Clark's Kevin Gaines a busy, busy man

INDIANAPOLIS --- Pity the poor teacher at Clark High School this fall who asks Kevin Gaines what he did during his summer vacation.

It may take until Christmas for Gaines, the area's top prep basketball prospect, to give a complete answer.

The 6-3 senior-to-be, one of the top performers at this week's prestigious Nike All-America basketball camp at the National Institute of Fitness and Sport here, returns to his Las Vegas home for the first time in more than a month tonight after competing in various summer basketball camps and activities.

"I left home on June 8 and haven't been back since," Gaines said between games here Thursday. "It will be nice to finally get back home. My family has been kind of missing me."

Besides attending the Nike Camp this week, Gaines has:

Spent a week at the famed 5-Star Camp at Hampden-Sydney College in Hampden-Sydney, Va., where he garnered Best Playmaker and Best Defender honors over 400 other campers.

Taken an unofficial recruiting visit to Duke where he was shown around by Blue Devil stars Elton Brand and William Avery.

Spent a week as a counselor at another 5-Star Camp in New Jersey.

Spent six days at the NBA Players Camp at Princeton, N.J.

Worked out for several days with his adidas Big Time Tournament team coach, Willie Mitchell, in New York.

Little wonder that while many of the top performers at this week's Nike Camp are headed to other Nike-sponsored competitions in Augusta, Ga., and Orlando, Fla., in the coming days, Gaines is happy to finally be coming home. He'll be playing for the Mad Moves team along with Cheyenne High star Demetrius Hunter in the 200-plus team adidas tourney that begins Wednesday morning at various local high schools.

"I'm really looking forward to playing in that tournament," Gaines said. "I think we're going to have a very good team. And it will nice to be home for a while."

But not too long.

Seems Gaines will spend the first week of August in Santa Barbara working as a counselor at the Michael Jordan Flight Camp.

Rubbing elbows with MJ. Rough life, huh?

"Yeah, that should be fun," Gaines said. "My AAU coach (Mitchell) is working it and managed to get me in, too. And I'm getting $500 to work it. So that makes it even better."

Gaines has done a lot more than roll up frequent flier miles this summer. He also has managed to establish himself as a legitimate Top 25 player in the Class of '99.

"I really like him," Bob Gibbons of Lenoir, N.C., the nation's top prep basketball talent scout, said. "He reminds me a lot of (University of Utah point guard) Andre Miller. He really attacks the defense and is excellent at the way he drives the ball to the basket. He's in the top group of point guards in the country."

Gaines, nicknamed "Go-Go" by former youth league coach Pat Barrett, lived in Inglewood, Calif., until junior high. He hinted last spring that he might return to Southern California to play his senior year after Clark finished with a disappointing 4-8 record in the Sunset League last year, but now says he will be back to play for the Chargers and new coach Brad Query.

"I'm still going to Clark," Gaines said. "Until the coaching change, my pops talked about moving back to (Los Angeles). We talked about playing somewhere like (Compton) Dominguez or (L.A.) Westchester. But with the coaching change, we decided it would be better to stay here for my senior year."

It's not like Gaines won't be highly recruited if the Chargers have another poor year. Besides Duke, he says he's also considering Michigan, Arizona, Stanford, Arkansas and Kentucky.

"I'm still pretty wide open," Gaines said. "Basically, I want to go some place where I can play point guard."

That shouldn't be too much of a problem.

"I'd say he's one of the top four or five point guards in the nation," Gibbons said.

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