Credit the UIL with a creative way to draw recognition of its 100th anniversary while driving up visitors to its website.

Just don’t praise the UIL voters for their choices of the greatest prep athletes in Texas’ history.

Oh, wait; those voters include you and me.

Winston Churchill once said that the best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter. Visit www.uil100.org and scan the UIL’s all-century teams as elected by the website’s visitors, and you won’t have a bone to pick with the British Bulldog’s observation.

With few exceptions, the ballots read like a cyberspace popularity contest. Name recognition trumps achievement, and success at the collegiate or professional levels matters more than hometown heroics.

Take the UIL’s all-century boys basketball team. The first team includes Shaquille O’Neal, T.J. Ford, Jimmy Smith, Clyde Drexler and Chris Bosh. All stellar players, without a doubt.

And, not coincidentally, all professional players with plenty of broadcast television exposure – and I’m including the Fab Five’s Smith.

Where are the stars that toiled on Texas’ hard courts before cable television and recruiting websites? Where is Crane’s Tommy Jones, a rugged guard who scored 51 points in a 1969 state title game and averaged 48 points per game as a senior? Where is Ingram Tom Moore’s Troy House, whose 4,259 points tallied from 1987-1990 ranks No. 8 all-time among the nation’s high school players, according to the National Federation of High School Sports.

Surely, such small-town hoops savants deserve a spot on one of the UIL all-century’s three teams instead of, say, A.J. Abrams of Round Rock McNeil or Emeka Okafor of Houston Bellaire.

Such discrepancies filter through each sport on the UIL’s all-century website.
Adrian McGown of Goodrich, Texas, amassed a national-record 5,424 points in a prep career that ended in 2006, but such numbers couldn’t persuade the electorate to place her on one of the three girls basketball teams.

Round-Top Carmine, a small-school volleyball powerhouse in Fayette County, placed five players on the volleyball first team. Sara Shaw, Lauren Dickson, Shannon Davis or any other alumnus of Westlake’s dynastic volleyball program couldn’t earn even a third-team nod.

Credit the voters with understanding their true passion, however; from the first team through the third, the all-century football squads offer spot-on selections that reflect a historical appreciation.

Heck, the voters even nailed the six-man football selections by placing the mercurial – and all-world monikered – Cheetah Ramirez on the second-team.

At least the UIL gave the voters a place to visit and voice the opinions of the most passionate prep sports fans on the planet. And even Churchill, in his gruffest mood, couldn’t bark at that.

Star power

A handful of Westlake High School graduates and Westlake residents have been voted onto one of the UIL’s all-century teams. For a complete list of the all-century teams as well as a wealth of historical information concerning the UIL, visit www.uil100.org.

Football
Seth McKinney – offensive line, second team
*Dan Neil – Houston Cy Creek, offensive line, third team
*Earl Campbell (above) – Tyler John Tyler, running back, first team

Baseball
Kelly Gruber – third base, first team

Boys soccer
Andres Cuero – midfield/forward, third team

Girls soccer
Erin Wikelius – goalkeeper, third team
Lauren Peterson (below) – defender, third team

* Westlake residents but did not attend Westlake High School