Fifth Grade Phenom Julian "Handles" Newman Plays Point Guard For High School Basketball Team
By Ronny Carlton
Generally, having a 4’5″ starting point guard is a bad thing. Not the case here as Julian Newman is more than up to the task. How is this possible you ask? One of Newman’s opposing coaches provides some insight:
"“Oh yeah, they announced his name and the whole deal,” said Crooms Academy head coach Don Smith, an opponent of Downey Christian’s last week. “Downey Christian is a real small private school and they put a little bit of anybody out there. He’s a little bitty thing, but he’s very talented.”"
It should come as no surprise that Julian Newman’s father is the head coach at Downey Christian. Honestly, I can sympathize. I was once a coach at a very small private school, I remember looking in the crib and wishing my oldest son could help us out. Schools like Downey Christian don’t have a large supply of athletes so you work with what you have, even if you have to create one.
Not to throw water on all of this, but parents seem so focused into turning their children into the next LeBron, Kobe or Tiger, that they lose sight of rearing a healthy, balanced well-adjusted child. Odds are that young Mr. Newman won’t make the NBA, then what? You have an adult who’s lived his whole life thinking he was going to cash in a lottery ticket. This can’t be a healthy trend in the long term.
That being said, as soon I’m finished writing this I’m taking my 8 and 9 year old boys in the backyard to get some shots up.