jacobsen added to mcdonald's

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SoCalHoops High School News

Casey Jacobsen Added To McDonald's
All-American Game--(March 1, 1999)

This news actually was released Friday afternoon, and was posted several places around the internet and carried by most of the print media on Saturday morning. We obviously were pretty busy on Saturday and Sunday with City Semifinals, Rockfish Spring League stuff and more, but we certainly didn't want to overlook repeating the fact that Casey Jacobsen has been added to the McDonald's All-American Game. Originally left off the list as the No. 21 vote-getter for a spot on a 20 player roster, Jacobsen received a call Friday from Morgan Wooten, head of the selection committee, apologizing for the original oversight and welcoming him onto the prestigious team that for the past 22 years has honored the nation's best high school players.

"We don't look at this as adding a player to the team," Wooten told reporters. Wooten is the coach at DeMatha High in Hyattsville, Maryland, and is considered somewhat of a legend in high school coaching. "We look at this as finalizing the team in the correct manner. This kind of thing is bound to happen, but in his case it was simply a glaring omission," Wooten said.

McDonald's spokesman Palmer Moody said a ground-swell of support for Jacobsen forced the committee to reconsider its original decision. "After speaking with members of the selection committee, we just recognized some unique circumstances regarding the evaluation of Casey Jacobsen," Moody told reporters. "Very clearly, the fact that he chose not to participate in the traditional U.S. summer camps, but instead did an incredible thing by representing his country, didn't allow some people who vote to see him play."

Jacobsen, who will attend Stanford in the fall on a full-ride scholarship, and who broke the all-time leading scoring record in the Southern Section this season, didn't attend any of the high profile camps last summer. Instead he spent last summer playing for USA Basketball's gold-medal winning World Youth Games team in Moscow. Moody said only twice before has the selection committee altered its roster because of an oversight. In those cases, Sam Perkins and Chris Mullin were added to the McDonald's team. Wooten said he spoke with coaches who did not successfully recruit Jacobsen Utah's Rick Majerus and Duke's Mike Krzyzewski and both said the 6-foot-6 guard clearly belonged on the team. "They raved about him," Wooten said.

Jacobsen said for a brief moment, he considered not accepting the invitation. "When I first heard, I did feel awkward and I wondered what the other players might think and things like that," Jacobsen told reporters. "But I worked real hard to get to this point, so I'm planning to enjoy the moment."

In addition to some of the coaches who recruited him, Casey can also be thankful that he had some support from some other members of the selection committee who worked very hard to convince the others that his ommission would have cast the selection process in a really bad light; members of the committee who clearly worked to change the selection included Frank Burlison, who wrote a scathing piece last week when the names were announced. Likewise, there was a large groundswell of support from many people who called and wrote to Wooten.