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Through The Fire Sebastian Telfair Download Yahoo

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Sunday, August 20, 2000, 12:00 AM If Sebastian Telfair handled a violin as well as he handles a basketball, he'd likely be making money for it and paying taxes right now. If he sang, or rapped, or acted in TV commercials or on an off-Broadway stage with the same degree of skill he employs on the court, he'd have the protections guaranteed to performers in California, forged over 60 years of child-labor law: the right to a contract and a paycheck, limits on working hours, and guarantees that performing won't impede his education. But Telfair, a polite, bright, 15-year-old Coney Islander with soft eyes, giant hands and what observers say are prodigious talents, is a basketball player. In America, that means he won't get paid, unless it's under the table, and he won't be protected from the legions lining up to make money off him - unless he's lucky. 'That's always seemed funny to me,' says Telfair, a 5-10 point guard who, though not even in high school yet, took the court at the adidas/ABCD Camp this summer and created a sensation by outperforming some of the nation's top senior recruits.

'Nobody says anything about child actors, or tennis players going pro, or (foreign) baseball players who sign when they're 16. But with basketball, everybody says you have to go to school first.

' It's a distinction that's becoming increasingly difficult for the NCAA to justify. Forget about the college level, where billion-dollar TV contracts and million-dollar shoe deals for coaches have come on the backs of players unable to legitimately earn a dime. Look at youth hoops, where the modern mantra of sports - 'It's a business' - is impressed upon kids like Telfair before they've even played a high school game. The system demands children and their parents make business decisions, whether or not.

Sebastian

Sebastian's father, Sylvester, a Vietnam veteran, knows what to expect. He watched Sebastian's brother, the Trail Blazers' Jamel Thomas, and his cousin, the Nets' Stephon Marbury, go through the entire process. Sylvester thinks his son can be better than both of them, which will create a dilemma. 'How do you fend off somebody coming your way with shopping bags full of thousand dollar bills? Already, Sebastian has had to deal with approaches by street agents, whose job is to schmooze and befriend budding stars in hopes of steering them to big-time colleges and big-name NBA agents.

He says he's yet to have anyone outright offer him money but adds that 'at least 50%' of the kids he knows who've played summer basketball have taken cash under the table. Already, he's received letters from four colleges. 'My brothertold me they're not supposed to do that, so I won't say who,' he says. 'He tore up the letters, but I read them. ' Already, he has had to cope with a media relentlessly in search of the Next Big Thing. 'Let's see,' he says.

'Men's Journal, Slam, Sports Illustrated, something called Kid's Health. ' Telfair even committed his first media gaffe. 'Someone asked me to compare myself to Stephon, and I said I'd be better than him and Andre Barrett and Omar Cook,' he said. 'It didn't come off like it should have, so now I just say what my mother told me to, which is, 'Judge for yourself. ' It's a learning process.

' Then there are Nike and adidas, who are aggressively courting Telfair's AAU team, Brooklyn USA, which hasn't had a sneaker deal in five years. 'Sports is supposed to be about education,' says Tom (Ziggy) Sicignano, Telfair's coach at Brooklyn USA, 'but the thing the elite players learn from this system is how to be corrupt.

Through The Fire Sebastian Telfair

' For years, stories have circulated about AAU teams outbidding each other for players' services. Kansas City AAU coach Myron Piggie, a felon, paid thousands of dollars to high school players, wrecking their amateur status and exposing their teams to NCAA penalties. This season, the NCAA investigated St. John's when it was revealed point guard Erick Barkley had his prep school tuition paid by Riverside Church AAU director Ernie Lorch.

Four years ago, the News reported that Bronx Gauchos' director Lou d'Almeida regularly paid prep players and jeopardized Marbury's NCAA eligibility by lending him a car, purchasing gifts and giving him money. The cases have put pressure on to the NCAA to loosen its amateurism rules, and proposed reforms on the table could allow players to earn varying levels of money during, and even before, their college years, without losing eligibility, which would radically alter the look of youth basketball. But there are some who say the reforms should go beyond the NCAA, and make star child athletes subject to labor laws. With so many players receiving what could be perceived as extra benefits ranging from cash and cars to free sneakers and private school tuition, some advocate ending the hypocrisy and allowing elite young athletes to be treated like other young performers who earn a legit paycheck with legal protections. 'The entertainment and sports business are now one,' says Paul Peterson, a child star from the '50s who runs a foundation dedicated to protecting children's rights in the movie and TV industries. 'But sports gets a pass. The AAU, the NCAA, the U.

Olympic Committee and major shoe companies are living high off the labor of children, and the children don't own the money they earn. ' He says underage athletes are used as marketing tools by sports companies and TV networks, working up to 80 hours a week, yet reaping little or none of the revenue. Through his foundation, called 'A Minor Consideration,' Peterson successfully lobbied the California legislature this year to expand the Coogan Law - a 1930s statute named for 'Little Rascals' star Jackie Coogan that protects the show biz earnings of minors. It now applies to sports, but only in California.

The law states that until the age of 18, any working entertainer or athlete must have his or her contract reviewed by a judge. It guarantees a trust fund for the child and proper educational facilities in the workplace. The focus has been mostly on athletes in Olympic sports, such as gymnasts, who earn stipends from the USOC.

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But Peterson says it can also be applied to basketball players, even in the absence of formal contracts. 'Coogan applies to every kid in the state,' says Peterson, who starred as a Mouseketeer and on the Donna Reed Show and now lives in South Central Los Angeles.

'When a child turns 18, if he can show that he made money for a coach or an organization, and it's not properly accounted for, he now has recourse to claim earnings. ' Peterson says that could mean repercussions for sneaker companies in the wake of the Piggie scandal, in which the AAU coach on Nike's payroll distributed under-the-table money to high-school athletes. 'The kids get it,' Peterson adds. 'A poor black kid sees this cash all around him, and he has to accept this corruption to get out. ' Sebastian Telfair hopes that he won't have to.

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He says his mother, Erica, his father and brothers provide enough that he isn't desperate for cash. He's learned lessons from watching his cousin, Marbury, who turned pro after a year of college, and his brother, Thomas, who steadily improved through four years at Providence and made the Blazers as a rookie. Download free kartonmodellbau schiffe versenken. 'Of course I want to be in the NBA, but I've seen Jamel graduate, and I love college basketball,' he says. 'But if I'm a senior and people say I'd go top five (in the draft), I'd have to look at it. ' Telfair works out with Thomas on weights and skill drills an hour and a half every day, then plays on courts near his house in the projects for at least six hours.

He accompanied his brother to Portland this summer, and Blazers assistant Tim Grgrurich helped him raise the release point on his jumper. Telfair and family believe that he's prepared for the hype that awaits him - and can avoid any eligibility-threatening temptations. His coach, Sicignano, believes that if he waits four years, he'll be good enough to bypass college and go to the NBA. 'Yes, it's only one in 10 million, but Sebastian is that one,' Sicignano says. 'I tell his parents, you've got $100 million waiting across the street.

Just be patient and cross it at the right time. ' In the meantime, Telfair's father knows that, in the current system, in the absence of anything like the Coogan law in New York, his family's patience will be tested. 'Once he starts playing in high school,' he says, 'there are going to be people all over us.