to concentrate on football.

What exactly did Heath lie to Monk about? Bad coach? Yes. Liar? I don't think so. No more than any college coach.

When a kid goes through the entire recruiting process and chooses his destination, he has already established trust in that coaching staff. Now that may be false hope, but they still rest a lot of weight on the words given to them by their new college coach. It doesn't matter if every tom, dick, and harry in the country lies to their players, when a kid signs with a coach they think that it will be different for them.
As far as Kiser goes, I know that he started out as a GA for Heath, but I can't honestly tell ya exactly what he does for Coach Pel. That was good though, the whole clean the locker rm thing. After his tour of duty in Lincoln that is about what he would be hired for.