Would you forego your senior year in high school? UNC recruit McAdoo just might

UNC basketball recruit James McAdoo, 17, could finish high school a year early with summer classes and thus join the Tar Heels a year early. Would you forego your senior year in high school?

I guess everyone might have a different answer to that question. For me, my senior year in high school and my senior year in college were probably my favorite years from my youth. I'm not sure there could be a money value worth taking those away from me.

Plus, I come from a traditionalist and philosophical viewpoint. From a philosophical stance, I figure that you stay in school for your natural senior seasons and whatever happens as a result was supposed to happen. From a traditionalist stance, I would prefer that freshman play on a jayvee team before joining the varsity as sophomores. That extra year matures a player as a player, as a student and as a person, and would put an end to non-student athletes coming for one rent-a-player season.

Frankly, I was never a big fan of Bob McAdoo, James' uncle, because he came in as a Tar Heel for one junior college transfer season. I thought the Tar Heels would win the NCAA the next year with McAdoo having a second season under Dean Smith so that ticked me off. And for some reason, and I still don't remember why, I blamed McAdoo for the loss to Florida State in the NCAA semi-finals in '72 despite his scoring 24 points.

That all being said, Brad Daugherty skipped a grade and entered Carolina early and he became one of my favorite Tar Heels. Mike Gminski breezed through high school early and he became one of my favorite Dukies.

Who knows if McAdoo has the maturity that Daugherty and Gminski had, but if he does, and he wants to give up high school to start his basketball dreams early, it sure could help the Heels after the transfer of the Wear twins.

McAdoo is physically mature at 6-foot-8 and 215 or so pounds. Plus, because of his birth date, he wouldn't be eligible to go to the NBA any earlier so he would be at Carolina at least two years.

In short, I probably wouldn't do it but I watch Carolina basketball a little more than I watch Norfolk Christian High School basketball so if he wants to go to Chapel Hill early and he can handle it, it wouldn't hurt my feelings if he did so.