Completely agree with you. Interest and hard work will lead to skill improvement and being a better player, and if the better athlete has those attributes as well they are going to remain at the top of the class. Not deranged at all. The three freshman from LI starting at Duke this year were all studs from fourth grade and up, they didn't just appear and they didn't fall off. The four best kids on our PAL team in 2nd, 4th 6th and senior year were still the four best...one kid that was spastic early on was passionate and became a highly skilled good player as he got older. The best kids on our rival team were still the best kids from 4th grade to sr. year. They don't magically regress. So those instances are where my astute observations come from. If I ranked the kids from 1-24 in 6th vs 12th there would only be minor shuffling of their rankings. Does anyone really disagree with this that has already seen it unfold? Maybe my group was an outlier, I don't think so though.
