Napa's Prolific Prep: Basketball outside the box

NAPA - Behind the Grace Church of Napa Valley sanctuary, in a gym that most locals don't even know exists, a team of high-school-aged boys is practicing basketball. The reverberations and commands of a gym practice always sound the same, and the drills are nothing out of the ordinary. But the players are atypical, at least for the North Bay.

Many are 6-foot-5 or taller. Some speak with unfamiliar accents. And most can dunk a basketball with impressive nonchalance.

Meet Prolific Prep, one of the proliferating “academies” that are reinventing high school hoops. Founded by Windsor native and longtime Redwood Empire coach Jeremy Russotti, Prolific has attracted some of the top young basketball recruits in the world - to the delight of fans who pay to attend talent-packed showcase tournaments, and to the consternation of some traditional high school basketball programs.

“Is that the best experience for a kid that age?” asked one local coach who requested anonymity. “I guess if he has the maturity to be away from home …”

Prolific Prep's current roster does include two boys from Napa, but also players from Mali, Guinea, Nigeria, Ghana and Croatia. The top recruits on the team, Gary Trent Jr. and Paul Scruggs, came from Minnesota and Indiana, respectively.

Most of the boys live with host families in or around Napa and attend classes at Justin-Siena, the local Catholic high school. Some players have committed to Prolific for all four years of high school; others sign on for just a year. Their home games at Napa Valley College are lightly attended, but the team plays before as many as 6,000 fans at far-flung mega-tournaments, with as many as 32 teams filling brackets in places like Toronto and the Bahamas and Paducah, Kentucky.

It's another interesting career tangent for Russotti, 41, who seems to have his hand in every facet of the basketball business. He coached varsity hoops at Casa Grande from 2000-04 and was at Analy for five years before that, mostly coaching JV. He has invented and marketed products like the J-Glove Shooting Aid.

He has produced a series of instructional DVDs and has trained high-profile players one-on-one.

Prolific Prep might be Russotti's most impressive creation yet, and it might never have been conceived if Josh Jackson and his mom hadn't gone hunting for a basketball team.

Jackson, now a freshman at Kansas, was one of the top recruits in the nation when he played at Consortium College Prep School in Detroit. But his mother, Apples Jones, wasn't thrilled about the environment in which he was living and playing.

In June of 2013, Jones brought Jackson to California for a three-day basketball camp hosted by an AAU team called the Davis Wildcats, based in Dixon.

Russotti helped run the camp. He says Jones was so impressed that she wanted to leave her son, who had just completed his freshman year of high school, in Russotti's care.

That was impossible at the time, but Russotti and a longtime colleague, Philippe Doherty, got to thinking. What if they were to start their own basketball academy? They decided to move forward in 2014.

“We put together a recruiting class in three months,” Russotti said.

Within eight months the partners had assembled a schedule, an educational plan and an impressive roster that included Marquese Chriss, who is now a Phoenix Suns rookie. Jackson's presence made it all possible. He had a network of friends and admirers, and several high-profile players followed him to Napa.

“If there was no Josh Jackson, there would never be a Prolific Prep,” Russotti said. “He is the backbone, and he always will get the credit.”

Jackson, a 6-8 string bean with explosive athleticism, precocious court skills and an unruly afro, received 18 Associated Press preseason All-America votes this year - before he had played a minute for the Jayhawks. He might be the first pick in the 2017 NBA draft.

By now, Prolific Prep routinely sends players to power-conference universities. Trent, for example, has committed to Duke, while Scruggs looks headed to Xavier.

“We played eight teams last year in the USA Today Top 25,” Russotti said. “We were 7-1. And none of those games were at home.”

It's a success story, but not everyone endorses the concept.

The no-man's land of the academy system can be unsettling. High school and college sports have strict rules governing practice, travel and transfers. The academies exist outside that system.

Trent won a high school state championship at Apple Valley, Minnesota, transferred to Findlay Prep in Henderson, Nevada, then moved on to Prolific when the Findlay coach left - three schools in five months. And when prep teams in the North Coast Section were allowed to begin practicing on Nov. 6 this year, Prolific Prep had already been on the court for 2½ months.

Those are among the reasons state organizations like the California Interscholastic Federation prohibit their teams from playing against academies.

There's no question talent is being siphoned away from traditional high schools. Three of the past four NBA No. 1 overall draft choices were products of academies: Anthony Bennett from Findlay in 2013; Andrew Wiggins from Huntington (West Virginia) Prep in 2014; and Ben Simmons from Montverde (Florida) Academy in 2016.

Some coaches and media commentators are crying foul. They suggest the academies are exploitative, making money off of the shoe and apparel companies while encouraging kids to abandon their families and lifelong friends.

The Prolific Prep principals argue that their program isn't for everybody, that it only makes sense for the upper crust of young players who have real NBA aspirations. They also wonder why no one raises a similar fuss when it's white kids leaving high school for tennis academies, or for live-in music programs.

Prolific Prep's financial structure isn't entirely clear. The team has sponsors like Adidas and Muscle Milk. But annual tuition at Justin-Siena is $18,900; it's unlikely that most of the Prolific kids can afford that, or that the high school would offer full scholarships to boys who don't even suit up for the school basketball squad. To make up the difference, Prolific Prep is constantly fundraising through clinics and auctions. Some of the team's travel expenses are picked up by the host tournaments.

Russotti insists none of the Prolific Prep principals even draw a salary. And that includes Billy McKnight, the head coach.

Russotti and Doherty, who handles everything from international visas to school enrollment for Prolific, also emphasize Justin-Siena's solid reputation. Some academies don't even offer a classroom education; they arrange for their players to take online classes exclusively.

“The good thing about Prolific Prep is the Justin-Siena grades come out every three weeks, and we could check online,” said Pete Daniels of Battle Creek, Michigan; his son Devon was at Prolific last year and is now playing at the University of Utah. “Any problem, we had a counselor on the phone with us. They really got the parents involved, and the host parents, too.”

Pete Daniels is generally thrilled with Devon's experience at Prolific Prep.

It's probably not for everyone, though. Withdrawing from the local high school is a big decision for a teenage athlete.

“Life's about experiences,” the local coach said. “I think that's really, really important. And it's about relationships. And where are relationships more meaningful than high school? I don't think anywhere. Even college.”

Matt O'Reilly knows how powerful that experience is. He was in a unique situation after his junior year at Campolindo High in Moraga. O'Reilly was a two-time All-NorCal basketball player, but he had fractured his wrist twice, in two separate mishaps exactly one year apart. He feared college coaches would dismiss him as injury-prone. O'Reilly needed high-level exposure. He figured he'd find it at Prolific Prep.

O'Reilly remained at Campolindo. But several days a week he would drive to Napa after school to practice with Prolific. That meant no more games against traditional rivals like Miramonte.

“Every single game you play against those teams, the gym is packed an hour in advance,” said O'Reilly, now a sophomore shooting guard at Bucknell.

“The people cheering you on are your best friends. You have a villainous outlook on your rivals. You lose out on some of that, that culture that comes with being part of a program you're used to, with guys you've been playing with your entire life, against rivals you've been playing against your entire life.”

The trade-off for O'Reilly was clear, though. He says he received excellent basketball instruction at Prolific.

Just as important, he got a preview of life as a college athlete. The Prolific Prep players watch daily film, read scouting reports, practice countless hours and fly all over the country to face elite talent.

“We'd be playing in front of packed gyms,” O'Reilly said. “It was similar to college in that you're playing in front of a bunch of people you really don't know personally. You're spending the game trying to win, but you're also making a name for yourself. If you want the same fan experience that you had in high school, you have to make a name for yourself and prove to fans, ‘this is who I am.'”

The current Prolific players have few complaints, except for missing family and, in the case of 6-9 Nigerian transplant Onyinyechi Eyisi, a hankering for fufu, a starch usually made from cassava or yams and served with stews.

The Prolific players say they have been embraced by the Napa Valley community, and by their peers at Justin-Siena.

“They were very, very, very welcoming,” said Amadou Sow, a 6-8 junior from Mali who spoke little English when he arrived and now has a GPA of 4.0. “I can't even walk through campus without somebody like walking with me, talking to me about their days.”

Abu Kigab, who was born in Sudan but relocated to Ontario, Canada, at the age of 9, said many of the Justin kids come to Prolific Prep's home games to cheer on their adopted team. Kigab, an athletic wing who has committed to Oregon, said he was drawn to Prolific by the level of competition he'd face, and by the heavy emphasis on basketball.

“We want to be treated like adults,” Kigab said. “That's what every single high school kid who wants to play Division I should want.”

Not everyone thinks high schoolers should be treated like adults. But as long as there are kids who see a path to big-time basketball and have the talent and drive to get there, academies like Prolific Prep will continue to flourish.