As Canada strives for Olympic basketball excellence, something transformational is happening with its talent development system. Historically, Toronto’s public school hoops scene turned out scores of the very best. These days, there could be a changing of the guard—in fact, it seems that elite private preparatory schools are taking the lead. That trend changes everything about the GTA basketball scene—and beyond.
The Rise of Canadian Basketball
The preparation for the Olympic campaign in France gets underway for the Canadian senior men’s basketball team, which includes stars like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jamal Murray, and RJ Barrett. It represents the best of Canadian basketball that has experienced incredible growth at the high school level. Of the twelve players on this team, eight of them developed in Ontario, often playing against each other during formative years.
Historically, it was the Toronto public school system—raising Gilgeous-Alexander and Murray, among others—that was core to this culture. A different trend appears to take over now: young athletes from the GTA are increasingly gravitating toward elite private preparatory schools rather than traditional public institutions that have long served as bedrock for basketball excellence.
How Elite Prep Schools Came to the Forefront
The exploding popularity of elite prep schools—the GTA alone boasts more than 50—has changed the face of high-school basketball. Elite coaching, state-of-the-art facilities, and sophisticated training methods are things that most others can’t compete with, attracting a large portion of young up-and-coming athletes. The high cost of attending them has people musing about an uneven playing field. This can pressure parents into investing thousands of dollars every year with no guarantee of scholarship opportunities or even future earning potential, unlike the public school system.
Wes Brown, a Canadian basketball scout, speaks of the truculence in today’s atmosphere of basketball. “The kids are desperate these days for Division 1,” he remarks, which mirrors the stiff competition and the high stakes involved. All this pressure to make it big has fostered the growth of prep schools that promise to turn this dream into a reality to play elite college basketball.
The Legacy of Public-School Basketball
The public school scene in Toronto has a rich history of basketball. The game came into its own in the 1980s through the influx of immigrant communities that placed a premium on the sport. Programs emerging from schools such as Runnymede Collegiate Institute, Eastern Commerce High, Bathurst Heights Secondary, Father Henry Carr, Vaughan Secondary School, and Oakwood Collegiate have evolved into quite competitive programs with the production of talented players.
Oakwood Collegiate Institute is among the historical powerhouses in this particular field. On St. Clair Avenue West, Oakwood has been a powerhouse in Toronto’s basketball scene for decades. Its gymnasium has played host to scores of fine players who went on to have pro and international careers. Among those are the assistant coach of the current Toronto Raptors, Jama Mahlalela; broadcasters Paul and Mark Jones; and Nathaniel Mitchell, an assistant coach for the Canadian men’s national team. One of the basic reasons behind the reputation of the school as churning out the best talent was players like Joshua Primo and other high-class athletes who have competed at the global level.
Rise of Prep Schools
The prep school movement started to get going in 2012 with the formation of Orangeville Prep. Jesse Tipping created the program as a way to fill what he felt were gaps in the Canadian school system about high-level player development. The program enjoyed instant success, really taking off in 2013 with the addition of Jamal Murray. Its early success culminated in the moves up the NBA Draft charts of Murray and Thon Maker, really showing the growing influence of the prep schools.
It was Tipping’s establishment of the Ontario Scholastic Basketball Association that really added fuel to that fire with a competitive entity that prep schools could compete in to focus their talent. Prep schools specialize early, providing rigid training schedules and exposing kids to NCAA scouts often. The OSBA more than tripled the number of Canadian players who had gotten scholarships to American colleges.
The Pros and Cons of Prep Schools
While certainly elite prep schools have their advantages—the high level of competition and visibility for college scouts—there are also disadvantages. Most prep schools, especially those toward the bottom of the scale, simply can’t match the academic rigor or resources that more established schools can provide. It can be very expensive: The yearly fees range from $3,000 to $33,500 for many of these schools.
Moreover, the proliferation of prep schools has raised questions of quality and legitimacy. Brown wrote that some of these prep schools are nothing more than financial investments which have very little to offer in terms of benefits to players. COVID-19 only accelerated these problems by disrupting conventional high school sports and continuing the trend toward prep schools, further saturating the market.
The Future of Public-School Basketball
It doesn’t necessarily mean that, with all the success prep schools are now having, there isn’t a good case for the value of public-school basketball programs. Coaches like Oakwood’s Anthony Miller say public schools can still offer quality and provide experience. He believes athletes should at least look at going to a public school for the first couple of years of high school to grow not just as athletes but also as students, then transfer to a prep program when it becomes necessary.
That further success is continuous for Oakwood and the community atmosphere it provides confirms that there is still some real value within the traditional high school setup of basketball programs. The tight environment within the school, coupled with students’ firm support for their teams, gives a feel quite different from what is created within the financially driven prep school model.
Conclusion
Against the backdrop of the rapidly growing prominence of Canadian basketball on the global scene, this move towards elite prep schools reflects an important change in how youth basketball is conducted. While these schools therefore offer advanced training and greater exposure, they also introduce new challenges and disparities. The dynamics that are emerging demonstrate the relevance of a balanced approach in which both public and private schools play their role in the development of the future basketball star. The right path for young athletes will have to be found in the progression of this sport if they are to grow further and become successful.
