“The exception I take is you’re selling parents on the dream even though you know their kid is beyond a long shot,” said former CFL receiver and U Sports coach Kamau Peterson, who trains high-performance athletes in Toronto. “A lot of kids on these teams have no business paying this money to pretend they’re prospects.”
He was looking into prep programs as a potential destination for his teenaged son, so he knew about West Toronto Prep long before it hit the headlines. As soon as Peterson discovered the program wasn’t affiliated with a bricks-and-mortar academic institution, he was no longer interested. He has counselled other parents through the process.
“There is not a great understanding of how many tremendous athletes there are (in the U.S.) who are your age, your speed, your height, your weight, who you’re going to have to outdo. Just playing a season against some Buffalo schools or Ohio schools isn’t necessarily going to do it. You’re going to have to be special. And if you’re that special, you shouldn’t be paying $20,000 to go anywhere.
“If you’re a dominant player, these schools are designed to come and get you to help their profile. That’s my first red flag to parents. If you’re that good, they’re going to want you, it’s not going to have to be the other way around,” said Peterson.
“You’ve got a ton of athletes with talent, and they’re close enough to the border, they can smell it, the opportunity to go down south. But there’s not a lot of guidance for them and their parents in terms of what’s real and what’s not. Unfortunately, some kids have been taken advantage of here. I’m trying to help with that.”