ESPN RISE

Signing day is usually a special event in the life of a young athlete.

These days, it's routinely marked by a ceremony in the high school gym or auditorium with mom and dad and coach present along with a photographer from the local paper. Some of the most elite athletes wait until signing day to make their college choices known, on live television with cheering classmates filling the stands behind them.

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Taber Spani is home-schooled and will play for Tennessee next season.

For basketball player Whitney Williams, she chose the kitchen over the dining room. Either way, it was still on campus.

Last season, Williams was a senior guard for Texas Home School Educators Sports Association near Fort Worth. This weekend, she and the Iowa State Cyclones are playing in the Big 12 conference tournament and should advance to the NCAA tournament.

More home-schooled basketball players are showing up on college rosters these days. Williams is one of two home-schoolers playing on Big 12 women's teams. The other is Kansas State sophomore Shalin Spani. One of her younger sisters, Taber Spani, will close out her home schooling career next week in the 18th annual national tournament in Springfield, Mo., before joining Pat Summitt's Tennessee Lady Vols.

On the boys' side, the list includes Thomas Sanders, the Atlantic Sun conference's player of the year and an honorable mention All-American in 2007-08 at Gardner-Webb, former Hawaii starting center Stephen Verwers, and current Houston Baptist sophomore Jeremy Harvard and freshman Aaron Hendrix.

"Recruiting Whitney was our first experience recruiting a home-schooler," Iowa State women's coach Bill Fennelly said. "It's definitely an area that you have to explore now. There are good programs and good players."

These home-schooled players are primarily being discovered by college coaches just like the kids who attend mainstream high schools -- during summer play. But the growth nationally of home schooling programs and an increase in the number of scholarship-quality players has put home schooling basketball on the radar of more college coaches.

Kansas State women's coach Deb Patterson has personally attended home schooling games as well as dispatching staff members to them.

"Generally speaking, you hear the name of a prospect then go where they are," Patterson said. "We keep a watchful ear and eye to the national home school results and home school buzz. There's some tremendous talent -- not in mass quantities -- but you'd be remiss not to make it an area of your recruiting."

K-State happens to have one of the national top home schooling basketball programs just down the road. Metro Academy operates in the Kansas City area and won the national tournament's girls' varsity division in 2006. That was with Shalin Spani, daughter of former K-State and Kansas City Chiefs football great Gary Spani. Shalin, a 6-foot guard, came off the bench in 25 of Kansas State's 29 regular-season games for an average of 13.9 minutes and scored 3.9 points.

Gary Spani said Shalin and Taber were both asked going into their ninth-grade years if they wanted to move into mainstream high schools to improve their chances of playing college basketball.

"We had chosen to home school for them number one for spiritually and number two academically; we chose the curriculum that we wanted," Gary Spani said. "They kept that priority. They liked where they were.

"At that time [when Shalin was a freshman], we were thinking there were no options for home school basketball. It was just by word of mouth that somebody told us there was an academy started for home school kids and they do band, yearbook, volleyball, basketball. It gave my oldest an opportunity to play through the winter, like everybody else."

Williams played for the THESA Riders, who have won the highest girls' division of the national tournament each of the past three years. She has an older brother who plays junior college baseball. This season for Iowa State, she came off the bench in all 30 regular-season games and averaged 11 minutes and 2.1 points.

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Thomas Sanders was home-schooled before becoming the Atlantic Sun's conference player of the year at Gardner-Webb.

"For years, we'd heard playing home school, it would be hard to get seen," Williams said. "But I was a sophomore when I was first contacted."

That was a result of playing summer ball. And, according to her father, some schools did struggle to locate her.

That was just a minor issue, he said. There's nothing the family would have done differently in trying to maximize the children's schooling and allow them to play sports, too.

"To me, one of the biggest advantages of home schooling is time compression," said Gary Williams, Whitney's father. "When you finish your English assignment, instead of waiting 20 minutes for the bell to ring to move on to your next class, you can go ahead and start whatever your next subject is. You can complete your day on average by 1:30 in the afternoon.

"Then you can move on to whatever your passion is. Our kids do workouts at home. The misconception is that these home-schoolers are spending eight to 10 hours a day working out when, really, as a team, we did good to get together two maybe three times a week for team practices because we're not all right there together."

The national boys' varsity division has been won three of the past four years by the Houston Christian Youth Association (HCYA). That's where Gardner-Webb's Thomas Sanders played.

Gardner-Webb? That's where John Drew played before starring in the NBA in the 1970s. And in November 2007, Sanders and Gardner-Webb went into Rupp Arena and spanked Kentucky and new coach Billy Gillispie 84-68.

Sanders' father, Tom, was one of the architects of the HCYA basketball program in 1992 when one of the students of the existing home schooling organization suggested they start a basketball team. From a team that began with about 10 reversible jerseys, HCYA now plays some of the largest public school teams in the Houston area and is invited to top-flight public school tournaments. Another of Sanders' sons, John-Caleb, is an HCYA junior who has committed to play at Liberty University.

(Historical note: HCYA's practice court features the floor used in the Astrodome in 1968 for the famous game between Lew Alcindor and UCLA and Elvin Hayes and Houston.)

"These kids regulate themselves better than most people allow themselves to be regulated," Tom said of his home-schooled players through the years. "I'm not saying it's perfect, but these kids are self-motivated. They take care of their business."

The national tournament began in 1992 and was held in Oklahoma City from 2001 through 2008. Organizer Tim Flatt has expanded the field to accommodate as many teams as possible, beginning with a qualifying round that will place teams in divisions of similar skills for the actual tournament.

"You don't tell anybody they can't come," Flatt said. "You have families that have four kids playing [home schooling basketball through the year]. If only two qualify, they may just not come at all. So we say basically it's an invitational open to all."

Flatt said when he took over the tournament in 2001 and moved it from San Antonio to Oklahoma City, it featured 94 boys and girls teams. He expects this year's field to include about 345, from the boys' and girls' high school varsity divisions through age-group play for elementary school students down to 10-and-under. He has added a prep school division and, with it, welcome sponsorship from Nike.

"We're trying to put on the best event that we can," Flatt said.

Flatt, who also coaches the Oklahoma City Storm home schooling team, has brought the national tournament to Springfield, home of Missouri State, for at least three years. Coincidentally, current Missouri State women's player Melissa Busby played in the tournament a few years ago.

The week-long event will include dunk and 3-point contests. It's meant to be part-tournament, part-vacation for home schooling families.

"We can't go to state playoffs," said Bill Bucher, athletic director of Metro Academy. "Nationals is a great opportunity for us. That's what we focus on all year."

And, for an increasing number of home-schooled players, it's now just a taste of what's to come.

Jeff Miller is a freelance writer in Texas and can be reached at miller.jeff55@gmail.com.