When Michael Groves first came to Oak Hill Academy in Mouth of Wilson, Va., seven years ago, he couldn’t believe his eyes. The social studies professor had heard that the school was a basketball powerhouse, but at first look, he thought he might have been mistaken.

At one end of the gym floor – the home court of the Oak Hill Warriors, arguably the best high school basketball program in America – stood a large garbage pail, filled with water.

The gym roof was leaking.

Since then, there have been a few changes; Groves has been promoted to president of the academy and the gym’s roof has been replaced. Even with the upgrade, though, Groves said the gym still looks the same – minus the trash barrel.

‘Our gymnasium is not the Mecca of basketball that people expect it to be,’ he said. ‘You ever seen the movie Hoosiers? Our gym is like that; bleachers on one side, a court and a roof.’

But it’s that gymnasium that each year produces a slew of Division I prospects. Next year, when guard Eric Devendorf joins Syracuse, he will become Oak Hill’s fourth player to join the Orange in five years. Devendorf’s commitment to Syracuse follows in the footsteps of three other Oak Hill stars: Billy Edelin, Carmelo Anthony and Dayshawn Wright.

With that type of talent playing for the Warriors each year, every opponent Oak Hill has faced learns a valuable lesson: looks can be deceiving. Despite its home gym, the Oak Hill Warriors are more than just a national powerhouse, they’re the national powerhouse. The Warriors have won six USA Today national championships since it earned its first in 1993. It has produced 21 McDonald’s All-Americans, more than double the school with the next highest total.

It’s not surprising, then, that the school has become a breeding ground for Division I NCAA basketball talent. Practically every major college basketball program has had its share of Oak Hill players. Kentucky has had five, North Carolina has had four (including three in one recruiting class), Wake Forest has had four and Virginia has had five.

‘It’s a basketball factory,’ said Rich Roth, a sports talk radio host on WLNI in Lynchburg, Va. ‘Whenever Oak Hill’s talked about, it’s about a blue chip prospect that’s going on to a big-time basketball program.’

Thirty years ago, though, no one could have fathomed that Oak Hill would have this reputation. In 1976, Robert Isner, the school’s then-president, put a concerted effort into the school’s fledgling basketball programs in order to make a name for the little-known school.

Needless to say, it was a gutsy move. Hidden in the back roads of southern Virginia, Oak Hill stands one mile from the North Carolina border, 13 miles to the nearest stoplight and 35 miles to the nearest McDonald’s.

‘It’s kind of an island in the middle of nowhere,’ Groves said. ‘It’s not always something the kids like – not until they’ve graduated and can look back and see what we’ve done for them.’

Specifically, Oak Hill’s aim – and its most attractive attribute to college coaches – is the school’s ability to make its students eligible for college athletics.

‘We use athletics as a carrot,’ Groves said. ‘We make no secret about that.’

Of course, it’s easy enough to do that when 70 of the 120 students enrolled at the private boarding school are athletes, between the three boy’s basketball teams (gold, red and junior varsity), the girl’s basketball team, the girl’s volleyball team, the girl’s soccer team and the cheerleading team. Despite athletics taking such a high priority, the school still manages to send 95 percent of its students to college. The success rate of the boy’s basketball program is even higher. Since head coach Steve Smith took control of the team in 1985, only three of his players failed to meet NCAA freshman eligibility standards, and only two – DeSagana Diop in 2001 and Josh Smith last year – have skipped college for a chance to play in the NBA.

‘We’re a school first,’ Smith said. ‘The school’s been here 126 years, since 1878. So basketball doesn’t run the school – the school would be here if we didn’t have basketball – but I think basketball’s enhanced our school.’

It’s that attitude that makes Oak Hill so attractive to the players trying to reach the next level and the coaches who recruit them. While Smith said about half of his players come to Oak Hill simply for the increase in the level of competition, the other half arrive on campus to try and improve their grades – something made easier by the fact that there isn’t too much to do in the quiet rural town.

‘From a basketball standpoint, it’s a great situation,’ said SU associate head men’s basketball coach Bernie Fine. ‘And they get on you academically – and there aren’t any distractions because all there is to do is study and play.’

And from a recruiting standpoint, it’s an even better situation. Smith is adamant that his school is not a prep school – the team follows strict rules. No players are held back a year and no players are post-graduates, but he admits that his situation is an easy one. For Smith, recruiting talent is as easy as lifting the receiver on his phone.

‘We get calls from parents, students, college coaches, high school coaches, AAU or travel team coaches,’ he said. ‘All those people contact us.’

Each of Syracuse’s four Oak Hill recruits had already announced their intentions to attend SU before approaching Smith, and each was in need of improving his grades during his senior year.

Former SU assistant coach Troy Weaver joined the Orange’s coaching staff in 2000. He had recruited a gangly point guard named Billy Edelin to play for the Orange, but Edelin first needed to improve his grades. Weaver had coached AAU basketball in the Washington, D.C., area for a number of years before coming to Syracuse. He knew of the Oak Hill program and of Smith, so he suggested Edelin go there for his senior year of high school.

‘I had a relationship with coach Smith already, and I trusted him,’ Weaver said.

‘Look at his record. He’s obviously a great coach. He looks after his guys, he spends time with them and he provides a family atmosphere down there. It’s a win-win when you send a kid down there.’

Each time, Weaver said, the decision to attend Oak Hill worked out for the best. The players improved both their grades and their basketball skills.

‘The decision to go to Oak Hill was a good move,’ said Devendorf’s father, Curt, whose son transferred from Bay City Central High School in Michigan. ‘It worked out well. It’s the best thing that we ever did.’

It’s a relationship that has worked several times, but wouldn’t have been possible without Weaver. Over the course of his five-year stint with the Orange, Weaver developed the relationship between Oak Hill and SU. Prior to Edelin, SU was unable to get its foot into Oak Hill’s door – not that Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim didn’t try.

During Smith’s first year at Oak Hill, Boeheim tried to recruit a player of his, Chris Brooks, unsuccessfully. As the years went on, Boeheim, who is now golfing buddies with Smith, came pretty close. But he never snagged one.

‘(Boeheim) used to joke, ‘I guess I got to get a player to play down there before I can get one,” Smith said. ‘He recruited down here for 15 years before he ever got one. But that’s just recruiting.’

Prior to Edelin, the closest he came to snagging an Oak Hill recruit was in 1990, when SU was hot on the recruiting trail of Wilfred Kirkaldy, a top-rated 6-foot-10, 245-pound center. On a recruiting trip to SU, though, Kirkaldy was accused of and charged with raping a girl who had been introduced to him as one of the basketball team’s ‘groupies.’ After the incident, Kirkaldy was expelled from Oak Hill, and he eventually accepted a scholarship to play at West Virginia. His basketball career was cut short, though, when he and a teammate injured themselves in a car crash after his freshman year.

Boeheim hasn’t been the only college coach interested in Oak Hill’s talent. This year alone, seven of his seniors will be heading off to play basketball for a Division I program, though Smith will tell you that his two best players are still juniors – point guard Tyson Lawson and swingman Kevin Durant.

‘It’s a testament to his program because he always has good players,’ Weaver said. ‘That’s why his program has succeeded so well and why guys are coming in and more ready to play at college because they’re playing against other high-level players.’

And when you’ve won six national championships – including titles the past two years – it’s easy to garner that kind of national attention from blue-chip recruits, even when the school’s administration readily admits that the school is ‘in the middle of nowhere.’

‘It adds to the charm of the whole thing,’ said Groves, the school president. ‘It adds to the old-school way we run things.’

Published on April 26, 2005 at 12:00 pm