Face it, Iowa's top high school recruits belong to the world

Linn-Mar junior Marcus Paige will play college basketball at North Carolina. Good for him.

The young man is doing what feels right for him, and he'll be testing himself in a very demanding situation. How can any sensible person begrudge him or anyone else for that? Here's wishing him every success. The same goes for Cedar Rapids Jefferson's Jarrod Uthoff, who is heading for Wisconsin later this year.

I realize that sentiment is considered heresy by some Iowans who care about this stuff and view every top recruit who leaves the state the way Clevelanders are regarding LeBron James. Their disappointment is understandable, but they never seem to have any problem cheering for athletes from other states who are parts of the programs at Iowa and Iowa State.

It's a fairly recent phenomenon, all these blue-chip high school athletes from Iowa who have been recruited hard by outsiders and have chosen to go out-of-state to continue their playing careers. Roy Williams became 5-for-5 when it came to plucking big-time Iowan recruits he wanted when he got Paige's verbal commitment last week. He lured Raef LaFrentz from Monona, and later Kirk Hinrich of Sioux City and Nick Collison of Iowa Falls when he was Kansas' coach, then added Paige to Ames' Harrison Barnes as his North Carolina recruits from our state.

Nothing has ever stung Hawkeye fans, recruiting-wise, like LaFrentz choosing Kansas over Iowa. They weren't used to seeing an Iowa player be so highly recruited, nor were they accustomed to seeing a prized Iowa prep leave the state. To many, it seemed unimaginable that any Iowa kid wouldn't stay home if given the option to do so.

People couldn't - and still can't - get past LaFrentz choosing national power KU over competitive Big Ten team Iowa because, well, because it was Iowa. But then Hinrich and Collison also chose Kansas, and followed LaFrentz into the NBA.

Skip ahead to Barnes, who gave hometown Iowa State a courtesy look and never even considered Iowa. Now Paige, who did listen to the pitches of Iowa and ISU, but said he has always been a North Carolina fan.

That, in addition to the recent downturns of the Iowa and Iowa State programs, indicates why players have left the state. The world is so much smaller now. Kids who love sports haven't necessarily grown up as die-hard Hawkeyes or Cyclones fans. The world comes to them, virtually every day. North Carolina and Kentucky and Michigan State are as visible as anything local.

Plus, with the proliferation of AAU summer teams the last couple decades, kids aren't intimidated by leaving home to play ball elsewhere like they once might have been. They don't just know the competition they have for athletic scholarships now, they know how to compete against that competition and are doing it much better than ever.

In decades gone by, Connecticut women's basketball might have been press clippings and little more to Linn-Mar's Kiah Stokes, who might have been more inclined to play college ball closer to home instead of for the perennial power Huskies. But in 2010, Stokes has played with and against the top high school players in the nation in the summer. And she had the chance to see enough of UConn on television over the years to have identified with the program before she ever met Coach Geno Auriemma or stepped foot in Connecticut.

While many adult fans here don't like it a bit when Iowa kids leave to play college ball somewhere else, the kids' friends don't think their famous classmates are being disloyal to anyone. Sunday, I told an 18-year-old who likes hoops that Paige announced he was going to Carolina. His reaction: “Cool.”

And you know what? It is cool. Just like it's cool Josh Oglesby of Cedar Rapids Washington followed Matt Gatens of Iowa City and Eric May of Dubuque to Iowa, because that's what they felt was best for them.

If Iowa and Iowa State's coaches build their programs into consistent winners, it will become easier and easier to get more of Oglesby's fellow Iowans to stay home, too.