The High School Hoops Factory.

• Author: ZENGERLE, JASON
• Position: High school basketball coach Stu Vetter - Brief Article

Coach Stu Vetter knows how to win--wherever he roams

Wearing one of the Nike warm-up suits that seem to compose his entire wardrobe, a whistle hanging from his neck, coach Stu Vetter is watching what he calls his family--a group of athletic, abnormally tall teenage boys who make up the Montrose Christian School basketball team in Rockville, Maryland.

Standing in a corner of the school's dingy gym, the coach sees the second-stringers, playing on offense, continually beat his starters for easy layups and dunks. Finally, he calls the action to a halt and marches up to his starting center, 6-foot-10-inch Mohamed Diakite, who has been letting players slip behind him.

"That's why you spent a lot of time on the bench last year!" Vetter barks. "Yes, sir," Diakite says with a nod. And for the rest of the drill no one gets past him as Vetter's full-court press begins to work.

A FORMULA FOR SUCCESS

Things almost always work for Vetter on the basketball court. In the 25 years he has been coaching high school basketball, Vetter has racked up some 550 victories; two of his teams have been national champions.

What's most remarkable about Vetter, however, is not his record of success, but the number of schools at which he has achieved it. Montrose, which hired Vetter last July, is his fourth school in 10 years. Unlike the dozen or so similarly high-profile high school coaches, who tend to stay put in their chosen schools, Vetter has more or less rented his services. The takers are schools that want to reap the name recognition, increased enrollment, and revenue that come with big-time success--and aren't particular about how it's done.

At each of Vetter's stops--all small, private schools in the Washington, D.C., area--he has inherited losing teams with losing players. Then he restocks the rosters overnight with players who follow him from his last school--players who are some of the best not only in the country, but also in the world. They follow Vetter because he wins, and playing for a top-ranked team could be the ticket to greater basketball glory.

A B-BALL PIED PIPER

The professionalization of high school basketball is nothing new, but in Vetter, it has reached its zenith. He is a portable, ready-made, one-man school for basketball players. "Someone will always be willing to hire Stu Vetter, because education is a business, and basketball is the great bay window," says Larry Donald, editor of Basketball Times, a national magazine that covers the sport...