Toronto's Globe and Mail had an interesting article last Friday about the increasing number of Canadian high school kids who venture south to enroll in US high school programs in order to play basketball.

According to the article:

It's estimated that as many as 100 Canadian teenagers - primarily boys from the Toronto area, though there are girls and boys from every region in the country - are chasing their hoop dreams in the United States, often as early as the ninth grade.

"It's growing, it's not going to stop if we don't do something," says Guy Pariseau, technical director for Basketball Quebec, who says nearly all of the province's 10 best players have left for the U.S. "Everyone is shopping."

At the top of the list is a lucrative scholarship to a top Division I school and dreams of a professional career.

Like  many such ventures, however, there are experiences good and bad:

... says Mike George, founder of CIA Bounce, another top Toronto-area club that has had several kids head south for high school. "For some parents, they see it like sending their kids to boarding school, it gives them a sense of security. I've had kids get full scholarships to [elite East Coast private schools] Proctor or Brewster. That's worth $45,000 a year. For them it's a no-brainer."

Not all kids are so fortunate. It's estimated about 80 per cent of them have to pay some or all of their tuition, with only the elite getting scholarships to prep schools.

Then there are rumours of kids sleeping three or more to a room, 10 to a house, with minimal adult supervision, essentially fending for themselves at schools with dubious academic standing and scant record of developing elite basketball players.

Scientificblogging.com is reporting on a paper presented at the American Heart Association's 2010 Conference on Nutrition, Physical Activity and Metabolism which shows a connection between physical fitness and academic performance in fifth grade students.

The paper, titled "Long-Term Physical Fitness Is Associated with Children’s Academic Achievement," with research conducted by Dr. Lesley A. Cottrell of West Virginia University, Dr. Richard Wittberg of the Mid-Ohio Valley Health Department in Parkersburg, West Virginia, and Karen Northrup, Wood County Schools, Parkersburg, West Virginia, was part of the Poster Program at the conference.

 According to a press release from West Virginia University:

Researchers found that the children who had the best average test scores in reading, math, science and social studies were fit at the start and end of the study. The next best group academically in all four subjects was made up of children who were not fit in fifth grade but had become fit by seventh grade.

Those who lost their fitness level between grades five and seven were third in academic performance. The lowest academic performance came from those who were not fit in either fifth or seventh grades ...

“ The take-home message from this study is that we want our kids to be fit as long as possible, and it will show in their academic performance,” Cottrell said. “If we can intervene for those children who are not necessarily fit and get them to fit levels, we may also see their academic performance increase.”