Warren's Brandon Paul is the kind of athletic and multi-dimensional backcourt presence that Illinois coach Bruce Weber desperately needs. Waukegan's Jereme Richmond might be the best talent in the state but he doesn't play both ends of the floor as Paul does.

Schaumburg's Cully Payne has emerged as a genuine Player of the Year candidate, a Jimmy Chitwood AKA Bobby Plump, the hero of the movie "Hoosiers." No more jokes about him making a college commitment as an eighth grader.

Since I began covering high school sports in the 1950s, I've become acquainted with the process and some of the best football and basketball recruiters who ever persuaded a highly impressionable teenager to leave his family, friends and hometown for a name on a map that the youngster didn't know existed. In some cases, there wasn't even a name.

Sam Miranda was the best of all. He was an all-state basketball player at Collinsville under Vergil Fletcher, played at Indiana, then coached at Kankakee before joining Ted Owens' staff at Kansas.

Isn't that what Title IX was all about? Isn't that what the class system is all about? The multiplier? Giving each school an opportunity to be competitive with every other school?

This isn't collegiate or professional sports. This isn't supposed to be about a salary cap or a luxury tax or Boone T. Pickens. This isn't about who can produce the best team that money can buy.

High school sports in Illinois has a sense of sanity when the Illinois High School Association enforced a rule that prohibited teams from traveling more than 300 miles to compete in contests.

Although they are associated with different sports, they have a lot in common. Both, for example, place an emphasis on quickness and athletic ability while evaluating the skill level of prospects. And both believe statistics count for nothing.

"The biggest difference between a scout and a fan is the use of statistics," Coleman said. "A fan thinks statistics tell everything. I look for things that fans don't look for. Fans get hung up on statistics. They don't anything to me."

But according to Scout.com, which recently released its list of the top 100 juniors in the nation almost before the 2008 season had ended, only two local products rank among the best--Fremd offensive lineman Christian Lombard and Johnsburg tight end C.J. Fiedorowicz.

Chicago-based recruiting analyst Tom Lemming disagrees. He insists wide receiver Kyle Prater of Proviso West is a top 100 player. And he believes at least six other Chicago area juniors could make the elite list by the end of the 2009 season.

The last installment is Sunday and you have to have been living on another planet if you didn't figure out that the No. 1 choice is Red Grange.

I had a hand in the selections. I was asked to submit my list of the top 25 athletes. So were several other Sun-Times writers. Hayes made the final selections. I don't have a problem with his choices.

I enjoyed it more when I was covering as many as seven or eight games in a week for the old Chicago Daily News or spending every waking minute at the Proviso West Holiday Tournament or attending as many as six holiday tournaments in one day.

Driving to Pontiac to see the top-seeded team, usually Bloom or Quincy, play at 10:30 in the morning.

My first trip to the Centralia Holiday Tournament.

As the great Bobby Jones told a golf writer after seeing Jack Nicklaus for the first time: "He plays a game with which I am unfamiliar."

Well, the SEC, Pac-10 and Big 12 play a game that is unfamiliar to the Big 10. Those teams have more speed, more athleticism and more talent. Not to mention the electric atmosphere and enthusiasm generated by the crowds. You don't see that kind of excitement this side of a Michigan/Ohio State game.

I hope somebody will give St. Francis' Mark Kachmer and Stan Bobowski a chance to play in college.

Wouldn't you like to have Metamora quarterback Michael Fay on your team for the next two years?

Three other small-school players who impressed me a lot were Triopia running back David Arendt, Stark County receiver Calvin Lewis, Immaculate Conception linebacker Antonio Taylor and Bloomington Central Catholic quarterback Adam Rebholz. I hope they get a chance to play in college, too.

Criticism was welcome. But newspapers always have had a policy that letters to the editor had to be signed.

Then came the Internet.

Who are OrangeBlazer, Elwin Illini, Bloomfan101, Cabana Joe and NYDomer310 and why do they choose to use aliases instead of their real names when they tap into message boards?

I covered the East St. Louis/Glenbard West Class 7A semifinal on Saturday in Glen Ellyn--I certainly had something better to do than spend a nauseating few hours in Evanston--and, believe me, Illini recruits Terry Hawthorne and Tommie Hopkins are the real deal.

For years, Illinois couldn't sign a player out of East St. Louis with the exception of Dana Howard. Most of the many talented athletes who played for Fred Cameron, Cornelius Perry and Bob Shannon went to Missouri. Remember Hall of Famer Kellen Winslow?

They have seen another athlete who is getting more publicity and they are convinced they have seen somebody better. They have seen an athlete who has been offered a dozen Division I scholarships and can't understand why another athlete has none.

Sometimes, they are just looking for publicity.

Apparently, this is one of those times.

If you saw Goro pass for a school-record 479 yards against New Trier or saw him run and pass in the cold and wind against Loyola on Saturday, then saw Graham Harrell lead Texas Tech past Texas and Oklahoma State on television in the last two weeks, you had to think Goro and Harrell are related.

In a sense, they are. Maine South offensive coordinator Charlie Bliss is the Mike Leach of high school football, a genius who has developed one outstanding quarterback after another in his spread offense, as Leach has done with Harrell and others before him.

This is where the parents must step in and take charge. This isn't an ego trip. This is their son's future we're talking about. If they don't make a wise decision, their son will most likely become another statistic on the escalating list of de-commitments and transfers.

No, parents shouldn't decide which college their son should attend. Their son should make that decision by himself. But they should be responsible for providing all of the important information so their son can make an intelligent choice, one he won't regret.

What makes a perennial power like Michigan and Ohio State and Penn State and Alabama and USC and Texas and Oklahoma?

What makes a consistent winner like Mount Carmel and Maine South and Joliet Catholic and Naperville North and Wheaton Warrenville South and Thornton?